I recently had the opportunity to work with a great church on a sermon graphic for a series that would immediately follow their Easter Sunday services. This pastor shared his vision with me as follows…
Title: DIRT
Date: April 7th – May 5th
Tagline: Something From Nothing
Why: God wants to take our nothing and turn it into something
How: He has a plan for all of us, but part of that plan is up to us
What: God makes beautiful things out of dust when we make Him part of our process
Graphic Ideas: Dirt, growth, and green
Outline: Week 1 – Growth Takes Time
Week 2 – Giving The Holy Spirit Permission To Work
Week 3 – Separating Relationship From Religion
Week 4 – What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Stronger
Week 5 – He Makes Beautiful Things!
Whenever you’re given details like this, it makes designing creative elements around the message so much easier. Lead pastors, if giving your creative guys details like this in advance is a foreign thing for you, I would encourage you to simply give it a try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the level of creativity that will emerge when your crew has time to truly put their heart into it. This particular pastor plans out his sermons quarterly and shares them with his team through a Google Doc. That way, they’re able to start with the God-given vision from the pastor and then build ideas to communicate it effectively to their congregation. What’s really neat about this method is that individual team members—who all have different strengths—are able to share their ideas and afternoon daydreams right within this shared “Series Outlook” document. To see the body of Christ work together like this is downright inspiring!
Creative team leaders, I’d also remind you that this applies to you, too! Are you planning ahead for the creative media you’ll be using in your upcoming services or are you simply winging it? Even if your lead pastor and worship leader are notorious for waiting to the last minute to give you their content, you can still plan ahead for your areas. (Things like announcement slides, song backgrounds, pre/post-service music, volunteers, etc. are all things that you can plan even if they haven’t given you some kind of vision.) Lacking direction? Try using seasonal themes such as Easter, Spring, Fall, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. Based solely around those themes, you could gather a creative team to develop ideas to make your services awesome.
After spending some time with my creative crew in a “think tank” looking at the pastor’s vision for this series, we came up with the following graphics. Feel free to download them and use them in your church. Want to create your own? You can find this photo on Lightstock.
How do you plan for your messages at your church?
Title Graphic:
Background Graphic 1:
Background Graphic 2:
