Design Consistency

Having been to a few bigger tech savvy churches, I'm always amazed when I see a lack of consistency at them. I guess that my thoughts on this have been influenced by a conference I went to WAY back in 2000 called "An Hour on Sunday". The whole point that was made at this thing is that we've only got access to the people that show up on Sunday for an hour, maybe hour & fifteen minutes. The other 167 hours of the week will be spent someplace else with other influences.

It's almost like the old Windows campaign "Where do you want to go today?" Knowing what's above, why would you want to have a Pastor who's spent 20+ hours crafting a sermon from the depths of God's Word be supported by tech & design staff or volunteers that don't want to take everyone to the exact same place the Pastor does? We've got limited time, space, and resources - we should be good stewards of all of them.

Anyway, what sparked that diatribe was this article from Midnight Oil Productions about how to create unified design themes. While it is not from the same perspective I gave above, it does give a good framework to get it done.

I hope that in your church you've got the opportunity as a designer to have a balance of creativity, but are still accountable to the vision and leading of the teaching pastors of your church.

Around the Horn - I Skipped a Few Posts Edition

Blogging is a skill that I hope yet to master. Here's the best of links from the previous week -

Recruiting volunteers for tech in church can seem like stuffing a camel through the eye of a needle, but here's some valuable tips from Worship Way blog.

Here's a another blog for aspiring church graphic artists - Adori Graphics

Finally, from Church Relevance, is a a list of the top 100 Church Blogs. Great design inspiration!

Around the Horn - Back from Vacation Edition

I just got back from my vacation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It's a wonderful place to reconnect with creation. I was prepared wonderfully to go back to my day job. Thank God!

Here's the best of what was published while I was away...

Excellent list of awesome & inspiring church marketing designs from our friends at Inspiks

Does your church have an online streaming plan? It should. We'll need it when we've all been killed by the swine flu.

Here's a wonderful article that taught me that 'Twitter Strategy' is not an oxymoron.

Around the Horn - I'm on Vacation....NOW Edition

Well, I'm off to vacation in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. But, I figure I'd better clear my back log of stuff to post, so here it is...

Here's a nifty little piece of tech that scares the crap out of me.

An excellent look at creative process at North Point Community Church. Thanks to churchmarketingsucks.com for finding the link!

And finally, the most dangerous of all questions is asked - Why? A great question for any church when it comes to process, programs, worship space, tech, etc. Come to think of it, a great question for any believer!

I hope you and yours have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend!

Tech is Changing You - but keep reading this blog!

Here's a fascinating article on how technology changes us all. It goes beyond the traditional "are you addicted to tech?" question and adds a theological twist. From the article -

But ultimately the use of technology is not neutral in that it transforms the user in some way. John gave the example of working with a shovel (a primitive technological tool). The shovel can be put to good use (church planting, building a home, etc.) and it can be put to bad use (killing someone, burying the body, etc.). But in either case it transforms the user in the form of blisters/calluses on the hand. The same is true of technology, whether you use it for good or bad, it still transforms you in some way when you use it.

Very astute. Good food for thought for all of us.

Around the Horn - Spiritual/Assymetric Warfare Edition

Looking through the Christian tech news that fit to pixelate, there seems to be a noticeable trend of the bad guys using technology against Christians - which is the EXACT opposite of what this blog is supposed to do!

A group called 4chan broke into an unnamed Christian dating service

That was the beachhead to assault Christian Facebook accounts

The good guys do still win sometimes, though. A church in England caught lead thieves by using nano-technology. (Think Borg nanites, but less exciting).

Big Church/Small Church

Most churches with a tech ministry tend to be on the bigger side, but not always. I've always gone to 'big churches', and heard from people both on the outside and the inside of the 'big church' that "We're making shallow disciples" or "Sure more people go to that church, but what do they REALLY know about God?"

Well, Barna Group just did a church survey comparing beliefs of small church folks with big church folks. The results? Fascinating.

Here's a link to the survey results. Most interesting to me are the responses to questions about Biblical accuracy, the nature of evil, and if Jesus sinned or not. On Biblical accuracy, 75% followers from churches over 1000 members said the Bible is completely accurate. Small churches? 60-63%. 51% of followers in big churchers say Satan is real, as opposed to 30% of small churchers. And most telling of all 74% of big churchers say Jesus never sinned, as opposed to 49% of small churchers.

In a word, I feel 'vindication'. Why do you think this survey got the results it did? Is the movement of the Spirit in our churches just that counter-intuitive?