The Gospel’s Impact on My Business

I’m taking a break from Tend Your Brand for the next 10 days to focus on client work and big-picture planning for Restore Graphics. I’ve been disciplined since January of this year publishing every weekday without fail, and I’ve built up a catalog of over 150 posts related to church branding. This habit has been incredibly good for me personally, and I’ll absolutely be finishing out the year. I wanted to get through all of 2025 without missing a beat, but deadlines and life events are a thing that sometimes gets in the way. I’ll be taking a breather for the next 2 weeks, after which I’ll get back into the daily writing headspace. If you don’t see Tend Your Brand come back on September 1, please hold me accountable and reach out to light a fire under me!

Last week, after nearly four years as a Designer at the Voice of the Martyrs, I turned in my resignation. As a long-awaited answer to prayer, the Lord has called me into something smaller, better, and more focused. The story behind this change is a testament to God’s faithfulness, so I thought I would share it here. For years (close to 8 years now), I’ve had this dream of working for myself. Starting a design agency was something I considered seriously 4 years ago when my wife and I moved back to our hometown of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, but it wasn’t the right time. God provided my amazing job at VOM, so I tabled the idea. Another year passed, and suddenly three churches called me within the span of a week asking for help redesigning their logos. It was a hectic summer and we were in the middle of building our house, but I loved every minute of it. At the end of those projects, I realized “there’s something here.” I started focusing all my effort on figuring out how to do more church rebrands. My wife joined me in praying for more clients. I made a lot of mistakes, but eventually stumbled into one project after another. I still can’t believe it’s happening, but it is! Please pray that the Lord blesses Restore Graphics and makes it bear fruit. Thank you to all my former clients for being incredible to work with, and encouraging me to continue pressing forward with excellence and all for the glory of God.

I recently had the privilege of meeting Dr. Michael Reeves, Author, Professor, and President at the Union School of Theology in the UK. He had just finished speaking at an event, and I knew I had to ask him for any encouragement or advice he could give to you lovely people in the Tend Your Brand family. He was gracious enough to think my question over and offered an amazing reply. Here’s what he said: Braden: What advice or encouragement can you give to church leaders who are trying to better communicate their vision and galvanize their congregations? Dr. Reeves: I’m reminded of what Jesus said, “Out of the heart the mouth speaks.” If you don’t believe in your vision, your congregation won’t believe in it either. If you’re bored with your message, the people you speak to will sense that lack of conviction. Seek God’s guidance sincerely and ask him for the conviction and resolve to preach your message with full-throated zeal. So there you go. I don’t feel like I can say it any better than he did, so I’ll leave it there. Hopefully his wisdom was encouraging and re-centering for you. P.S. It felt too much like paparazzi at the time, so I didn’t get a photo with him (maybe I should have anyway - ha!).

Last year I realized something… Designing comprehensive church rebrands is one of my favorite things to do, but I’m just one guy! The most work I can ever take on is a couple of new clients per month. The only way to help more churches… is to give my process away for free. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m writing down everything I do in a typical church rebrand project, adding templates and worksheets, and breaking it into simple steps anyone can follow (even if they have no design experience)! This is the first time I’ve ever mentioned this to anyone (outside of my wife), so I can truly say “you heard it here first.” Over the next several months, I’ll share behind the scenes sneak peaks of this thing. And the best part is… you will have an opportunity to shape the final product. I’ll be dropping more details in future updates, so keep your eyes peeled for the next one. 👀

It’s no secret that people remember images better than words. Studies show we can remember 65% of visual information after 3 days, compared to just 10% of written/spoken info. That’s a 6x increase in retention! But why does it matter for churches? Good question. Something I’ve learned is that a brand isn’t just a logo, colors, or fonts. A church brand is an opportunity to tell the story of what God has done and is doing in that local ministry. Said another way: your brand is the visual aid for people to easily remember what their church stands for, and the story God is telling there. This ties in closely to the examples we have in the Bible of when the Lord commanded that a monument be built to signify his mercy and might. In Joshua 4:1–10, God tells the Israelites to take twelve stones from the Jordan River and set them up as a memorial. This visual monument served as a lasting symbol to help future generations remember how the Lord miraculously stopped the river’s flow, allowing His people to cross on dry ground. These stones were set up intentionally as a tangible visual aid to reinforce the Israelites’ generational memory and faith. To add even more layers, God also instructs that twelve stones be used. Why twelve? To symbolize the twelve tribes who crossed over the Jordan that day. In the same way, designing an intentional brand identity with symbolism and permanence is the most powerful way to help your people remember their God-given identity as a body and look to Christ, week in and week out.

Strip everything away, give your church a generic name, and make the logo a cross. Go black and white with your color scheme. Congrats - you have a timeless brand! I’m being a little bit sarcastic, but there’s an element of truth here. Over-simplification is usually the fastest, easiest way to a truly “timeless” look. However, it’s not the only way. And for churches, it’s almost never the best way. The history of the world is timeless by definition, but definitely not simple. God’s creative and recreative work is anything but minimalistic. The way God works is simple but deep, focused but rich with meaning. So too is the story being woven together in your ministry, whether it’s 200 years old or a brand new church plant. What is God’s perspective of your church? If you want a timeless brand identity, this is the question you have to answer. Once you start narrowing it down, your logo colors and fonts become clear and easy choices. Rather than trying to become timeless by using Helvetica and no colors in your brand guidelines, you should be looking for ways to incorporate the truth of who God says you are as a congregation. Does it take more work and intentionality? Absolutely. Is it hard? Anything worth doing is.

I’m an extreme sports fan, and those who know me know that I would never pass up a chance to try one. Of course, I’m no Red Bull athlete, so it usually looks like me attempting the low-stakes version of whatever the true pros are doing. One of those sports I’ve casually enjoyed since high school is rock climbing, and believe it or not, there’s a nice analogy to branding here. In bouldering (climbing lower with no ropes above a crash mat), a route or particular climb is called a boulder problem. A beginner climber like me can climb any V1 boulder problem with ease and most V2s with moderate difficulty. Some V3 problems are too challenging at my skill level, while others are doable after a few attempts. (Don’t be too impressed - the scale goes up to V17). There was this one V3 problem giving me trouble on my last visit. I kept falling over and over, until I eventually felt so fatigued and frustrated that I gave up. Why am I sharing this story? I think it’s appropriate that they’re called “problems,” because they have a solution that takes more than brute force and raw strength to solve. They take strategy. All around me were more experienced climbers who could have showed me the trick to get past my sticking point. With their expert advice, I could have probably reached my goal with only a couple of tries. Even better, I probably could have learned tips from them for other problems too. Here’s the thing: If you want the fastest way to your goal, don’t be afraid to seek guidance from someone who’s done it before.

Every day around mid-morning, I take a bathroom break and that’s when I write these posts - gross I know, but it’s the perfect amount of time and I have no distractions (now you won’t be able to get that image out of your mind, so you’re welcome). Context aside, when I’m motivated and inspired it’s easy, but today I had some serious creative block of the “stare vacantly at a blank page and start the same sentence five times over” variety. I have a hunch this doesn’t just happen to creatives. Most of my readers are church leaders, I’ll wager that you probably experience that wall too. If so, maybe you can benefit from the two strategies I use to overcome creative block. 1. Short term strategy Exercise is my immediate strategy for overcoming it in the short term. I’ll go home after work, grab my dumbbells, and start lifting. Something about an intense workout stimulates my creativity and writing energy. However, that only works on that day, and if I can’t get a workout in, I’m in trouble. 2. Long term strategy My long term strategy to overcome creative block is to write daily. I used to think I didn’t have time for something recreational like writing, much less every day. But I realized that as long as I put it on the other side of something I enjoy more (chess puzzles), I could force myself to take 5-15 minutes and crank out a thought. Writing became a habit I was cultivating. Something you practice with regularity and discipline becomes easier and easier, and those creative block moments get fewer and farther between. Even when it takes a bit longer to get rolling, the groove is greased and the engine is still warm from yesterday. If there’s something you know you should be doing (maybe writing, maybe calling to check in on members, maybe something else) make it a small part of your daily routine and see how much you start feeling empowered when those “block” moments hit.