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.