Steve Fogg: Clear and Simple.

Easter 2011 Service's Around The World

Easter 2011 is swiftly approaching. I've been doing an on-line review of what churches are doing both on Good Friday and Easter Sunday in their services.

Below are what I've seen so far. If your church is doing something at Easter, drop a comment below with a link to the page on your website so we can all have a look!

A couple of things to note. If you have special services, ensure you have a button someone can click through with dates and times AND a link to your location. I've been amazed at the lack of detail on some churches I've visited. Easter is a peak time for occasional visitors and they don't know what you know about your church.

Saddleback Church -  The Greatest Rescue video

Elevation Church - 3D Easter 'There's more to see in 3-D'

Willow Creek Church

Northpoint Community Church - Easter Weekend

Community Christian Church - Hero God

Hillsong Church - This is love. (My favourite branding so far)

Mosiac LA - Wonder

Oak Hills - The day God rocked the cemetery

Menlo Park - Celebrate Easter

Church On The Move - Death In His Grave

Eastside Christian Church - Easter @ Eastside

The Orchard - All Things New (My favourite church brand)

Mars Hill Seattle - Good Friday Film, Who killed God. Easter celebration (Sunday)

Granger Community Church - Good Friday, Easter Sunday

Newspring Church - Not really sure what their branding is, but you can 'get your tickets'

Harvest Church - The Heart of Easter

Church by the Bridge - Dead Alive!

Riverview Church - Forsaken / Freedom

Bridge Church

Faith Christian Church - A story of Redemption

Holy Trinity Brompton

Crossway Church, Melbourne (my church) - The Table

Your church's Easter services not here? Drop a comment and a link below.

 

Thursday Afternoon Rundown - Some exciting things on the go

It's been a busy couple of months here at Crossway. Here is what has hit my world this week:

I'm smack bang in the middle of a identity plan review for our church. Finishing off focus groups, now into reporting phase.

Really excited about a new online pilot project due to launch just after Easter in partnership with Lee Insko and the gang at Details Communications who are doing the web/mobile work for me. Watch this space. It will be available for all churches to use ;-)

ChurchShield logo was the "Logo of the day" award winner. Nice job.

I'm coming to Cultivate11 in May - If you want to hook up drop a comment in. It's a pretty quick trip in and out of the USA so my time is VERY limited.

Watched this video called Follow from Igniter Media. If you don't have Easter in the can from a creative point of view, this would be a good addition.

Read Elevation Church's Annual Report. Really well laid out and concise.

I've been reconnecting with my design roots over the last two months. It's been fun to refuel that passion for all things design.

 

 

 

Videos Of The Week

It feels like ages since I did a video of the week post. Here are some of my favourite videos from this last week.

Seven Seconds On A Platform - which was inspired by Straylight's video

A Day At The Office - shows how a good idea can be executed even by office workers. Although I have a sneaking suspicion they are a bit creative as I could see a magazine layout on their wall.

Furtnick vs Chandler - ding, ding, bring it on. These two prize Pastor fighters go head to head on a great topic!

Addition: I just watched Perry Noble and James McDonald go toe to toe about the Culture in the church vs The church in culture.

Have you seen a good video this week? Leave a comment below and share it with us!

 

What The Church Can Learn From GoDaddy About PR

In case you've been under a rock for the last week and missed it, Bob Parsons who the boss of GoDaddy has blogged about how he shot an elephant and put a video up on his blog.

Talk about a PR disaster. It has really hurt GoDaddy's reputation, Bob managed to do that in one shot (if you forgive the pun) You Church, your leadership needs to know that:

1. It takes a lifetime to build your reputation but only one moment to loose it

2. Your perception of how you think others see you could be a deception

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What can possibly go wrong? What is the worst thing that could happen in my ministry/church?
2. Who is responsible for fixing it, or making the event/story work?
3. What 'plan B' do we have in place if something goes wrong?
4. Who is responsible for actioning that plan if its needed, and do they have every resource on standby ready to go?
5. What policies do we have in place that would prevent this from happening. If it happens, what policies and procedures do we have in place to help bring healing/reconciliation/legal restitution or closure.

What other PR disasters have you seen lately that the church can learn from?

Related posts - How To Avoid A PR Disaster At Your Church: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
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How Do You Deal With Disapointment?

One of the things I've noticed with serving in ministry is how much everybody is so passionate for their particular cause or ministry within the church.

I'm much the same. My heart beats like crazy for us all to communicate the gospel with stunning clarity and simplicity in a world that seems to have forgotten about the greatest story ever told.

When you have so many people who are sold out with what they do inevitably comes a time when you have to deal with disappointment. In my case it is when I bare my creative soul wide open with an idea and have to deal with rejection.

Nothing hurts a creative more (for all the right or wrong reasons) than their work being rejected. We pour so much into what we do that it can be a natural by product.

So my question to you is, how do you deal with disappointment? Comment away.

 

The Hourly Opinion Cycle

We’ve lived in a world that has gone from a 24 hour news cycle to an hourly news cycle that has been ravenous for content to fill specialised news channels.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed that the hourly news cycle and has been replaced with the hourly opinion cycle.

Many news outlets have subtly (and not so subtly) shifted beyond reporting the news, to broadcasting opinion pieces in the news.

This is potentially a big deal for your church. How the ‘media’ perceives your church or key spokesperson no longer will rely just on news reporting, but on opinion pieces.

The recent Rob Bell interview with Martin Bashir is a great example. Martin is clearly letting his opinions lead his questioning – which makes for a much more aggressive and combative style of interview.

While you may not have an issue yet that is 'opinion-worthy' (not news worthy). It will come.

What are you doing to train yourself to manage the media when it comes knocking? Comment below

 

Does Your Church Have A Mission Statement - Or Are You On Mission?

One of the biggest issues I've observed since working in the church world is our obsession to develop mission and vision statements. Hear me right, I don't think that having a mission or vision statement is a bad thing. But often those statements don't reflect the reality of what is really going on in the church. They are just words, without much action.

To put it another way churches can place more emphasis on preaching/teaching the mission statement, rather than simply living it out. In some messages there is no practical application or spiritual direction to do something.

Some churches are telling their congregations, rather than simply leading by doing. There needs to be less talk and more action.

In marketing speak we would say that the brand positioning isn't reflected in the brand promise.

I read this great post from Harvard Business Review today which reminded me of this. Well worth a read.



Do You See/Hear What I See/Hear?

I was in our all staff meeting this morning. We had a very special guest presenter who was talking about Occupational Health & Safety.

A dry subject. But a very important one.

The presenter brought up the slide below on the screen and asked us what we saw.

The visual made me think about how we in church communications attempt to help a person see something in a certain way or get them to do something through a piece of communication.

However sometimes the hearer or seer receives the information in a completely different way.

Here's a little 'test' for you. Who do you see in the picture below? Comment and I'll post the right answer tomorrow!

 

 

Are You Engaged?

Here is a video which was played in our services last weekend. It was played just before our Senior Pastor Dale Stephenson preached about engaging with our friends about Jesus.

It was conceived on a Thursday and shot the following Monday with the actual people who are involved in running an evangelism training classes at our church. The video editing was completed by the Thursday.
A week's turnaround which is I think the fastest I've ever been involved with.

 

Video credits: Videographer, editing and post production by Peter Berg, Producer & Creative Direction: Steven Fogg

How Graphic Design Can Become An Agent Of Change

Brilliant video on how design can become an agent of change.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Bobby C. Martin Jr. at Gel 2008 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.