Church identity resources

Creating and using a church identity, also known as "branding", is a sign that a church is "serious" about public relations. Branding is not just for businesses. Churches reap benefits from applying the same principles that help business with their "identity".

Branding both answers the question, "Who are we?" (by use of a meaningful logo), and provides a consistent look that people begin to associate with your specific local church.

Church identity is not just producing and using a new logo. It includes the whole consistent "look" of your church products, both printed and electronic. Fonts used, font sizes, colors, even shapes of products can all be a part of a consistent identity.

Below are some typical church products in the two basic categories and can benefit from a consistent branding.

Print media

• Stationery
• Intra-office memos and note paper
• Newsletters
• Worship bulletins (where used)
• In-pew materials
• Brochures 
• Post cards
• Pamphlets and leaflets
• Flyers & posters
• Door hangers
• Print ads
• Ad-type banners
• Business cards
• Give-away products (mugs, for example)

Electronic media

• Emails from church staff
• Emailed news, notes, or similar publications where the email itself is the publication
• Web sites of all types -- including blogs
• Videos
• Projected materials (for services, classes, or meetings)
• Online ads
• Online business locators (such as Google, which lets you associate a photo with your church's map location and with your business information)

To make good use of funds people give to further God's work on earth, look for free online resources. One example is a free class on identity by Hewlett Packard. You have to sign up, but it's free.

A few online identity resources toget you started...

• Branding? For churches?
• Church branding
• Identity (branding) postings at this blog
• Creating a distinctive identity (online class by HP)
• Five Reasons Why Missional Churches Cannot Ignore Identity Branding
• Unity Church Marketing blog ("church identity" labels)

A couple image searches you can use for logo inspiration...

• Church logos (Bing image search)
• Church identity (Bing image search)

Tech trends among Christians

A recent Barna Research group study, "Social Networking, Online Entertainment and Church Podcasts" has some interesting results. Christians use technology in the following most common ways (in decreasing order of use)

• Searching online (Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, etc.)
• Instant Messaging (including texting on a cell phone)
• Listening to a sermon or church teaching via a podcast. This was more common among Evangelicals and others who consider themselves "born again".
• Viewing a video of some sort online.

The challenge for churches is to better relate its message to the current generation. When Paul said, I am all things to all men" he meant that he couched the message of Christ in terms and in a way that the particular audience could best grasp it.

For churches today, that means seeking ways to better communicate using the web tools available to us. That also means keeping up with newer methods as they become available. At the same time, we must remember to help safeguard the privacy of our members and web site visitors. Until Facebook and similar social networking sites become more secure and users a bit more savvy about not divulging personal data, I'll stay away from using it as an integral part of the church's online presence.

You may want to read the full Barna report.

New media in ministries

What is "new media" and how can we use it in our church ministries? Aaron Linne has a few videos online about this topic. The introductory one, "New Media for Ministries: What is It?", is below. Here are links to the other videos on Vimeo (so far):

• Interactive Metafiction
• Creative Commons
• Concepting a web page

New Media for Ministries: 101 What is It? from Aaron Linne on Vimeo.

Technology 101 workshop slides

The Digital @ Leadership Network blog put slides to its Technology 101 workshop online. Be patient after clicking on the link -- the slideshow takes a while to appear.

Podcasting trend goes down

The trend in podcasting is downward, when compared to video and blogs, says the "Will Podcasting Survive?" article at the Alex Iskold Technology Blog. Podcasting was an evolution of radio that never made it into our daily lives.

Sure, some "Pod people" downloaded podcasts so they could listen to music (or sermons) while they worked or played, and the idea of being able to subscribe to the audio files just like a blog was neat, but use of Podcasts never reached critical mass.

So you could download a thousand songs into a music player and listen to them anytime. But how often did anyone listen to all those songs? Did they become more like a partially ignored collection? Where was the interaction that a blog provides (assuming you want to comment on a posting)?

And yes, anyone with a computer microphone could create a podcast, but how many did so? Perhaps the average person didn't look at creating podcasts as all that easy. By comparison, commenting on a blog posting is very easy, though many people still just read and do not add comments. some reasons podcasting is on the decline:

• Multimedia videos are cooler than podcasts.
• You can scan a blog for what interests you, but not a podcast.
• You can interact with a blog posting.
• It's easier to jump to what you are looking for in a blog or video. Not so with a podcast.
• Reading a blog is more likely than listening all the way through a podcast.
• The content of a podcast is nearly always music or news. Blogs or video can be anything.
• Competition from commercial media. National Public Radio has podcasts. So does National Geographic, Comedy Central, ESPN, and many others. If you want to listen to streaming audio, you'd be more likely to stay with well-known content providers. On the other hand, many people enjoy reading the journaling and commentary by bloggers and video creators.

Podcasting has been "going out of fashion", Alex says. Today's "in" fad is "out" tomorrow. What impact does that have on church web sites?

• If you have limited resources, don't be too eager to adopt the latest "hot" new web gizmo. Instead, give it a hard look. Ask whether it looks like a fad or a long-term hit. Avoid the fads when you have limited resources.
• Carefully check what resources a new web feature would need -- people, equipment, time, expertise, and money. If you can't afford all the resources, don't adopt the new feature.
• If you really want to give a new feature a try, even with limited resources, look for ways to lessen the resource impact. Perhaps there is a way to "start small" that you can try out before deciding whether to jump in feet first.