MinistryCom 2007 wiki - A collection of links and information...

I think this year has definitely been the best yet. Huge kudos to Mark Bennardo for his production skeeeels [and connections with great talent like Mark Demel]. This year had a great pace to it. Lots of time to connect with others, but didn't feel like it dragged. Not sure where others are at, but one thought might be to start on Wednesday afternoon & end by noon or so on Friday. I know lots of folks were bummed they missed Kem's session & I think it'll be hard for the cd to do it justice.

Tagging on to Rob's comment about being authentic, our job as communicators really boils down to authentically communicating the EXPERIENCE. I loved your enhanced brand definition that includes, "the emotional aftertaste left of the experience." Too often we spend the majority of our time trying to work on the packaging without ensuring the chewy nougat center tastes good as well. I think this year that was a common theme shared by all the speakers. :)

Terrell, thanks again for having the vision for this in the first place.

.:: Dawn Nicole

Wow, a whole wiki for MinistryCOM 2007! I'm impressed, this is really cool.

Just to respond to Dawn's idea of going Wednesday - Friday noon, I think that's a great concept (it would make our teardown easier), but most of the venues we are using have Wednesday night services. That caused some very interesting setup challenges. We thought about a Monday-Tuesday, but that has everyone travelling on Sunday...

Terrell Sanders

We heard a lot about being authentic, and what it means to brand your church, to create logos, and to be consistent. I serve as an assistant to the Director of Camping, Retreat, and Youth Ministries for a conference of the United Methodist Church. We work with 6 camp sites and over 930 churches in our conference. One of the challenges we face is how to reach so many different types of people, and numbers of people. We've turned more and more to the internet, driving people to the conference websites. I've also taken over as webmaster for three of our websites, while the remainder of them fall under the Director of Communication for the conference.

Anyways, the point...In trying to be authentic to who we are, not only as God's church, but also as a Conference, and as United Methodists, I find myself turning to music often. Understanding a local church's musical styling will help to understand how to design for them. It isn't always good to be "edgy". In fact, many ministries try to be edgy just becuase they think it will draw more people in to their meetings.

Contemporary Christian music contrasts greatly with traditional hymns, not only in style and sound, but also in how it helps people relate to Christ. Traditional music was written, in general, to be an individual expression of intellectual worship. The complex lyrics and 4-part harmonies were designed to bring those singing them into intellectual engagement. Contemporary music however, has been designed as a communal engagement of emotional worship. Seldom do you see those singing hymns raise their hands in worship or shed a tear in wonderment of God. I do not say this to judge one type of music over another; I only point it out because it helps me understand a group of persons better, and thereby, design for them.

Those who prefer intellectual music are more likely to prefer subtle colors, simple designs, and basic fonts. On the other hand, those congregations that prefer contemporary music are more likely to prefer "edgy" design, complex and highly contrasting color schemes, and creative fonts.

I enjoyed the conference, and look forward to seeing more posts here in the future.

-Rob-