A friend forwarded this to me last week… I’m sure that about 100 of the nearly 900,000 views on YouTube are mine…
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Branding Faith by Phil Cooke
Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Non-Profits Impact Culture and Others Don't
I had the opportunity to attend several sessions with Phil Cooke at a conference this past summer and became an instant fan. Phil is a Hollywood producer/director who also happens to be a devout Christian. He also does consulting with various Christian media organizations to help them push past the various obstacles that keep them from growing. He has a blog that addresses issues of media and faith at www.philcooke.com.
The book itself explores the culture in which the church finds itself wrestling for influence and ways to harness the power of media to accomplish our goals. Phil spends most of the book making a case for the ways in which branding helps churches and nonprofits reach a larger audience.
It’s the whole issue of “impacting culture” that has me interested in what Phil has to say. I have observed that many of the churches that I’ve had relationship with in the past few years have been great places of worship and teaching, but have lacked the kind of influence that impacts individuals in the community, let alone the culture of the community at large.
Among other points, Phil argues that design (visual arts) is the language of this generation. I see this in my own experience and preferences as well. The thing that stuck in my mind after reading this was the ways that people navigate through information. When I’m looking for music in my iPod, for example, I like to navigate through the cover flow (a tool which displays album art that you scroll through like flipping pages of a book) but my wife prefers to scroll through the title list. My way is visual, hers is textual. It’s not surprising, since I’m a lot more plugged into media and internet than she is.
The concept of branding has some real detractors in Christian circles and is sometimes seen as a “wordly” way to communicate through subtle manipulation. As a result, the book spends a lot of time building a case for branding ministries and churches. He also acknowledges the pitfalls of misusing and placing to much “faith” in our marketing. He points our Jesus’ own method of welcoming people while simultaneously teaching hard truths that often thinned the numbers. In short, marketing and branding gets “butts in the seats” but it is the truth of the Gospel that changes people’s hearts.
I would have enjoyed a more practical book, with specific methodologies for branding… and I suppose those are out there. The purpose here is to challenge and support Christian organization and leaders to communicate more clearly and specifically to the media driven culture that we live in.
You can purchase Branding Faith from the WOP bookstore by clicking here.
Give Back Week… The Sequel…
Touch by brionnasweetie2 on Flickr.com
Turns out, one week featuring our “Give Back” philosophy just isn’t enough… This week, we continue to feature the mission work of Jack Fairweather in the Philippines, with “Street Kid Stories” and some thoughts on “Purpose,” inspired by conversations with Jack…
And in case you missed any of last week’s articles, here’s a quick recap:
Give Like Jesus… by Tim Jones
Jesus did a lot of miracles. When he encountered a person in need, his first response (with a few exceptions) was to meet the need. This is certainly an example that he intended us to follow. But these two miracles were special… he did something a little different… the question is, WHY? (read more)
Missionary Slide Shows… by Tim Jones
We’re artists: photographers, graphic artists, media designers, filmmakers, songwriters, indie bands… The visual and emotional flash that these missionaries need to engage their audiences, hold their attention and get help for Joe and other kids like him… it’s just a “doodle” for us… (read more)
Initiating Contact… by Tim Jones
There are practical and spiritual reasons that artists should initiate contact with missionaries… (read more)
Interview with John Prichard and Jack Fairweather… by Tim Jones
I hooked up with student filmmaker, John Prichard, and missionary, Jack Fairweather, to talk about Jack’s work with street kids in the Philippines and the short film that John is making about the mission there… (more)
Arise! Mission Video… by John Prichard
Pre-release of John Prichard’s short film featuring missionary, Jack Fairweather. (watch it now)
Arise Mission Video
John Prichard was kind enough to provide us with this pre-release video of his short film featuring missionary Jack Fairweather. Read our interview with John and Jack here.
Interview with John Prichard & Jack Fairweather…
Student filmmaker, John Prichard, with missionary, Jack Fairweather. John spent his senior spring break shooting footage for a short film about Jack's ministry to street kids in the Philippines.
You don’t have to be around Jack Fairweather long to get a sense of his calling… Like most missionaries, he can’t help but tell you the stories.
John Prichard has a air of anticipation surrounding him… Starting college at the University of Colorado (Denver, not Boulder, he’s quick to point out) this fall dominates the landscape in his life.
I finally hooked up with the two of them today at the offices of LifeChange International, an organization that provides accountability and guidance to missionaries on four continents, and the conversation that we had was challenging, inspiring and engaging.
Jack got back from a four-month visit to the Philippines in May, to attend his graduation from Denver Seminary and begin raising support for a permanent mission there. He has a vision for building an entire community, 100 orphaned children and 57 impoverished families just to start, to provide these kids who live on the street with shelter, food, clothing, medical care and education, to help families without the means to care for their kids with housing and a means to become self-supporting. As he talks about it, I can’t help but get excited about the possibilities.
Jack started working with people in poverty while he was a student minister in Omaha, NE. Sensing that this was something God wanted them to pursue, he and his wife, Tammy, trained to be medics and went to the Philippines to serve people in poverty there. He tells us about an evening that he observed several young kids laying out their cardboard beds on the streets and thought, This can’t be right, in the Kingdom of God, this just can’t be right.
Kids in the Philippines end up on the street because their parents die, are unable to care for them or get duped to sell them into human trafficking scams. The child-welfare system is overwhelmed and even with other charitable organizations operating in the country, tens-of-thousands of children under the age of 12 have no homes, no family and no food to eat.
John is wearing a t-shirt that says, Give blood, play rugby, and that makes me smile. I happen to know that he plays rugby and has had his share of bumps and scrapes. He’s good-looking, athletic and smart. He articulates his ideas well and I have to continually remind myself that he just graduated from high school. I ask him why he wanted to spend his senior spring break with some of the poorest kids on the planet instead of being on the beach with the hotties. His response amazes me, Outreach is the most important thing that Christians can do, he explains, And I wanted to make the film to bring back some of the emotions of serving the poor that people here can’t even imagine.
John has built homes for the poor in Mexico as well and describes the conditions there: In Juarez, there are families that live in holes… literal holes in the ground. And as poor as they seem to us, these kids in the Philippines would seem poor to someone from Juarez… These kids in the Philippines don’t even have a hole to sleep in. Seeing the conditions in the Philippines, has changed him and given him purpose. He wants to work internationally as a filmmaker and bring attention to the conditions that exist in developing nations and challenge people to take action to help.
Jack hopes that John’s film will bring awareness to the plight of the poor and kindle a passion to serve the poor among Christians… to give a voice to the poor and to help Christians see God’s heart for those living in poverty. John wants the film to engage people emotionally and help them see that they can and should be active in making a difference in the lives of the poor.
I ask Jack about the kids and he’s ready with stories. When they went back in January, their plan was to study logistics, do some work with a clinic and NOT take-in any kids; but by the time they came home in May, they had 7 kids living with them. A Filipino friend is taking care of them while Jack and Tammy are here in the states. He talks about a little boy named Raffy, and gets a far-away look. Tammy and I will be his caregivers when we go back, he says… I suppose some things are too close to his heart to delegate…
On Monday, we’re going to share Jack’s stories about Raffy and a little girl named Joy-joy and how you can become involved in this ministry …
You can make a tax-deductible donation to Jack’s ministry through LifeChange by clicking here.
Want to see the pre-release version of John’s film? We’ll post the link later today…
