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We have had the privilege of walking through renaming and rebranding processes with many churches throughout  the years. Churches choose to rename and rebrand for many reasons including new leadership, new vision and a desire to reach new demographics of people among other reasons.

Recently, we’ve seen an uptick in the number of churches choosing to rename and/or rebrand. Having come through the COVID-19 pandemic and many challenges in recent years, there is a recognition that we are in a new season culturally that is having a direct impact on the church. Leaders are rethinking how they are called to reach their communities and where they are headed as a result. This naturally leads to evaluating what they’re currently known for, what they want to be known for and how they’re going to get there.

If you’re feeling led to rename and/or rebrand your church, we want to provide you with some principles for leading through this process. This will help ensure that these processes for you are both vision driven (strategic) and creative as well.

Who should be included in this process & make up your Decision Team

The success of a project like renaming or rebranding that is both vision driven and creative hinges on the dynamics of the Decision Team. Here are a few things to think through when putting together this team who will have the responsibility and authority to direct where your church is headed with its name/brand:

• Trusted and empowered leadership
  Key to this team is a clear leader who can help keep the vision and values in front of the group. This leader needs to be ready to make decisions even if there isn’t complete unanimity to keep the process focused and moving forward in a timely manner. Ideally, in a renaming and rebranding process, the Lead Pastor or an executive level leader is involved.
  
  
• Individuals who are actively invested in your church and are excited about the future vision of the church
  Be very intentional about recruiting leaders - staff or lay leaders, who have been deeply invested in your church and who are also excited to embrace the new vision and branding that will support your church for the future. These are the people who will be pivotal in supporting and carrying out the new branding and vision once the process is complete.
  
  
• Varied skill sets
  The best teams are made up of people who embody the previous point and also have a variety of skill sets and personality types. Try to pull together a team that includes people who are analytical, creative, entrepreneurial, practical – you get the idea. Get a diverse team to help you consider all the perspectives.

As a rule of thumb, try to keep the team to 4-6 people who have been empowered to make these important decisions. It’s incredibly difficult to lead a large team to make decisions like these.

Embracing the Creative Process

Renaming and rebranding are creative processes at the core. They are fueled by vision and mission, but they come to be through creative collaboration. To do this well with a team, there are a few ground rules that we’ve found really help guide a team to make a decision.

• Give the baby bird a chance to fly
  We like to jokingly use the phrase “let the baby bird fly” whenever we talk about new ideas. This just means we want to always lead with the positive. In any brainstorming work, if you immediately go to the negative, then anything that might be good about an idea gets overlooked. So, even if the idea isn’t right, is there an element about it that is compelling? Just give the baby bird a chance!
  
  
• Elaborate on “why”
  Whether you are providing positive feedback or it’s time to give more critical, negative feedback, it is important to explain why you do or don’t like what has been presented based on your church’s overall strategy, values and the audience you are striving to connect with. Provide descriptive words and emotions about what it causes you to think or feel. This helps those involved in creating to have clarity and focus for future brainstorming.
  
  
• Keep it in the group
  We have seen many of these decisions get derailed when people on the team ask for input from others who have not been part of the process. This is often very unhelpful as the full context of the brainstorming and conversation is not represented. This introduces confusion to the decision process and can be a significant factor that stalls the creative process.

Decision-making principles for branding

When you have passionate leaders bringing multiple opinions and preferences to a creative process, decision making can become really challenging! These are some branding and naming principles that we’ve found are really helpful to understand that will help decision makers think well about what matters.

• What a brand is NOT:
  • Just a name
  • Just a logo
  • A color
  • A website
    
    
• What a brand IS:
• • An impression (or many impressions)
  • An experience (or many experiences)
  • A reputation
  • A true story

The more recognizable elements of a brand (logo, color, font, website) are part of a brand, but they aren’t the whole of what a brand is. Think of your favorite brands in the world, and ask yourself why you like them? Nike, Chick-fil-A, Disney, Apple … none of these have the most clever visual elements. What we like about them is our experience with them. 

At the risk of ruining my credibility about everything in the world, I’ll give you an example. Chick-fil-A is just … fine. I like it, it’s a good fast food option, but it’s not world-class food by any stretch of the imagination. What is world class is the experience you have. The people are so nice, they get you through the longest drive thru lines, the food is always consistent with what you’d expect and it’s always their pleasure to take care of you!

THIS is branding! When people have an amazing experience with your church and they see your name and logo on a t-shirt in the community, their amazing experience will cause them to have a positive association.

Practically, keep this in mind when deciding on naming and branding. Try not to get too caught up in the minutia of details (though they matter) because ultimately, you can have the best visual branding out there, but if people have bad experiences with your church or your people, the branding doesn’t matter. In the same way, if you have the most forgettable visual branding but people have amazing interactions consistently with your church, then the brand will be great!

The visuals definitely help a ton, but keep in mind that this needs to be a full experience, not a trendy look! How you live out the vision is what will make the brand come to life!

2. Decision-making traps
   
   
• Death by association
  We often see churches fall into the trap of thinking they need to have a visual brand or name that is completely unique. This is a misconception and may even be impossible in the digital world we’re in today. What this looks like is a team may say, “This look reminds me of ____, so we can’t go with it.” Most likely,  your church in your town will not be confused for an organization or company in another location.
  
  The goal is to be distinct rather than unique. Remember, distinct brands come together when your experience makes a positive impact on people’s lives!
  
  
• URLs and handles
  Leaders often pass on church names that work really well for who they are and what God is doing because the exact .com URL is not available or there’s already a church with the social media handle they want. Reality is, you can be creative and come up with a different URL or social media handle that still represents your brand (remember, your brand is an experience not a name).
  
  Google is really smart! When people are looking for churches in (city/town), it will find your church no matter what the URL is!

• • Unity > consensus
    It is nearly impossible to get a group of people to completely agree on anything. Put a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies in a room with a group of people and somebody is going to grab an oatmeal raisin cookie … and it’s always alarming when that happens! Ha! But, they do have unity that cookies are good and should be eaten if they’re in the room.

That said, helping your team pursue unity will always lead to a better outcome than pursuing consensus. Nobody is going to have their exact preference on every little detail. That’s ok and to be expected. But, can you be excited and support how this is going to help your church tell the story of what God is doing? If so, then it’s a green light! Unity is always better than consensus!

It is so important that the person who is leading this team is able to be decisive in this way. When there is a sense of unity and excitement, lean into that and make bold decisions to move ahead!

Pulling together the right team, embracing the creative process and leading well through the process of renaming and rebranding will result in amazing outcomes that will provide incredible momentum for your church and community.

Have you been thinking about renaming or rebranding? We’d love to connect, learn about your journey and help you process what the right next step is.

God is doing something unique and significant through your church where you are at.  We believe in you, we are praying for you and know that what you are doing matters!