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?
Jen
March 3, 2010
You forgot one important group: Pastors who are the designers. Our senior pastor of our small church does all the graphic designing and he’s excellent at it, no comic sans or clip art is ever to be seen.
Erik Germesin
March 4, 2010
I glad the main result is in the love and grace side!
Awesome.
Erik Germesin
March 4, 2010
*I’m that is.
You can tell my post had a friend edit it.
Matt Hoag
March 5, 2010
Bottom line- if your a designer in the church and you don’t/can’t respect and honor your pastor, you have no business being there.
Katrina
March 5, 2010
“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.)”
Wow. As an admin assistant/designer/database coordinator/receptionist for my church that stings- and, honestly, more in the “Do I really want to continue to read if that’s what they think of me way” and not in the “hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t be doing this” way.
You see, many of us have to wear many hats in ministry. Just like the pastor/designer mentioned above. Does the fact that I also answer phones and maintain the church’s membership records mean I’m a detriment to church marketing? Personally, I don’t think so. I feel that my art is of a pretty high caliber. Am I as good as many of the professionals out there? No. But I’m good enough to have been offered full-time designer gigs. I’ve turned them down because I feel that my church needs me.
To slam all admin assistant/designers is just wrong. Maybe it should have been worded “one of those admin assistants with a clip art package.” Now THAT makes me shudder!
–Kat