Our Church Magazine: Quail Family

quail church magazineOver the last couple of months, I’ve been working on a 16-page, full-color, glossy magazine that was created to be an outreach tool to introduce our church family to our community for Quail Springs Baptist Church.

We’ve called this magazine Quail Family. In the magazine, we wrote feature-style articles on each of our main ministries, focusing on individuals within those areas in order to put a “face to our church.” Instead of doing another direct-mail piece, or advertisement, we wanted to make something that was personal and inviting.

We printed 15,000 copies and this week mailed 5,000 to homes and apartments in a mile-radius of our church. We’ll also be asking our members to put them on their coffee tables, or in their businesses, and to use it as a tool to invite their friends, family, and neighbors to church.

Because of this, I worked hard to exclude time-sensitive information, such as events. I think the only thing that dates the magazine is the cover issue of “Winter 2007.”

If you’d like to download a copy of the magazine in PDF-format, click here (almost 2MB)

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November 29, 2007 · Filed Under Church Marketing, Media

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5 Realities of Church Website Design

Over the last five-plus years of working in the churches, I’ve honed my philosophy of church websites quite a bit. I’m been frustrated often because ministry leaders usually don’t have a concept or idea of what goes into a typical website and the cost of the sites they have dreamed up.

Granted, I like to dream too. But dreaming costs money. And no matter what someone says, web designing is more complex (read: hard) than typical graphic design (i.e. your Sunday bulletin). Meaning, it takes more time, it costs more money, and it’s overall — just harder.

This is why most graphic designers haven’t crossed over. Most graphic designers don’t have to know how to create and tweak code in order to produce beautiful designs. Throw in the fact that web surfers use numerous different browsers, of which all render websites differently, and you can see why it took me so long to do it.

So with all this in mind, here’s a couple of things I’ve come back to often when trying to educate ministry leaders on my philosophy of church websites design and production:

1. Great websites cost money.

Most ministers will see a great website and think that for $39.99 they can have one exactly like it. But if you want a quality church websites, you need to realize, it will cost you a lot more than $39.99. Read more

November 28, 2007 · Filed Under Church Websites

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A Church Event Calendar WordPress Plugin

Although it was designed for touring bands to be able to announce their concert dates, GigaPress could also be the answer to helping churches who are using WordPress post an easy event schedule to their websites.

Here’s a screenshot of what it could look like:

churchcalendar.jpg

November 27, 2007 · Filed Under Church Websites

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A New Premium Dark WordPress Theme

We recently released another premium WordPress theme to our inventory — Dark News Theme.

It could be used by a church, for a contemporary look. It has a couple of great features, including using a Features post section for upcoming events, and more …

dark news theme

November 25, 2007 · Filed Under Church Websites

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Sunday School for Atheists

Sunday School for Atheists… a Time Magazine article about how atheists share Sunday education

November 25, 2007 · Filed Under Sidenotes

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10 Ways to Avoid Blogger Burnout

10 Ways to Avoid Blogger Burnout… Ariel gives some great insights on blogging.

November 14, 2007 · Filed Under Sidenotes

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