Community of Grace

Aug 3

In my first year as a communications director, a 130-year-old Lutheran church decided to change its name. That might seem like no big deal but trust me, it was.

I led the communications and rebranding efforts. We needed to clarify our message and develop a new brand identity for an old church with a rich history. Here’s some of what we created and learned.

MY ROLE

Full-time communications director; creative direction, project manager

DESIGN AGENCY

HellothisisJeff Design

WEB PLATFORM

Wordpress

Logo

Before

After

The Change

First English Evangelical Lutheran Church was exactly what it suggested in the name - the first English-speaking Lutheran church in the area.

After a century of growth and community impact, modern times shortened the name to First Lutheran Church. But with the post-Christian culture of the US becoming much more prominent in the 2010s, top church leadership found an appropriate window in time to change the name of the church. A name that would better represent on the outside, who the church was on the inside.

The Challenge

Turning a giant ship is hard enough as it is. Some of the key challenges we faced:

Key stakeholders that had literally been going to First Lutheran their whole life! Navigating their feelings and emotions was particularly difficult. Focus groups and listening intently were a top priority.
The “Lutheran” part of the name was up for much discussion. Lutheran on its own didn’t help people understand WHO we are and in some cases was a barrier to people. However, it wasn’t untrue, we are a Lutheran Church! So we had created clarity that Lutheran would be a part of the name, but a subtitle, not the headline.
Once we got through all of that, we now had to create a brand that would honor the past white looking toward the future and aligning with current brand standards. HellothisisJeff Design, our branding and design partner agency for this project has an excellent article about the challenges we faced and overcame here.

The Results

In February 2017, we fully adopted the new name: Community of Grace Lutheran Church. We developed a new brand identity and in September 2017 we launched a fully custom website. The road was long and uphill. When we arrived at our destination, I can honestly say how proud I was of the journey.