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?

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?

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.

In their view, it's your job to cater to that desire. It's your job to "borrow" the title graphics from that TV show. It's your job to dispense the clip art that thousands of other churches and organizations have used to communicate the same message (that people have seen over and over to the point that your message becomes meaningless). And it's your job to do it now.

But that doesn't have to be the case. You don't have to be confined to the box of design disaster.

The truth is that the value and perception of your job are determined by you, the designer—regardless if you're educated, trained, full time, part time or volunteering. You can have all the skills, all the right tools and software, but without confidence, determination, precise communication, solid boundaries and teamwork, a designer is doomed to be at the whim of the dreaded "personal preference," where your talents, gifts and resources will be devalued and misused. It's time to make your career a part of the body of the church and not an accessory.

Over the next few weeks I'll be attempting to break down these five key tools and rules to help increase your perception and value within your church or ministry.

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.

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.

"...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?

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.

Jones: I prefer pope of emergent. :-) Totally agnostic. We've had liberals and conservatives, priests and pastors, authors, non-profit execs, and marketing reps. We recently ran a boot camp day for a publishing house.

What has the response been from the events you've already held?

Jones: People have really loved it. Our evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive, with 98% reporting that the day was worth the money they spent, and they'd encourage others to go. In fact, we have a deal that if you come to a boot camp, you can come for free to another one as a refresher, and several folks have taken us up on that.

How knowledgeable are the pastors you've worked with? Do any of them come kicking and screaming?

Jones: It varies. Some are very skeptical, so we start the day by letting people voice the most common objections to social media--like, "I don't care what you had for breakfast," and "I'm more of a face-to-face person." We acknowledge that many of those objections are valid, but it doesn't negate the potential for social media in a ministry setting.

What kind of things have you seen churches doing with social media?

Jones: Many are trying to build Facebook pages that both reach out to new people and provide a place for folks from their church to connect throughout the week. Others are using private Facebook groups for communication within committees and ministry teams. Stuff like that.

How does social media change things for churches?

Jones: Personally, I think it's a much more efficient way to communicate than sending out a paper newsletter, printing a Sunday morning bulletin, or even using a phone tree or email blast. Plus, there are some of us who hate voicemail, but we check Twitter throughout the day. So we're all going to have to be more diffuse in our methods of communication, since people vary in their preferences. Churches should be just as deliberate about these decisions as they were about deciding whether or not to have a telephone number.

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.

Cardy has a great point here, and it's one that we'd do well to heed as believers in our local communities. I see three great nuggets of truth for local churches to pull out of his response to the pulling of these ads:

We're not the only ones who get to play. Too often, we have an "I'm going to take my ball and go home" mentality when things don't seem to go our way. But it's important to remember that just like we can advertise and communicate our ideas, so can anyone else. (And all the more reason not to suck at it.)

Support those you hope to reach. You'll get a lot further in affirming and connecting with people unlike yourself if you support them. You don't have to agree with them or adopt their theology, but you should affirm their right to speech and opinion.

Don't be afraid of hard discussions. Topics like the existence of God and the virgin birth are admittedly difficult. We hold them very dearly, and it's easy to feel attacked when someone challenges the ideas we hold dear. But we should be confident as we communicate those issues and communicate that confidence to those around us.

Maybe as we grab on to each of these, we'll engage in deeper, more influential discussions with the community around us. Especially those who don't believe the same things as we do.

(Photo credit: Jon Worth / British Humanist Association)

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?

But then Jeremy Scheller, the communications and design coordinator at The Sanctuary in Minneapolis, made the comment that "the church ought to be a 'do' factory. It spends too much time dreaming of crap it never does." Yes! How many dreams go unrealized in the hearts of frustrated volunteers and church leaders?

Here I am sitting in the midst of contradiction, as usual. So I talked to Jeremy and Mark to get their further thoughts. Should the church be involved in more dreaming or more doing? As usual, the answer is both.

But Jeremy also has a point: "The church is still in decline, the broader culture still thinks we're a bunch of hypocrites, and I think it's largely because we don't 'act' in a way that adequately represents the faith we claim," he says. "Our production time might be better spent engaging and living a life in which people benefit more from our actions than our thoughts."

Mark agrees: "It's a two-sided coin. We have a value at NCC: Pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you. It has to be both/and."

Mark even gave us a handy formula:

• Doing – Dreaming = Waste of Energy.
• Dreaming – Doing = Disobedience
• Dreaming + Doing = Exponential Kingdom Impact

Is your church dreaming, doing or both?

Every church’s brand has a face. And that face belongs to its head pastor. Yes, other components help define the brand: its logo, its graphic standards, its facility, its style of worship. But I’d argue a growing number of churches’ outward identities are inextricably wrapped up in the humanity behind the pulpit.

That’s because, unlike cars, software or fast food which we marketers regularly anthropomorphize by giving them brand attributes like a personality, a sense of humor and a voice, people (pastors) come from the factory with all those things pre-installed.

And in an era where video preaching is becoming ever more popular and makes more of an impact, the connection between church pastor and church brand can’t help but grow stronger. After all, every podcast downloaded is one more lengthy impression with the consumer (to use crass media buyer-speak).

Therein, though, lies the rub. Every pastor I’ve ever met is a person. A fallen, imperfect, inherently sinful person--just like every human who has ever lived, except for one guy about 2,000 years ago. So when a pastor leaves, falls publicly into sin or just goes on sabbatical for a few months, the church, its identity and its brand come tumbling after.

In a recent interview at Leadership Journal, Rob Bell cautions about this very thing:

“With technology today it’s easy to spend all your energies reproducing your own voice, but there is a longer view that says, what if instead of beaming video into those ten locations, we train ten people who can go there and lead."

I’m not arguing for or against video. Heck, I subscribe to a gaggle of vodcasts myself. What I am arguing for, though, is decentralizing leadership in an effort to avoid the worship-the-rock-star scenario that both non-Christians and Christians alike often fall into. If we do, not only will we be helping create stronger, more enduring church brands, we’ll be spreading the gospel more effectively.

Job Lab

• Lifechurch.tv is searching for a Systems Engineer / Administrator.
  
• Are you a web ninja? Check out this posting from Gateway Church.

Freelance Lab

• NewDay Covenant has a marketing strategy, but they need some deliverables.
  

Editor's note: We had to remove this freelance posting. Still don't believe posting your opening in the Job Lab or Freelance Lab is the way to go? Here's what Sarah from NewDay Covenant Church had to say:

Yikes! We have received so many resumes in response to our job posting on the lab site that I'm a bit overwhelmed. I think it would be best to remove the listing...

Thanks so much for this WONDERFUL service. I would be even more lost without it.

If you're a church looking to fill an opening, head on over and post. It's free, and it gives you access to some of the highest-quality church communications professionals around. If you're looking for someone to do a project, the Freelance Lab is the place for you. If you're looking for a full-time employee, head over to the Job Lab.

The big winner? Whoever the one person was that voted their church as we're thought-out and written-up like the Smithsonian. Speak up in the comments; share your strategy; let's hear it!

And the other group of you on the same track are the 10% who have devised a strategy, but now you're executing. We'd love to hear what went into your plan and how the execution is going thus far.

And what of the non-planners? 37% of you are flying foot loose and fancy free. You jumped into social media, and now you're just trying to engage in conversations and keep your head above water.

The next couple chunks of you aren't having the most social media success. 28% are trying your hand at social media, but you're wandering aimlessly and failing slowly. We'd love to hear where you've run into problems and what they were; perhaps you can help other churches with your story.

Another 24% of you are simply not engaging in social media. Do you feel like you can't give full effort, so you might as well not try? Just don't see the value proposition? Feeling lazy? We'd love to hear why you're not giving it a shot.

Batterson explores how we need to use all four of these components in our journey to know God. If we lack in any area, we're not getting the full experience and we're missing out. That's where it becomes a full-body butt kicking, as we realize the areas where we're not reaching our potential. But Batterson is always encouraging, diving into each area with passion and curiosity, offering suggestions and insights into how to pursue God in each area.

Engaging the whole person is why this book matters for a church communication site. Too often our spirituality is simply about the heart or the soul. In doing so, we lose out on the imagination. Batterson argues that "the church ought to be the most creative place on the planet," (113) but instead "the greatest threat to the future of the church is a failure of our God-given imagination" (112). Dreaming and creating are two powerful acts of worship and important aspects of our journey with God. That's something a communicator can get behind.

Here Batterson gives us a good reminder about perseverance: "We're not creative because it's too hard. And we give up too easily. ... The greatest predictor of success in any endeavor is persistence. It's not only how hard you try, it's also how long you try. We tend to overestimate how much we can accomplish in the short term. But we underestimate how much we can accomplish over the long haul" (136-138).

So for anyone involved in helping their church communication I'd recommend Batterson's Primal. We could all use the reminder that we need to love God with our whole being, not just our heart and our soul, but also our mind and our strength. Our creativity, imagination and sweat are often overlooked components in communicating the matters of God.

41% of you think we're inching forward with a long road ahead. You think some churches are finally starting to get it, but there are plenty of folks out there who aren't on the boat yet, or they're just missing the point. And 20% of you are even a bit more optimistic. You see bigger steps in the right direction, and you're getting really excited about it.

Another 27% of you think not much headway has been made, but the fight must go on. Churches, for whatever reason, still aren't getting it, but we shouldn't give up. We ought to keep trying to help.

Next up are those 11% of you who aren't on board with the idea that churches should be marketing. Are you sitting on the fence on it? Do you just read Church Marketing Sucks to get your blood boiling?

And finally, a paltry 2% see a 180 degree turn around. Given the size of that number, it looks like we have a lot of work to do on the road ahead!

We'd love to hear you comment on some of the ways you've seen church marketing move forward and some encouraging signs you've noticed. It's always good to celebrate these victories together.

And this week, we're looking to hear: How has your church developed a social media strategy?