Sometimes designing sermon series graphics can be tough. It’s a design niche riddled with puns, goofiness, and bad art, which is problematic for artists on the hunt for design inspiration.
What you create is a direct result of your inputs.
This is true of everything in life. If you want to be a better designer, surround yourself with the best quality you can find. If you want to worsen or stagnate your skills, surround yourself with subpar work.
Designer Jim LePage is creating some inspiring illustrations for each book of the Bible. His sermon series art is complete up through Hosea. More design candy to come. I find his style and interpretation to be some fresh inspiration for designers creating expository sermon series graphics.
Here are my favorites:
EXODUS
NUMBERS
JUDGES
1 SAMUEL
NEHEMIAH
JOB
For Discussion: >> What is your favorite source of design inspiration for sermon series? Share links in your comments.
Every July, LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK) hosts a sermon series called “At the Movies” that uses movie clips to illustrate spiritual truths. And every year LifeChurch.tv sets new attendance records.
To add some extra fun to the sermon series, each campus decorates their facility with a movie theme. This year Stillwater’s campus did Field of Dreams and created a baseball diamond in their lobby complete with dirt. However, my favorite theme from this year is the Tulsa campus’ Toy Story theme. Here are some highlights:
OUTSIDE
Before you even enter the church, you are greeted by a Toy Story “At the Movies” wall mural and Pizza Planet golf carts to shuttle you to the door.
ENTRANCE
As you enter the building, you pass through a tunnel of Legos and pop out from under a giant bed into a lobby child’s room full of larger than life toys.
INSIDE
The lobby features Buzz Lightyear himself greeting guests in front of an over-sized Etch-A-Sketch (his packaging is off to the side). Toys sit atop a giant furniture. Aliens sit inside a toy rocket. And the church refreshment stand is now a Pizza Planet franchise.
Also, watch out for the giant electrical cord!
To experience an “At the Movies” sermon, visit one of LifeChurch.tv’s many campuses or attend online at one of 48 weekly service times. Due to movie licensing rights, these sermons will not be available to watch online after the sermon series, so be sure to catch “At the Moves” while it is still going on.
Special thanks to @johnadavis (LifeChurch.tv Logistcs Director) and @derrickhenslee (LifeChurch.tv Tulsa Campus Pastor) for taking the photos.
Earlier this month, I met with the team from Clark (formerly Clark ProMedia) to learn about future church needs, how Clark has evolved to meet these needs, and what they have learned in the process.
In the beginning, Clark was a production company creating audiovisual environments for churches, but they realized the best worship environments are created from a seamless master plan that lets the architects, audiovisual team, and worship leaders collaborate. So Clark has rebranded themselves and expanded their services to include everything needed to strategically create environments for pre-launch church plants all the way up to multi-site gigachurches.
Services include strategic facilities planning, development, and management as well as designing performance space, audio visual lighting, acoustics, and multi-site/virtual teaching solutions. They also offer worship leader consulting and online strategy. And for the extremely tech savvy, they are one of the few companies in the world offering holographic telepresence.
Cofounder Houston Clark was kind enough to share three leadership philosophies that have driven their strategy in creating environments for churches of all sizes:
BE HOLISTIC
Without a seamless big picture strategy, churches can find themselves in a battle with their building. This can lead to the architecture hindering the audio visual needs and neither one being able to best meet the ever-changing ministry needs of the church. Get on the same page. Developing a holistic plan that meets each area’s needs will not only make you more effective but also save you lots of money.
STAY CURRENT
There is no way to predict the future, but it is wise to be aware of trends that could affect what people need, want, and expect from your church in 5 years. For instance, people in many areas are becoming more locally-focused and interested in community, so Clark spends a great deal of time studying how to create church intimacy regardless the size of a church. Staying current allows you to create environments that are more sustainable since you have a better idea of what the future needs.
RESPECT THE CONTEXT
Just because a technology exists, does not mean it is right for your church. What you do must fit within the context of your worship environment and church culture. Having a 3D hologram preacher isn’t right for every church, but it is for some. Never do tech for tech’s sake. Always do tech for context’s sake.
Clark helps churches identify and implement the right environment for their unique context. If you want to know how they could help your church, just contact them. They’d love to talk to you.
Special thanks to Clark for supporting Church Relevance by sponsoring this post.
One of the few blogs I’ve read consistently over the years is Information is Beautiful by David McCandless. It showcases many of the world’s best designed infographics. Now David McCandless has a book, The Visual Miscellaneum, that offers over 250 pages of infographic inspiration.
If you aren’t familiar with term infographics, it uses visual design to make information faster and easier to understand or at least more entertaining. It is one of the most effective and efficient ways to communicate complex data.
At this point, infographics are more of a novelty, but it is only a matter of time before people grow accustomed to quality infographics and begin expecting them even at church. If you are a designer, consider adding The Visual Miscellaneum to your library. It has quickly become one of my favorite design books.
Disclaimer: Church Relevance received a complimentary review book, and this post uses Amazon affiliate links.
Church on the Move (Tulsa, OK) has a reputation for experimenting with creative arts to tell the story of Christ. I like the simple execution but powerful imagery of the backdrop for their Easter weekend worship.
As worship leaders led the congregation in song, three painters began writing bright red-pixeled letters in the background.
It spelled “Amazing Grace.”
At this point, they began singing the song Amazing Grace, and the red letters became a crown of thorns as an image of Christ on the cross appeared behind the letters.
My wife, evie s., recently launched A Beautiful Idea. It is an opportunity for artists to create products to benefit charity. If you are an artist, you should sign up! It is really quite simple:
The official launch of the first wave of products is March 15th, but some products have already begun to sneak onto the site.
Not everyone attends church, but people are more likely to attend church during Christmas and Easter. For an extra nudge of motivation, many churches plan special Christmas services. Here are two of 2009’s creative church Christmas promos:
