Your Church Brand is a Discipleship Tool

vision thinking distinctives
Braden East

Galvanize your congregation.

Build trust and unity.

Can branding do that?

A healthy church brand actually provides a mental framework for your members to fit their knowledge and experiences into.

If you’re like me, and most other humans, you need “hooks” to hang information on. Otherwise you forget it.

As your congregation participates in the life of your church, they are becoming disciples of Christ. They are being taught God’s word and how to follow it.

Through branding, you can give your people more hooks to hang that knowledge on.

A Christ-centered brand can help them connect the dots between their shared identity and their shared purpose.

In other words, you’re drawing that connection between who they are as a local church body and the ultimate reason your church exists.

Let’s look at an example.

One church I worked with recently was Heritage Church in Shawnee, OK.

Heritage had identified five core values or purposes that they wanted their congregation to live out each week.

Through this rebrand process, we turned those core values into icons, each with a color that represented part of their vision. Those core values icons integrated into their logo and helped them teach the distinctives that made Heritage unique as a local church.

We also turned the icons into a pattern that they could use on everything, even down to bookmarks.

The best part was, each of their core values is more memorable and “sticky”. Every design pointed back to the brand Heritage had created around their shared identity as a church body.


Keep Reading
What Most Churches Miss With Logo Symbolism
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For most people, the word “branding” brings to mind symbolism. Brands use symbols to convey a bigger message and create an association between ideas, people, and products. There’s also a strong Biblical precedent for visual storytelling and symbolism. Moses lifted up the image of a serpent in the wilderness. The Lord’s instructions for his tabernacle were packed full of icons and symbols. The early church used the ichthys to represent their shared Christian identity. Applying this to a church communications, we focus on the logo as the main visual symbol, and most people naturally want it to represent as much transcendent meaning as possible. Here’s my hot take: All the symbols in the world can’t make up for unclear foundational ideas that underpin your church identity. Symbolism in a logo means nothing without core distinctives. How do you know what those distinctives are? You have to do a little digging. Tending your brand sometimes means breaking out the shovel and getting to the root.
“You need a vision for that”
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I was looking through a “Church Creatives” Facebook group I’m a part of and I came across this post: While the top comment here is a little snarky, he’s absolutely right: Having a well-defined visual brand all starts with defining your vision. What does your logo stand for?
“You’re Just Marketing Jesus”
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I recently heard a pastor make the statement, “the Gospel doesn’t need marketing and branding.” It’s a legitimate criticism. Are churches who spend time, money, and effort on their branding just trying to “market Jesus?” Here’s my response: Some are to be sure… but most are not. Christ-centered branding is about reflecting God’s character, creativity, and what he is already doing in your local church body. It’s easy to see how this is different from just trying to be winsome, seeker-sensitive, and trendy. In fact, I’m staunchly against “winsomeness” as it’s been defined by evangelical leaders in the last 10 years. Their idea of winsomeness smuggles in self-censorship and compromise. I’m also against churches trying to make Christianity seem cool and trendy by mimicking our rebellious secular culture. Christ-centered church branding doesn’t reduce or dilute the gospel message, it makes visible the unique identity of each local church. It doesn’t copy from the world, it argues that beautiful visuals and communication strategies actually belong to Christ. God is a designer, after all!
Quality Assurance
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We recognize and agree that the Holy Spirit is the only one who can draw people near, sway their hearts, and renew their minds. We know that he uses means to do that. What are those means? They are anything from a meal, to a sermon, to podcasts, to graphic design, which ultimately communicate his Word. In light of that, we should ask how can we do those things in a way that will glorify God and be used by his Holy Spirit? It’s not an easy question to answer, but a powerful place to start is in your church brand. You already have the substance in your vision, mission, and values… the challenge is to create something of the highest quality to capture that substance, visually representing what God is doing in your local body. This is what I challenge myself with every time I sit down at the drawing board.
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