Creative Bites

Church branding has become a more popular than ever. But what exactly is it?

What is a brand? Start by what it isn’t:

- it isn’t a logo
- It isn’t a product
- It isn’t your most successful ministry
- It isn’t the quality of your outreach

A brand is made up of those things, but at the end of the day, a brand is the entirety of someone’s perception of you from their perspective. This perception is what drives how someone decides to behave.

Sometimes this gets abstract, so let me share some stories.

We have a van that always breaks down. My perception of the brand is far more than the logo or the iconic look of the car. The brand has a negative connotation because of how it delivered on it’s promises.

We have a car that seems to keep going despite our lack of care for it. I have a positive view of the brand because I can’t seem to break it. This vehicle overdelivered on its promises.

I have used a certain brand of computer for a long time with great success. Lately though, it seems like the promises aren’t being delivered on as consistently. So my perception of the brand is changing.

- Not a bad single experience, and eroding wholistic experience. When you stop delivering on what you promise, people will leave over time.

Who contributes to a church brand?

Congregation - the way that those in your church family live their lives outside the wall of the church has heavy influence on the perception of the church. Interestingly, it also informs the perception of the capital C church. And even Christ.

This is is why pursuing Biblical instruction when it comes to the function of the ministry of the church is so important

Church Staff - You are being looked at more closely on all these things

Every decision you make says something about what you value.  

Church Leadership - Your decisions are modeling the behavior that the Christian in your church thinks they should model. You need to be making decisions that are biblical, and that move your congregation to recognize that scripture is what defines their direction, not just to you. But they will look heavily to you and the decisions you make!

How do you define the brand?

- Defining what your church is known for isn’t really up to your preference–it’s up to scripture
- While we aren’t in complete control of the brand, we can encourage people toward something.
- Scripture tells us where to point them!

Throughout scripture we see things that point to behaviors the church should be known for. Some keys:

The church is about Christ, not the senior pastor, worship team, local outreach, social impact, look and feel, design, student programs, kids programs or facilities. It is about Christ. - 3 John

Making disciples, baptizing them - Matthew 28:16-20

Unity - Romans 14:19

Humility, peace filled - Romans 12:16

Restoration, Peace - 2 Corinthians 13:11

What you may notice in this is that any church’s brand will be defined by the believers that are a part of your body, not by things you control. And it should be. Your church should be pointing people to Christ. 

Whenever I have conversations about branding, I can’t help but think of James 1:22 "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

So then, what is the value of as strong church brand? 

That’s what we will focus on next week. We are going to look at the role of brand in the church, and an example of how our branding (logo and brand strategy) can help contribute to what we learned about today.

Bottom line:

No logo, mission statement, tagline or ad campaign can overcome the impact of a congregation that is not living in line with the biblical mandates that have been placed on their lives. 

We have to acknowledge this or we will become embittered

1. Write down one thing you are thankful for at the end of each day.

2. Keep adding to the list every day. 

3. Re-read your list as it builds.

4. At the end of the week, thank God for the good things that have existed in your week.

By identifying that there are good things happening in your life, you are warring against the lies of burnout. 

You can lead change regardless of the role you are in.

• Start within your proficiency
  • If you aren't leading effectively within your own area of influence, you typically won't be invited to contribute to areas outside of your influence
• Identify who needs to know what, when
  • Some people will be scared by change
  • Some people will be hurt by change
  • Some people will help support the change
• Connect the dots between what you want to accomplish with the mission of the church.
  • Have a strong argument for the "why"
• Show your work
  • Help lead people to understand how you came to your conclusion
• Take a no respectfully, and honor it.
  • This feels like failing, but it leads to long term influence
• Play the long game, not the short game. A respectable loss today often leads to a major win later.
  • Change is a marathon, not a sprint

Bottom line:

Change takes a long term, and has a cost. Be patient and kind.

Let go of burdens that aren't yours.

1. Write down one thing you worry about that isn’t part of your job to solve.
2. Write down the name of who it belongs to.
3. Crumple it up.
4. Pray for the person in charge of that problem.
5. Go encourage the owner of the project.

What do you need:

• a relational baseline 
  • people who know you before you burned out 
  • people to walk with you through where you are 
• a willingness to allow a perspective shift 
  • backup and gain some perspective 
  • our gut says “move closer to analyze this problem”. not helpful 
  • vacation in a dramatic way, visit a different church, learn something new, change the way you see. 
    • Change how you see - gain a new perspective
• clarify you values 
  • serve, or be served 
• Is this role about you using your skills, or serving the church?
• get organized
• get help with prioritization
• get connected with scripture 
  • pray 
  • find things you are thankful for 
  • make a list of today’s thankful and write it down 
  • Every church will hurt you and heal you in different ways 
  • Do you believe that God can restore your situation? 
    • What small step can you make to show that you believe this? 
    • Can you let a project go? Can you identify a frustration to let go of? Can you identify what burdens you have not been hired to carry? 
  • Daily Quests 
• Consider your company (people)
• Consider your company (job)
• Have you done everything you can to fix it?
• You need grace. So do others
• Focus on your focus (put down burdens that don’t belong to you)
• Manage reality
• Is it time to leave? 
  • If your values aren’t the organizations, it won’t work 

Bottom line:

You can do this!

Three reasons I think the church is so prone to burnout.

1. We carry burdens for problems that don’t belong to us.

2. The mission of the church has nothing to do with what we are good at.

3. Our gifts aren’t needed in the body we are serving.

Symptoms of Burnout:

• you lose your ability to be self aware 
  • You say things like “I’m not capable of anything, let alone this job”. 
• you try to lead people into what you feel, not what you think. 
  • You share stories that provoke others to feel frustrated. You struggle to think rationally. 
• you try to let everyone else know how hopeless things are 
  • Your conversations are focused on finding all the problems, and dismissing the solutions. 
• you try to get someone to help you 
  • You’ll talk to anyone that will listen, but you don’t know how to ask for help. 
• you can’t hear help when others try to offer it 
  • Even when you receive advice that could be helpful, you aren’t able to see it as such. 
• You can’t pace yourself. 
  • You are trying to solve every problem and finish every problem concurrently. You can’t allow some things to be finished later. 
• You wonder why no one else is helping you.
• You feel like you’ve walked into a sandstorm. All your self awareness is gone. You can’t hear or see as well as you used to. God is quiet. Does anyone care?

Two tests that can help you identify if you are burning out:

Fire Drill Test: - Are things as bad as you feel?

Write down a specific problem you are dealing with, then rate your response to these questions 1-10. 1 is lowest importance, 10 is highest importance.

• How important do you think it is that this problem is solved?
• How important do you feel it is that this problem is solved?
• How important do others say it is that this problem is solved?
• How important is it to your job that this problem is solved?

Compare you answers. 

• Are they far apart?
• Do you know why they are far apart?

If you keep coming up with large gaps between what you think, feel, and hear, it probably means you aren’t recognizing reality accurately.

Reality Check Test: - Are you wasting your time?

Recalibrate regularly on the tasks you have. We often try to accomplish all the change needed in a single project. That isn’t possible. Here are questions to ask yourself when you find yourself frustrated with a project.

• What have I been asked to accomplish?
• Why is this helpful to the client?
• What goals do I see that aren’t being met?
• Is this project an appropriate vehicle to accomplish those goals?
• What can I do outside of this project to help further those goals?

How big is the gap between what you are gifted to do and what you are being asked to do?

• Can you leverage your gifts in any way in your current role?
• If you can, why isn’t that good enough? Write it down. Define it.

Two years ago from the release of this podcast, I quit my job. I was burning out. 

That's typically how the burnout story goes. I'm burning out, so it's time to leave. We leave, find a new perspective in a new environment, learn from our struggles, and hopefully get better. That's not how my story goes.

I left, then came back.

Because of this, I was able to identify how I was unknowingly contributing to my own burnout. Coming back let me change those things. This episode is my unique story of burnout. I'm sharing my story so you can learn what helped me come back and last. 

You can make simple changes in your perspective and attitude today that will help you bounce back. I hope this helps!

Avoid Mission Neutral events.

Here are the questions I ask when I’m developing something new.

1. What problem are we trying to address? 

Establish a goal for your initiative.

• It isn’t a good idea to head out on a road trip without knowing where you hope to end up 
  • Without knowing what you hope to accomplish with the projects or events you plan, every other part of the planning process breaks
  • Mission-neutral events waste a tremendous amount of resources
• Examples of goals 
  • Is there a need for Biblical literacy amongst those you shepherd? 
  • Does your congregation need to grow in their compassion for the community? 
  • Does your congregation need to be more generous with their skills? 
  • Each of these is a unique problem that needs to be addressed uniquely.

2. Do we need to invent, innovate, or adopt?

• Seeing another organizations final product can help us learn what we want to avoid
• Seeing another organizations final product can help you identify what needs to change in order to fit your context, your goal, and your mission

3. What do we need to track to know if we’ve hit the mark?

• Define what success looks like
• Some churches are content with online attendance, others value in person attendance 
  • What you track depends on the landmarks 
  • A win for one is a loss for another! 

4. How do we implement based on our resources?

• There are a lot of great things out there that you can’t afford
• Sometimes we want things nicer than what works for our people 
  • Design what you implement for your specific context 

5. How did we do?

• From here, we evaluate. 
• Skipping an informed evaluation is a big loss for the church 
  • Repeatable success in our ministry 
  • Reputable success in other ministries on the team 
  • Best practices to share with other churches 

Bottom line:

Asking yourself these questions before your next major project will help you align what you do with the mission of your church.

Why: A high level understanding of God’s word is critical to the Christ follower. 

• It is important for us to know God’s word deeply
• It is also important for us to know God’s word broadly
• It Builds confidence in those who are inexperienced reading their Bible

How: Here is how we’ve done it to great success

Brand the year (this means plan ahead! We had everything finished by Early November)

• Brand subseries 
  • Creates a rhythm 
  • Creates entry points for new people 
  • Creates onramps for people who have stopped 

Preach what you are reading

• Every plan I’ve seen fail was disconnected from weekend messages
• Identify challenging topics and ideas
• Interject midweek content to unpack additional challenges

Give people tools

• We printed Journals
• We printed reading plans for the year 
• We printed reading plans for each series
• Constant reminders and encouragement

Keys to success

• All in - Everyone participates in the reading (small groups, weekends, midweek, (bonus points for kids and students)
• Tackle hard subjects when the arise 
  • Builds confidence for those reading for the first time - they have a guide!
• Gracious accountability - encourage getting back on board, don’t chastise getting off track

Bottom line:

When you communicate on purpose, it can lead to significant spiritual growth for those in your congregation.

For some, project management tools seem a bit overwhelming and limiting. In this episode we will talk through the value project management can play in your personal growth, and why the data you collect has the power to shape change in the organization.

Tips for using a project management solution effectively: 

• Enter everything
• Define what a deadline is
  • We use "in hands date" as the date we need something for promotion
• Log all conversations and updates
  • This helps you identify where a project broke down
• Involve others
  • This allows your boss to see where he can help projects get unstuck

Some concerns people have about project management

• Too complicated
• Too detailed 
• I don’t think like that

The benefits of project management

• Helps others know how much is on your plate
• Lets you identify specific problems that need attention
• Lets you make a case for change 
• Helps you hit deadlines
• Allows someone else to pick up where you left off

Project management helps you assess your growth

• Measure your accomplishments

Project management helps move the mission forward

• Leadership shouldn't make decisions based on how one employee feels
• Your boss doesn’t always know the nuances of your job
• Your boss doesn't always know how much is on your plate
• Your boss doesn't always know why specific projects stall
• Rarely are the problems you are encountering unique to you or this project 
  • Having data leads to change 

Bottom line:

With effective project management, you are building a foundation of good data that needs to exist in order to make good decisions.