March 18, 2010

CFCC 2009 Annual Report

Our nonprofit parent, the Center for Church Communication, has released their 2009 annual report. The report offers an overview of CFCC, including the purpose, history, projects, leadership team and an overview of 2009 financials (as well as financials going back to the beginning in 2006).

If you have any questions about what we do, why we do it and how it happens, that's a good place to start.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:57 AM
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March 16, 2010

Good Friday Film

Mars Hill Church in Seattle is pulling out all the stops this spring, but it's not for Easter. It's for Good Friday.

Their creative team is putting together a 30-minute film about Good Friday. The church's creative director, Jesse Bryan, and pastor, Mark Driscoll, collaborated on the script. It was shot on the set of Spartacus at Universal Studios in Hollywood and features the talents of a production designer from the TV show 24 and a make-up artist who worked on such films as The Passion of the Christ, No Country for Old Men and Flags of Our Fathers.

"The purpose of the film is to make the horror and eternal weight of Good Friday more vivid," says Nick Bogardus, who handles PR and media relations for Mars Hill. "Whereas The Passion may have tried to tell the story with chronological and historical accuracy, we’re trying to make the theological weight of the event--the substitutionary death of the Son of God in our place for our sins--as vivid as possible."

They'll be showing the film at two services on Good Friday and streaming it online for free. They hope to make it available to other churches next year.

"We hope people see it and really feel that the cross was something done by us and for us," says Bogardus.

What Easter (or Good Friday) plans does your church have this year?

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:29 AM
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Spring Ahead Poll Results

Daylight Saving Time has come and gone, to the anger of most of the churched world. It meant waking up an hour earlier to get the service ready, show up in the pews or turn your alarm off to give up. Here's how you expected it to impact your weekend services:

39% of you had total faith that your peers, congregants and friends would figure things out. They'd set their clocks accordingly and show up bright and early, ready to worship together.

Another 31% expected some late-comers. Folk who don't quite grasp the "spring ahead" and wake up only to freak out that their cell phone is an hour ahead of what they were expecting based on the night before.

27% expected the late-comers to be no-showers. They'd see they were late and give up on showing altogether. Or perhaps more accurately, they'd take advantage of a good excuse to say, "Oh! I accidentally overslept."

A small handful of you don't do Sunday morning services, so it doesn't matter to you. You gather some day of the week not affected by the time change or late enough on Sundays that everyone figured it out on their own accord. Oh, and a whopping 0 churches roll with it and change the time of their services.

So what do you think, in hindsight, was your projection accurate? Did you experience an unexpected dip? Did others perform better than expected? Or do you have no idea because you were the guilty oversleeper?

This week, let's focus on Easter. Let us know, what's your big marketing plan for Easter?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:51 AM
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March 15, 2010

5 Tools Church Designers Need: Introduction

by Paul Armstrong, Guest Blogger

This is part one in a six-part series exploring the tools graphic designers who work for churches need to succeed.

There you are on a slow Monday morning, a freshly brewed mug of coffee, NPR playing in the background and your fingers dancing on the keyboard, composing the most stunning tweet ever put to screen, when suddenly you're interrupted.

"OK, we have the most brilliant idea ever and want you to work on the graphics for it right away. Our next series is going to be called 'Fringe: Following Christ For Outsiders,' and you'll use the same look at that TV uses. So get on this, it's gonna be amazing!"

Whether you work for a church or a corporation as a graphic designer, too often your job is perceived as a service. You are the waiter, the maid and the mailman; and while it's true that you are delivering what was ordered, you're not merely there to make sure that your "customer" is right.

Continue reading "5 Tools Church Designers Need: Introduction"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:40 AM
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March 12, 2010

Church Marketing at SXSW

The SXSW (for the uninitiated, it's pronounced 'South by Southwest') Film, Music and Interactive Festival has taken over Austin, Texas, in case you couldn't tell from your Twitter feed. Last year saw plenty of online voting (and social media pimping) to determine what panels would appear at this year's event. More than a few potential topics related to church marketing and a few actually made it to this year's event.

Here's a quick rundown of church marketing at SXSW:

• Technology for Results Not Profit with Terry Storch and Bobby Gruenewald of LifeChurch.tv.
• A Conversation about Social Change Through Social Media with Mark Horvath of InvisiblePeople.tv.
• CSS Framework Shootout with Nathan Smith of Fellowship Technologies (among others).
• In addition, Mark Horvath is also hosting an interview series at the Beacon which will air live online by WhatGives!? via UStream. He's talking to big name social media types, like Chris Brogan and Beth Kanter, but on Sunday he's talking with Terry Storch and Tony Steward of LifeChurch.tv. You can post questions for the churchy guys (or anyone Mark is interviewing).
• Finally, one of the CFCC regional network coordinators, Vince Marotte, is asking over at the ChurchCrunch blog about a SXSW get-together.
• Did we miss anything? Hit us up in the comments

There's plenty to learn at SXSW, church related or not. If you're a lucky duck and lounging at SXSW, be sure to show some love to the church marketing related festivities. The rest of us can leap for your Twitter and UStream scraps.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:25 AM
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March 10, 2010

Check out the Church Marketing Directory

Hey, hey! Check out the Church Marketing Directory, the latest project from our nonprofit parent, the Center for Church Communication.

The Directory is a list of tools, resources and companies that help the church communicate better. It's kind of a yellow pages of church marketing. You'll find technology blogs, freelance designers, marketing communities, church management software and more. It's a first step in our plan to replace the long-neglected Don't Suck List.

You can use the 'Suggest a Link' feature to add sites that are missing and help the Directory grow. Though do note that this is a list of resources that specifically cater to the church, not any resource that could help the church.

You can check out the full announcement over at CFCC for all the details, or just go dive into the Church Marketing Directory.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:35 AM
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Lenten Events Poll Results

It's that time of year. "What time of year?" ask the Baptists. (I couldn't resist that joke, too easy.) It's Lent, or, according to Wikipedia:

"...the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer—through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial—for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus..."

So which events does your church observe? Here's what you had to say:

The most popular holiday of the season is Easter. Nearly a third of churches are observing and marketing some sort of Easter service. Honestly, I would have expected this number to be much higher.

Just shy of that, one in five churches are doing something for Good Friday--a drama, a candlelight service, a memorial, etc. But they're letting people know they should join them on the Friday before Easter to remember the death of Christ. And in a surprisingly strong showing, another fifth of your churches market their Palm Sunday service.

Next up? Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday. 11% of churches are advertising each of these events. We'd love to hear how you're telling people about the less-famous Lent observances. Is it just intra-church marketing? Or are you going out of your way to let the whole community know of these events?

Oh yeah, and the rest of you. 6% don't observe or market your Lenten festivities, while 2% only observe Mardi Gras. So let's hear it, how did you celebrate Mardi Gras? Or do you want to fess up for being a smart aleck?

It's about that time, so this week we want to know: Daylight Savings Time goes into effect this weekend. How will it impact your services?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:53 AM
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March 8, 2010

Social Media Boot Camp for Pastors

There are currently 400 million active users on Facebook. They're sharing 3 billion photos each month, 5 billion pieces of content each week and 60 million status updates every single day. A whopping 83 million of them are active on Farmville each month doing whatever it is you do in Farmville. And that's just Facebook. If you want to connect with people, social media is where it's at.

Learning the ropes of social media can be intimidating, but it's crucial for pastors and churches who want to connect to all those people. That's where Pastors' Social Media Bootcamps can help. These are local events held across the country to help pastors and churches sort out social media. The events are put on by Jopa Productions, a company started by pastors Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones. One is being held tomorrow in San Diego and there are five more coming this spring to Durham/Raleigh, N.C., Nashville, Tenn., Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis.

We talked with Tony Jones to learn more about boot camp and the importance of social media for churches.

Why do you think it's important for pastors to use social media?

Tony Jones: There was a time when churches and pastors needed to decide whether they were going to wire the church for telephones. There was another time when they had to decide whether to bring microphones and amplification into the sanctuary. Those were decisions about using new technology to communicate. Social media is simply another step on that path--it's about communicating with people, and more and more people are using it, so churches need to decide how to engage that.

Give us an overview of the Pastors' Social Media Boot Camps. What are they? What kind of stuff do you cover?

Jones: Well, I usually say that it's not at a 101 level or a 301 level. It's more of a 201 level. We assume some rudimentary knowledge of social media, but we find that many people who come have significant anxiety about it. Others are really into one medium (usually Facebook), but they're less familiar with Twitter, blogging, etc. We try to get them up-to-speed on a variety of social media.

Continue reading "Social Media Boot Camp for Pastors"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:33 AM
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March 5, 2010

Arguing for Atheist Bus Ads

You might remember St. Matthew-in-the-City from their Mary and Joseph billboard a few months back. They're making headlines again, but this time, I'm a little more sold on what they're doing. Here's the jist:

Recently, there was an advertising campaign in New Zealand for atheism. The ads, displayed on buses, read, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." New Zealand Bus got some complaints on the campaign, and they ended up taking the advertisements down.

Enter Archdeacon Glynn Cardy:

Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, vicar of St Matthew-in-the-City in Auckland, says NZ Bus's decision last month to stop the display of paid adverts showing atheistic slogans is regrettable.

"Many in the Christian community welcome a debate about issues of the existence of God and, also, I don't think there's anything to be afraid of in that debate," he said.

Continue reading "Arguing for Atheist Bus Ads"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 8:46 AM
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March 3, 2010

Pastors and Designers Poll Results

Erik Germesin recently wrote a gap-bridging piece for pastors and designers. It's no secret that pastors can find designers to be troublesome to work with, and vice-versa. For whatever reason, these two groups just don't always seem to gel. We were curious as to how the pastors and designers that you know play together.

The biggest group, pleasingly, are the 43% of you who have pastors and designers who go above and beyond to understand one another and work together. Your designer doesn't go crazy when the pastor suggests Comic Sans, and your pastor doesn't lose his cool when the designer cries over a rejected design.

Another 10% play nice, but there's some serious animosity going on there. They're all smiles and back-pats around the office, but you know they absolutely dread and loathe when things go from office-to-office. Another group of the same size don't really work well together, but they keep to themselves.

A little, tiny 3% of you have pastors and designers that go at one another angrily. Women and children can't come to the office, and there's likely to be prayers for repentance after they deal with one another.

So who's left? Oh, there you are. 34% of you don't have any designers, so it doesn't matter. Maybe you're not part of a church, you're part of a church who doesn't do any designed materials or you just have one of those administrative assistant/designers. (Although hopefully not the latter.)

This week, we're getting in the spirit of Lent and asking: Which events in the Lent calendar does your church traditionally observe and market?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:49 AM
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