Branding, Social Media, and An Opposable Thumb
Trinity Church, Burke Update
Opposable Thumbs
A few weeks ago, there was an incident on the dance floor at a wedding, that led to the rupture of a tendon in my right thumb (and yes, I’m right handed). It was bad enough that last week I had to have surgery to reattach the tendon, spend some time on pain meds, and now I have twice weekly PT for my thumb. Needless to say, the Lord has been teaching me some things (not the least of which is the importance of opposable thumbs), and it’s also why there was no newsletter update last week.
Branding
The big new development is that we finished the branding for Trinity Burke. It was actually a really fun process, and I’m so excited with what we (shout out to my friend Autumn, who was a big help in this!) came up with in partnership with our graphic designer, Grace (https://www.instagram.com/marrow.design/):
There’s a whole lot that went into this, and the cross image alone deserves it’s own paragraph, but typing without an opposable thumb is hard, so it will have to wait until a future newsletter. Here’s what I will say: Grace hand-drew the “Trinity Church.” That was important to us: it is personal, and real, and just a bit “messy,” but the lettering is also open, and clear, and a bit traditional. Just like us.
Social Media + Website
Now that the branding is complete, work on our web presence has begun. We’re getting closer to going public with a church website — coming soon, I hope!
Also, please PLEASE give us a “follow” and “share” on social media — it helps with the algorithm. You can “like” us on Facebook here and “follow” us on Instagram here. At the moment, I’m more active on Instagram.
Coming Up
In the coming weeks, our wonderful sending church (Truro Anglican) is hosting a “church plant baby shower” for us. There are so many practical things necessary to start a church (sound equipment, Bibles, signage, communion chalices, etc.), and I am so thankful our sending church’s leadership wants to help provide for these things. I’ll include more specifics in my next newsletter.
Church Management Systems are the back-end databases that support churches — giving, emails, registrations, etc. Most church-goers don’t know they exist, but they are a crucial system in a church ecosystem. I’ve committed to using a church management system called “Planning Center Online,” and my friend Ashley has been helping me begin to build out our database and workflows (this is mostly a foreign language to me). If you could, would you consider helping us work out the kinks in this? Here’s what we need:
If you’re planning on coming with us as a member of the launch team, would you fill out this form? You’re not committing to anything, just helping us work out any quirks in our “membership card” system.
If you’re interested, or not sure, or even just willing to help (especially if you live “south of Braddock”), would you consider filling out this form? It’s an example of the “visitor card” we’re planning to use for visitors.
Lastly:
I had a wonderful meeting with a member of the Truro vestry who is helping me (along with the fantastic finance staff at Truro) work through the next draft of a budget.
We’re beginning to look into Kids Min curriculums.
I’m still praying that God would bring us someone to lead our Kids Ministry and someone to lead our Worship Ministry.
I’ve almost finished a 10+ page ministry plan. Stay tuned for that!
We’ll begin to explore public worship locations (we have a handful of leads and ideas) in the next few weeks.
This weekend Jenny and I will celebrate our 16th anniversary. What an adventure — God is good!!
Please feel free to forward along to anyone you might think is interested, and don’t hesitate to email me with any thoughts, questions, interests, or prayer requests, and thank you for praying!!!!
In Christ,
Rev. Mike Seawright