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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
Branding basicsThe 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!
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!