The Challenge
Planting a new church in the middle of a bustling city is not easy. Where should we meet? How do we get the word out? Where do we put up announcements about the new church? These are the questions that faced Tim Richmond and John Brackbill. Both men felt God’s call to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ with the ethnically diverse population of New York City, beginning with the borough of Queens. The first thing they needed was an engaging web presence that could be the church’s hub of information online. All the outreach and canvassing efforts would need to direct people to the site for directions, their beliefs, upcoming events, and weekly sermons.
The Solution
Website, powered by Backstage. Because of its prolific work with many other ministries and their unique website updating system called Backstage, the team Your Creative People was brought on to create a site that had both the metropolitan feel and also fit the conservative nature of the new church. Your Creative People built a site that made it easy for Tim and John, both non-technical users, to update each week with new photos, weekly sermons, and upcoming events.
"Their customer service has been excellent and the Backstage program has been very easy to use as a layman. We look forward to using their services...and highly recommend them." - Tim Richmond
Logo & brand collateral. Your Creative People Creative Director and owner, Justin Murphy, also travelled to NYC and worked side by side with Tim to develop a new logo for the church plant that would act as the recognizable identifier of the new church. During that trip, the team at Your Creative People developed additional collateral materials such as a gospel tract, direct mail pieces, door-hangers, and portable church signage. All of the materials were created with the same unified look and feel to give the community the visual association for this new ministry.
"Their greatest asset to us has been their ability to put a professional and unifying look to all of our outreach materials in print and website design...that helped us put forward a professional and attractive face to the community." - Tim Richmond
Community outreach. Grace Baptist Church is a ministry that constantly reaches out into the community. Tim asked Your Creative People to create several themed campaigns, including awareness for a current sermon series’, a Bible conference, and neighborhood outreach nights. From signage in the subway to cards that members could hand out at the local Starbucks, Your Creative People provided several sets of branded pieces that advertised the events and at the same time reinforced the church’s local presence in the community. Keeping the members up to date is also an important part of ministry. Tim is able to use the built-in e-mail newsletter software in the Backstage CMS to send out bi-weekly newsletters that give members information and regular spiritual encouragement.
Discipleship and the training of leaders. Tim and the leadership at Grace Baptist Church are focused on one-on-one discipleship and the training of the next generation of ministry leadership. He asked Your Creative People to design the graphics for a discipleship series, differentiating each topical study, while at the same time, connecting them back to the series. Your Creative People delivered a set of 9 book cover designs which have now been put into regular use at Grace.
“We have had several visitors come [in] the past few weeks through the website. I pointed the Google ads to within a mile or two and we are seeing about one new visitor a week from that. The other folks come through the sidewalk sign. . . In our last baptismal service two men were baptized – father son from the same family and they came through the website.” - Tim Richmond