A Day On a Cali Campus: Edgar and His Family Idol

Today I spent all day at UCSD sharing my faith with some top notch students from around the country.

UCSD is an interesting animal of a campus. They are incredibly smart. Their library is designed to be the “tree of knowledge”. There is even a long sidewalk shaped like a snake that stretches hundreds of feet next to the library. We heard today that this liberal University is allowing students to put student-made pornographic videos on the campus TV network for the whole campus to see.

The students are chasing after noble things. One of the students I met with today, Edgar, is a non-practicing Catholic who said that is greatest goal in life is to have a great family.

Having a wonderful family is a great thing, but if it is the end goal, life will be much less than what God intended it to be.

If you are like Edgar, you need to know that if family is your ultimate object of worship, comfort, and security then you are in danger. What if a member of your family dies? What if your spouse leaves you? What if your child doesn't become an “A” student or a star athlete?

If any of these things happen, it will result in depression or bitterness. Why? Because the thing (in this case family) that we make an idol or god, if fractured or destroyed, will leave us with nothing to fall back on. Hope, comfort, and security will be stripped away from us.

The good news is that Jesus confronts family idolatry and offers a better solution. He died on the cross so that we could have the opportunity to have Him be the supreme object of worship in our lives rather than family. And if we trust in Him, our families actually become better!

How?

If someone in your family passes away (and Jesus is supreme in your life), He offers to be your comfort and offers to give you hope that you will get to see your family member again. If your spouse leaves you (and Jesus is supreme in your life), He will remind you that He will never leave or forsake you. If your child doesn't meet your academic or athletic standards (and Jesus is the supreme in your life), you will be able to love your child unconditionally since Jesus loved you without any conditions even though You didn't meet his expectations.

Family is a good thing, but when made ultimate, becomes a very bad thing. Jesus is Edgar's only hope to have the family he desires.

Before A Sweet Logo: Branding Your Movement

by Tyler Zach

Branding Tips To Help Your Movement Connect With The Lost

“Branding is a dynamic weapon used to affect perception. If you can grasp that marketing is the management of perception, then it should be easy to understand that branding is, in simple terms, the use of defined consistency to affect perception over time. Branding is not just a design. It is not a logo. It is not a letterhead. It is the sum perception you create in the mind of those with whom you are trying to connect.” (Church Marketing 101 pg 160)

If your movement can be pictured like a ship, then your brand is what others think about your ship when it passes by or when they come on board. Branding then, is creating a defined sense of self in the ship’s appearance and communication. In regards to your movement, branding comes from having a cohesive sense of who you are as an organization and effectively communicating THAT in all that you do.

Here are some essentials to help you become a well-branded movement (pg 201):

• Know who you are and who you are not as a movement.
• Have a set of core pillars, tenants, or values that you are committed to be passionate about as a movement – and communicate them weekly. Often the leadership says something once or twice and assumes it has been communicated to everyone. It is just not so. As with the radio, people tune in at different times. By the time you have said something several times some people are just hearing it for the first time.
  
• By creating a set of core values that you communicate regularly, you can undo the perceptions that people have of Jesus and your movement.
  
• Have a vision piece (brochure) and supporting media to illustrate the vision and the brand.
• Make decisions that shape public perception with your brand as a filter.
• Have a welcome kit that provides visitors with a sense of the size and offerings of the ship and gives them a “map” of how to get connected and grow.
• Use your design style consistently.
• Have a brand management meeting every six months or less, to discuss how you are communicating as a movement and how well your members and the college community are catching on to 1) who you are, 2) where you are going, and 3) their steps for growth with you.
• Keep statistics on who is volunteering and who is participating in each level of your movement.
• Create a sense of continual challenge for each level mixed with patience.
  

For those of you wondering about graphic design, know this: brand and branding are not graphic design terms. Design plays a part, but it fits into the brand, it does not drive the brand.

Branding is primarily verbal communication. This has caused me to think about how much time I spend with student leaders – coaching them on how to effectively communicate our vision and purpose. I have not done a very good job at this.

Whether you are communicating verbally or non-verbally through graphic design remember that you will always need to:

• Captivate them and draw them in
• Connect with their sense of self, need, or style (meet them where they are at)
• Communicate clearly, providing more answers than raising questions
  

This ends my blog series on Movement Marketing. A big thank you to Richard Reising for pioneering these concepts for churches (as well as us in the campus ministry) around the world. Go buy the book, Church Marketing 101, today!

*content was gleaned and contextualized from Church Marketing 101