BabuLife

Grace Microcast #3 is Up

I sat down with Tim this afternoon to talk about the kickoff of the new series "Don't Forget the Lyrics".  This is the third edition of the nifty little Grace Microcast.  If you've got about 15 minutes or so, give it a listen and shoot us an email at podcast@graceks.org or leave us a voicemail at 206-426-5394.  We'd love to know if you're out there listening and enjoying these new additions to the regular weekend messages. 

Listen in

Your Graphics Can't Save You!

Has anyone experienced participating in an event whether it be a concert, a party or church-related activity only to find that the promotional material you received prior didn't quite match the experience?

Within the communications world there's sort of a creed I've been learning about.  It's not really an  official creed...but it's one that I believe is an important creed any marketing/communications expert might agree with.  It goes something like this...

"No logo, no graphic, no website, no commercial can ever replace the marketing of a positive experience."

I think this rule can apply not only to the business world, but within the world of church promotions. We Christians need to embrace some of what the experienced marketers in the world can teach us.  After all, our message is bigger and more important than any laundry detergent, any concert or any television show provides.

Here's an example of what we've done at Grace over the past four years.  Specific decisions to spend attention, time and yes even money on our weekend experience became a priority.  The weekend service time is the one main connecting point to the church body and the main place where the message of Christ is delivered on a weekly basis.   Careful attention to crafting the messages (where our Sr. Pastor spends most of his time), crafting a musical worship experience that is done with excellence (where our band spends time), crafting an audio and visual worship experience that is also done with excellence (where our AVL techs spend time) became a priority for us.  When these balls started rolling, then came the attention to detail in our branding and marketing.  A brand that truly represented the experience people would have at Grace Church became our desire...and I believe it's worked.  We've not spent a single dime on mass mailers in our community over the past two years and have seen our attendance double.  While having a building is probably the biggest "billboard", our main promotional resource has been each individual attender of Grace. The people who have met with Jesus Christ personally at Grace and have a burning desire to see the same experience happen in the lives of their friends, neighbors and family.  There's no mailer, flyer or graphic that can beat that.

To ministry leaders out there, don't get caught up in the promotion, get caught up in the experience you are providing people.  Deliver on the promises you've made in whatever promotion you've done and invest heavily in the experience before anything else.  There's no greater marketing than the buzz of people inviting others to your events.  No flyer, no logo, no graphic, no website, nothing will provide you greater success at being able to share your message than winning the hearts of those attending your events.

Just a little lesson I'm learning in the communications world.

• Visit Seth Godin's blog. Should be a regular stop for anyone involved with communications.
• Check out "Unleashing the Ideavirus" by Seth Godin.

Tony Morgan's "Your Branding Sucks"

Tony Morgan's got my head spinning on some posts he's been doing on church marketing. The goal two years ago with the change in our Grace Church website was to carry the torch that our previous web designer initiated.  Molding the website from a "Grace member tool" to a "first time visitor front door" was the initial goal.  When we revamped the site, we took the next step gearing the site to communicate the answers to the questions every first time visitor wants to know.

1. What's going on this weekend when I visit?
2. What do you offer my kids?
3. What do you offer my youth?
4. What do you offer midweek?

When these questions were answered, we then took the menu options and created them to communicate the "next steps" at Grace.  If you're someone who wants to go beyond the weekend, what steps should you take?  The answer was our "Core Classes (called Cross Training)" then "Small Groups", "Volunteering" and "Events".  These are major connecting points to the church.

We've made in my opinion some great strides in focusing our communication from an individual ministry priority to more of a church-wide communication strategy, eliminating a "noisy" type of website.  But more needs to be done.  We need to be efficient and effective at meeting the web-site visitor where they are at.  A good website, and really communications in general, joins the conversation already taking place vs. creating one assuming that the community will want to join in.  What do people really care about when they visit a website?  And how do people prefer to see that info?  "Google" homepage (less clutter & noise) vs. "Yahoo" homepage (cram as much info on one page as possible).

Tony Morgan has a great post on not branding "sub-ministries" without making it clear they are ministries of the church. Some bold stuff here that rocks the world of ministry leaders.  Check out the snippet below then read the full post here:

In case you follow this blog in a feed reader, you may want to check out the comments on this post regarding branding. This is a great conversation. I'd like to go back and respond specifically to Jared's question. Jared, first of all, what you're witnessing is the freedom Perry has given me to shoot straight on this blog. You get my honest take of ministry and life. It isn't just the company line.

You'll never see me publicly question Perry's leadership or vision, but I will reveal, from time to time, some areas where we've acknowledged we need to improve. One of those areas is how we handle branding. Another example where I've admitted we have fallen short and need improvement is our web strategy. I'm not going to try to sugarcoat it--our web presence is poor right now, but we're taking steps to get it right.

Specifically, on the topic of branding, here are some additional thoughts to respond to your observations...

• It makes sense for us to brand a series over the church itself. That's no different than Fox branding American Idol ahead of the network. People are interested in following American Idol--they're not interested in following the Fox network. That's why we brand "The Man Series" ahead of NewSpring Church.
• It also makes sense to brand certain environments that reach unique target audiences like children and church leaders. Trying to encourage and equip leaders through the Unleash Conference attracts a larger audience than if we tried to promote the same experience under the umbrella of NewSpring Church. It's the same principle that has led some churches to drop denominational references in their name in order to reach a broader audience.
• We're making a concerted effort, though, to make sure we don't promote any sub-brands without making it clear that it's "a ministry of NewSpring Church." We haven't done a good job of that in the past.
• We're also trying to thin out all of the unique sub-brands we've used in the past. For example, we decided that "Fuse" and "Ignite" were meaningless to the students we're trying to reach, and, we didn't want to start branding those ministries ahead of NewSpring Church itself. With that in mind, you may have noticed that references to "Fuse" and "Ignite" have faded in recent months. (And, by the way, student ministry attendance is up.)

Read on . . .

Indiana Jones at Grace Church

Each week the staff pastors get together for an hour to talk about upcoming messages.  We have known for months we were going to be doing a series post Easter on the Tabernacle.  The conundrum we faced was making an intriguing series theme for a study on such an incredible historical theme.  It isn't that the tabernacle itself isn't interesting...for many churchgoing Bible believing Christians, there isn't much that needs to be done to draw people's interest.  However, we're a church that is consistently looking for intriguing ways to communicate the message, always looking for ways that could draw folks who may not typically walk through the doors of a church.

We had a working title (honestly I can't even remember it it was that memorable) but weren't 100% sold on it.  A few weeks ago Tim was walking through the weekly message subjects and landed on the Ark.  Of course you know there had to be a movie clip from Indiana Jones for that week.  But we realized then we might consider branding the entire series based on the Indiana Jones theme.  I mean hey...the movie comes out on May 21...the same week we end this series on May 18.  Hmmm...

A little behind on the graphics front but hey...cranked it out yesterday.  This'll be a fun series methinks.  Check it out below.  Starts March 30 at Grace Church in Overland Park, KS.

Mud Bathing In front of Grace Church

So I went ahead and finally put our Easter banner out on the major intersection that sits near the church.  Big deal you say.  Oh yes...it's a big deal.  You see, the city of Overland Park has begun the project to widen the intersection at 159th and Antioch due to the booming growth in southern Johnson County.  This is good news for us as it creates even more opportunities to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with more people.  What this means temporarily, is that our perfect corner for banners at this busy intersection is going to disappear for a time while construction is under way.  Since it's Spring Break, it appears the city decided to take a vacation from the project.  The corner is ours for the week...until someone tells us otherwise.

During the lunch hour I ventured out to the corner and found a way to put up this banner showing our Easter Service Times (8:30, 10 and 11:30 a.m. this Sunday).  Due to the construction we've got quite a bit of mud on the corner there.  As I climbed the giant hill (I say giant because it felt like it) I worried about falling.  You see, I'm a guy who (believe it or not) does not like attention.  I don't like being watched on a corner as the wind blows a banner while I'm trying to rig it up.  So to the person in the blue van who smiled at me while I grabbed the banner falling to one knee in the mud...I forgive you for smiling.  You know not what you did.  It's okay.  If I was in your position, I probably would have done the same thing.

The mission ultimately was a success.  We'll see if the banner stays up for the next four days.

By the way, here's the intersection looking towards the church.  Google Maps has this incredible new "street view" feature.  Feel free to click right on up to the entrance of the church. HT: The Hammer.

View Larger Map

I Broke the Church eNewsletter

Yeahhh...I um, broke the GraceLink eNewsletter last week.  This is what happens when a worship guy who may have some creative abilities is put in charge of the web stuff on staff at the church.  While my intention of cleaning up stuff in our web files was a good gesture, I somehow unintentionally broke...no not broke...but completely discarded the entire eNews file. That means all 300 some subscribers were deleted along with the previous eNewsletters.  It also meant rebuilding the newsletter.

What I ended up having to do was recreate a subscriber list using our church database adding all who were in the status "Attendee and Member".  It was great news that I had the ability to do this...however, it meant that there were going to be people who may not necessarily want the newsletter.  I figured it was easier to ask them to "unsubscribe" than go around asking people to once again sign up.  Plus, I may have actually hit folks who may not have realized it even existed.  Anywho...

If you were once a subscriber and suddenly haven't received anything for more than a week, you can resubscribe here.  If you still have trouble, be sure to shoot an email to gracelink@graceks.org and we'll get you set up.

Now..what else can I break?  Stay tuned...I'm sure I can find something.

LIFE is Coming: An Attempt at Innovation

In 2004 our church did a drama during our weekend services in an attempt to inspire our people to look beyond themselves and make an impact on the lives of the people in their world.  On October 14, this 45 minute presentation will happen again at Grace during both services.

In 2004 we had several folks say "If I'd have only known it was going to be like this...I would have invited someone." This time around, I got to thinking about how we could generate some possible buzz around "LIFE".  Here's what we're doing:

• Facebook - A Facebook account for the lead character was created.  She joined the Grace Church Facebook group and invited as many Gracers to be her friend.  The Facebook account for Emily links folks to her blog.  It was fun to see the reaction of some of the people who were hesitant in accepting a friend request from someone they don't know.  It was also fun to see how some folks are so desperate for a friend that they'll accept anyone. :)  If you need a friend you can join Facebook and request her friendship here.
• www.LifeOfEmilyBlog.com - I love how the TV show Heroes had a blog from the lead character.  It was sort of a storytelling beyond the weekly television show.  I saw in 2002 how the Star Wars people did this leading into the Episode 2 movie.  Creating a website telling the story of the events leading up to what would happen in the movie.  So we're doing it with Emily.  It's interactive and if you read it weekly, you'll see what transpires before the drama on October 14.  You won't want to miss the week of October 8 - 12.  No...I'm not going to spoil it here.
• Invite card - These will begin appearing on September 23.  That's three weeks before the presentation.  We're pointing folks to www.LifeOfEmilyBlog.com on the card.
• Prayer card - These will appear along with the invite card on September 23.  We're asking folks to think of five people that they could invite to the drama.  These are five people who need the scales peeled back from their eyes to see the eternal impact our current life has on eternity.  On the card, people will write the names and pray for them daily.

I'm looking forward to this opportunity and am so excited to see how Gracers will respond to it.  I truly believe their socks will be knocked off with this presentation and if they don't invite someone...they will once again regret not prayerfully considering who to bring.  So go do it!!!

Gracessorize your Wardrobe

One of the privileges of being the Communications Director at Grace is how I get to be the "logo nazi" (not my term...someone deemed me that nice title this past year).  With that esteemed title comes the responsibility of helping people understand our identity standards.  We have a whole document with beautiful illustrations on how our logo can be displayed and specific examples of how the logo cannot be displayed.  It's actually a very helpful tool to outside creative companies supporting ministries at Grace.  It gives them a great point of reference when using the logo in designs.

So Doug H., our athletics ministry lead, has been working feverishly with a t-shirt and hat company to get some jerseys and hats for the upcoming softball teams here at Grace.  We bounced emails back and forth about how the logo can be used and what recommendations I had for the colors. What they turned out was a nifty little hat pictured here.  This is what I found on my desk when I came back to the office after some recoup time from my surgery.  When I saw the designs floating through email a few weeks ago, I told Doug he'd better be ready.  "If folks who aren't involved in the softball teams saw this, they'd want one too....and by the way...I want one."

We've had folks from time to time ask the question about Grace apparel and what not.  My simple answer to people who ask if we're going to have t-shirts or hats available is this..."Yes".  Probably not for awhile, but some day.  Really it's just a matter of priority and Gracessorizing everyone's wardrobe hasn't fallen at the top of the priority chain.  However, I'm digging this hat and wonder how many of you would purchase one if it was available and how much would you be willing to spend for one?

I'm feeling a whole line of Grace clothing and maybe a Sunday morning fashion show.  Maybe I'm taking it a little too far?

Grace Church on Facebook

I've been on Facebook now for a month and am actually rather enjoying it.  Friday the new Grace Church Facebook group page launched and already there are 17 members.  I can see how this web tool can be a benefit for networking and community.

Check out Facebook and add me as a friend. I'm not very fickle about accepting, I'll take any friend I can get.  Go to my profile here.

If you'd like to be a part of the Grace Church group, click here and sign up.  You do have to have a Facebook account.  Come on...be a part of the community!  Look at those wonderful looking members!

See you on Facebook!

-Babu

Sprint Cuts Customers Off

I believe this is a first.  I've never heard of a company actually eliminating customers because of their high maintenence phone calls.  Do you think Sprint will gain any new customers once word of this new "cost saving" tactic gets out?   Is this an example of a company feeling it's a "privelege" to be a part of their network?  By the way...to all my Sprint buddies who work there...can you get the network to work in my house please?  I mean, the world headquarters is located in the same county. 

Here's the story:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Hundreds of cell phone customers are being given the boot, accused of being too high maintenance.Sprint-Nextel is disconnecting more than 1,000 subscribers on grounds the clients call customer service too often and make "unreasonable requests."The 1,200 people getting dropped will have to find a new carrier by the end of the month. Continue reading...

Update: A Sprint employee has turned in a work order on my behalf to look at the network around my home.  I thought that was pretty good customer service.

Update 2: Check out Seth Godin's post regarding this issue here.