10 Mistakes the Church Makes in Media

These are my notes from one of the breakout sessions at the National Outreach Convention a couple weeks ago. The session was 10 Mistakes the Church Makes in Media with Phil Cooke. I thought it was good enough to share. Not all of this is directly from Phil Cooke, some of it was added by me, but since I'm writing this off of my notes I can't really remember which is which.

1. Lack of Creativity. We don't come up with our own stuff, instead we just rip off what everyone else has already come up with. We steal logos and make them Christian, or have Christian versions of certain products, or even certain phrases. Only we like those kinds of things, to the rest of the world we just look stupid.

2. Bad Writing. We try to write Christian movies and most often just fail. When is the last time you saw a really great Christian movie? I know there are some like the Chronicles of Narnia that do really well, but most are just sad. I'm thinking of movies like Fireproof, Left Behind and Hangman's Curse. These might be good movies, but are any of them box office hits? Instead of good Christians making movies, we need more Christians making good movies. These movies don't have to be "Christian" they can be just good clean movies.

3. The Lingo. We speak in a completely different language then the rest of the world. With Christianeze words like salvation, grace, and redemption. Sure most people understand the general concept but they still don't really understand us. Some definitions of these Christianeze words can be found at www.marilavell.com as she works her way through the alphabet.

4. Media is a two way conversation. We think that media is all about telling people things or pushing an agenda. But we forget that people can communicate back to us with by either responding or not. If we pick up on this communication we can see what actually works and what doesn't.

5. Everything communicates. When a visitor walks in, everything makes an impression: the paint, the bulletin, the music, the people, the bathrooms, the chairs, everything. So we should look around and see what we can find. Have a spot where the paint is chipped? it may look harmless to you, or you've just gotten used to it, but to a visitor that leaves a small impression that says "they don't care." If you have bulletins that are folded crooked, you may not notice, but visitors will see that and think "they are lazy, they don't care."

6. Understand the power of the name. All you have to do is go to Google and type in "funny church names" and you'll see why. Even if its traditional to include the name of whatever town your in, think about how it sounds when you say it. Also think of whatever alternative meanings could be taken from your church names.

7. We don't speak the language of design. Unless you're in a mega church who can afford to hire a media designer, you're bound to end up with poor designs, or cliches. We need to make sure our media design reflects our congregation. Cooke says there are four images we need to avoid, simply because they are used too often. These are Flags, globes, doves, and flames. I would add Lighthouses to that list, but maybe that's just because I grew up near the coast.

8. Understand the power of a niche. Instead of trying to appeal to every single person on earth, we need to find a niche that we fit into. Appeal to a single group of people and do it well.

9. No brand unity. There are churches where the bulletins show one logo, the screen shows another, and the decor is an entirely different logo. This shows a lack of brand unity. You want to be sure that everything you produce (bulletins, newsletters, stationary, website, powerpoints, and business cards) has the same basic design and logo. If people can recognize your logo easily, they are more likely to remember you church in the future.

10. Understand context. Make sure your sending the right message to the people in your group. For example, you don't want all you media to represent older retired couples if your church is entirely young singles.

11. (my own) Not looking Professional. I find it very annoying when you can see misspelled words on a slide, or bad grammar, inconsistent spacing, etc. I also don't like when you can see what the person on the computer is trying to do. Like when you can see the cursor on the screen, or if they are showing a video and have to drag the video window from one screen to another. There are programs you can download that will help you look professional. If you don't know how to do this, then get in contact with the media department from a larger church and ask them.

Update time: we played our last intramural football game today against off campus and apartments. They dominate every year simply because they are all older, and the ones who show up are usually more athletic. We lost 12-20, which is a lot better then I thought we would do. It was lots of fun though, and they will play in the finals in two weeks. I'm hoping they win so we can say we lost to the best team.

Supposedly I will have a job soon, I applied for an online job that was posted to the school website, and was told to fill out a bunch of forms and such. I thought that I pretty much had the job and was just waiting for the go ahead, but I haven't heard anything from them in over a week even though I've done everything they asked.

A lot of people have been talking about Thanksgiving plans this week. I really don't have any plans. My dad is having surgery the day before, and me going home would probably not be any help to him at all. So I'm going to be staying in the dorms. Most people feel sorry when I say this, but it may be nice to have only a few people in the dorms for a few days. I figure I'll catch up on homework, and sleep, watch a bunch of movies, maybe even read a book (thinking Dawn Treader since that movie is almost out). One of the professors here opens their house to students on thanksgiving, so I figure I'll go to dinner there.

bad communicator

I realize I'm not very good at communicating with people unless I see them constantly. In one of my previous posts I mentioned I was interning at Redmond Assembly with the youth group and my mom commented saying it was the first shes heard of it. The same thing happened last week when I mentioned I was going to California (more later) this week. I hadn't even mentioned this to my parents at all. My parents aren't the only ones I do it to. I realized that I hardly ever talk to my best friend, Richie, who is currently working in Pullman and waiting to get back into school there. I think. I don't know, when the semester began he wasn't even in Washington. I hardly ever talk to my siblings either. So I think I will try to work on that over the coming months.

Ok, California. This week my youth outreach and evangelism class, along with the children's evangelism and outreach class, is going to San Diego to volunteer at an Outreach conference. I guess normally they go to the LA Dreamcenter, but this year the outreach conference is going on and since that's our class subject they decided we should go to that. Other then the conference I'm not entirely sure what we are doing there, I heard mention that we would be going to the beach but who knows. Anyway it is 10:30 at night and I have to be up at 5 AM to catch the plane tomorrow so I am going to sign off.

Am I Peter?

A few days ago I was reading some of my old essays from last year. I found this and thought I would share. We were supposed to write about which person in the Bible we related to most.


I feel that I relate most to Peter. I’ve noticed that Peter was the impulsive one of the apostles. He jumped out of the boat and walked on water without second thought, he quickly attacked the soldiers who had come to arrest Jesus without even thinking. Throughout his life Peter does some pretty impulsive and stupid things. Sometimes I feel like what I’m doing is impulsive and not sure if I really should be doing it. At other times I know that I’ve done something stupid and don’t know how to fix it.
Sometimes I feel like I’m being impulsive and doing things that don’t make sense. To most the people in this world what I’m doing seems stupid. I’m studying youth ministry, and the world says that’s a stupid idea because I can’t make money from it. I feel that I’m following God’s calling, just like Peter responded to Jesus calling him. According to the world’s standards I am doing something stupid, just as Peter did when he stepped out of the boat and onto the water.
At some points Peter seems to be the only one who gets it. When Jesus asked who people thought he was it was Peter who said he was the Son of God. Going back to walking on water, only Peter believed that Christ would allow him to do so, all the other apostles were too afraid and stayed in the boat.
Like Peter, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who understands. Growing up in church I understood some difficult concepts long before my peers. I don't necessarily say that I'm smarter, I just get it.
Another similarity between me and Peter is the desire to defend our savior, even if it would harm our cause. When the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, Peter was quick to defend and cut off the soldier’s ear. Jesus stopped him and went with the guards anyway. Peter wanted to keep the soldiers from taking Jesus but Jesus knew this is something that needed to happen. So often I fight the urge to argue with unbelievers because they attack certain doctrines of my belief. Even though I know that this would only harm my cause and push them away from Christ rather than pull them in, I feel the urge to defend my beliefs just as Peter did.

A day in the Life....

of a poor college student/ youth ministry intern. Friday 10/8/10

Friday was an odd day. So I figured I'd write about it.

I woke up at 9, got dressed and had breakfast like normal. Then went to class at 10:20 and had a midterm. I studied quite a bit the night before and even though I was nervous, I thought I would do pretty well. For the most part I did, until I got to the last question. It asked me to list the different parts of a Suzerainty treaty from the Old testament. I knew I had studied this and figured I should know it, but my mind was just blank. I sat there for about the last fifteen minutes of class trying to remember the answer to this one question. We had the option to stay after and work on the exam if we wanted, but at this point I figured I either knew it or I didn't. So I turned in the exam with that one answer still blank (I couldn't even think of a good guess). Then I went to chapel at 11:20 and lunch at 12:30 (chicken nugget Friday!)
After lunch I was trying to decide if I had time to walk (car is out of gas) down to the bank and change all my coins over to cash before my next class. I decided not to until one of the guys on my floor said he had to go too and he was driving. (1:00ish) So I rode along and figured that I would make it back in time for my 1:40 class; I was wrong. I had figured the bank would have a coin counting machine so it would be done quickly. But they didn't, and I still can't figure out why they don't. Almost every grocery store does, our little bank in Cathlamet did, so why wouldn't a larger bank in the middle of a city have one? Instead I had to count and roll all my nickles and pennies by hand, even having the other two guys that were with me helping. By the time we got back to school (2:00) my class was almost half over, so I didn't bother going. Instead I did laundry (the reason I went to the bank in the first place).
About 4:45 I walked over to the school coffee shop and buy myself an iced grande white chocolate americano, add shot (making it 4 shots). Then brought it back to my room and stuck it in the fridge for later that night.
The rest of the afternoon/evening was fairly normal, dinner at 5, homework/goofing off afterwards. At 9 pm Aaron and I leave for Redmond Assembly of God to help chaperon for the youth conference/lock-in (the reason for the quad shot coffee). First we stop at Target so Aaron can make some exchanges. We get to the church early (10) and wait outside for whoever was supposed to arrive early to unlock the door. After waiting for about 10-15 minutes we walk around and discover that the back door to the youth room is unlocked and the other leader is in there already. So we sit around playing Beatles Rock Band waiting for the youth group to get back from Renton (Youth Conference was at New Life Renton). I Learned a few songs that they were all shocked I didn't know, because apparently you haven't lived unless you listen to the Beatles. The youth group (and the youth from Colfax AG who were also spending the night) begin playing a game of Aliens, basically a mix of capture the flag and tag. The alien runs around tagging people, if someone finds the flag (glowstick) they can tag the Alien and the game is over. The rest of my night is basically spent walking around the dark labyrinth that is the church with a flashlight (lights were off for the game) making sure the teens weren't breaking anything or hiding in any of the classrooms making out. By 1:00 all the guys are confined to the youth room while the girls go to sleep in one of the class rooms. Most the group went to sleep fairly quickly, but for some reason my quad shot (which I drank at 9) was still affecting me 4 hours later. So I was wide awake talking to one of the other night owls about nerf guns and pranks. Interesting conversation. By 3:00 I actually 'sleep'.

back to the grind

So I am back at college, have been for a couple weeks, figured its about time I write a new blog entry. My roommate is pretty cool, we get along well so that's good.
So far my classes aren't too bad, mostly reading homework, which I love so much. If you can't tell, yes I'm being sarcastic. I've had to do a short sermon already in my preaching class, my professor records all sermons so we can evaluate them, and I have some distracting habits. (comments if you want to see the video).
It's been fun getting to know the guys from my floor, and girls from my sister floors. Our floor is no longer a quiet, laid back floor like it was last year. Out of the 15 rooms that are being used, 7 of them have sound systems (not just a stereo or boom box, a sound system). And between 6 people there are 14ish Nerf guns. In fact just today I got a bloody lip from being hit with a Nerf gun, but it's all fun.
The Cafeteria food isn't as bad as everyone claims, its just not great either, so I don't complain.
Now that I'm back at the college I have been making myself go to the weight room twice a week. It's actually kind of fun cause its one of the only times I ever get to see one of my friends, who both got married and is a nursing major. So she keeps me accountable. I have given her permission to yell at me if I miss a workout, and I don't doubt that she will.
At this point I realize I'm rambling and I need to go to bed, so I will log off for the night, please comment.
Tschüß
(if you are unaware, Tschüß is a German farewell)