A church’s sermon series graphics do much more lifting than simply filling the projection screen on a Sunday morning.
As archeologists have uncovered artwork from early Christians, we have developed an understanding of how visuals help us remember and understand the stories. They are a powerful reinforcement of the teaching.
Art, in general, makes us feel a certain way. It makes us feel emotions. Whether happy or sad, angry or joyful, the sermon series graphics that accompany your message will cue your audience on what to expect and help them understand your approach.
Sermon series graphics have an opportunity to solidify the big idea of your message in a way that just words can’t accomplish. They provide clarity and reaffirm the message of the Bible. Through your series graphics, you create a brand that carries the message from the pulpit to the people and then the people to the community all in agreement with the mission and vision of your church.
In short, a church’s sermon series graphics do a lot of lifting because words are not enough.
Great artwork won’t make a series memorable, but a memorable sermon series will benefit from great artwork.
Leveraging Resources to Create your Sermon Series Graphics
Most pastors won’t need convincing that sermon series graphics matter. In fact, larger churches will bring artists on as full time staff exclusively to produce weekend artwork, including the sermon graphics.
But you’re not in a large church, and as such, you need to be more discerning with your time.
For instance, if you are a bi-vocational pastor, how are you prioritizing your time? Because you’re the only one on staff, you probably find yourself doing much more than preparing your message for Sunday, including designing your sermon graphics.
And truthfully, you might be great with graphic design and enjoy doing it, but you need to ask yourself, should you be doing it?
Is that truly how your time is best spent?
Your sermon is too important to split time between study and graphic design. Leverage volunteers in your church, original photography of your geographical location, and sermon resources like Ministry Pass which are created explicitly for busy pastors at smaller churches.
Create Church Graphics In Five Minutes or Less
If you like to use graphics created by others but want to have the ability to edit or brand them, Ministry Pass designs are now available for editing in Canva.
As you explore the best way to remove graphic design from your list of responsibilities, it would be helpful to know what to look for as a replacement. The hope is that with more time to prepare and study your sermons will improve and by offloading sermon graphics, your designs will improve as well.
This is where the Ten Commandments of Sermon Series Graphics comes in handy.
The Ten Commandments of Sermon Series Graphics
After producing over 1,500 different sermon series graphic designs since launching 2014, we have identified exactly what brings out the greatest impact from the design to allow for the greatest impact from the sermon.
These insights we call the Ten Commandments of Sermon Series Graphics
Ask Questions
When you begin preparing your sermon you start with very basic questions, the most basic of which being, “What is the big idea of the message?”
Start asking these same questions when creating your sermon series graphics.
- What is the felt need the series will address?
- What books of the Bible or passages will be referenced?
- What is the sermon series’s overall tone, theme, or emotion?
These answers will impact colors, fonts, and images.
For example, if you are doing a sermon series on Job, you won’t want to use the color yellow with an image of a skateboarder in your series graphics. That might seem obvious, but we can underestimate what our church sermon series graphics communicate.
Even if a person in your church doesn’t know about Job, the imagery used in the sermon series graphics should clue them in. An idea here would be to start the series with more somber tones that get more vibrant as you get to the end of the series.
Know your Audience
Knowing your audience, who you are preaching to, is central to preaching a message that connects. Knowing your audience as you select artwork for a series is just as important.
Does the graphic design style fit your church?
Is your audience younger? You may want an edgier graphic.
Is your audience a little older? You will likely want graphics that are more classic in design. (Note: Classic, not outdated.)
Be intentional in understanding what works well for your audience and in front of your building. The sermon series graphics you display in front of your church will speak to the community and should correctly display what visitors can expect when they walk through the doors of your church.
Classic, abstract, edgy, artistic, plain, complex, personal, and so many other aspects of your church will be perceived through the artwork you choose.
Prioritize Clarity Over Cleverness
In our desire to be witty and clever, we sometimes create graphics and series titles that are unnecessarily confusing.
Clear sermon series graphics and titles are more impactful than something overly clever. Your audience will easily understand and connect with a clear sermon series title.
If you do decide to get creative, use a subtitle.
For example, you may decide on a youth sermon series titled “Sabotage.” Then use a subtitle such as ‘The Ways that We Hurt Ourselves’ to more clearly articulate what the audience can expect from the series.
Timelessness over Trends
Sermon series graphic designs that are timeless will be relevant over the years and communicate to onlookers that the themes and topics covered within are relevant. Once you post your sermon to your church website, it tends to stay there for years to come, using timeless graphics will prevent your sermons and church from appearing to be living in the past.
New and prospective church members will likely visit and explore your website before ever stepping on campus. You want the church sermon series graphics to be visually timeless as they explore your past messages.
The content of the message is timeless, and you don’t want someone not to listen to a great sermon because the graphics are outdated.
Think Beyond Your Screen
A graphic may look fantastic on your computer screen but think about the projectors, screens, and lighting in your auditorium.
Will the colors and fonts be legible?
An illegible graphic in the middle of a sermon can distract your audience from your big idea instead of reinforcing it. They can become so focused on trying to read the graphic that they may miss what you are saying.
When it comes to print media, simple is usually best. Again, what you see on your computer screen is not necessarily what you will see offscreen. Colors, clarity, and contrast may show up vastly differently on paper. Print a draft of your graphics before you finalize them to ensure they look the way you envisioned.
Don’t Steal Graphics
If you see sermon series graphics you like from another church, pick up the phone or send an email and ask for permission to use either the exact graphic or a close inspiration.
Don’t steal graphics you find online. Remember, the graphics you see are someone’s work of art that they put time and effort into creating, and they deserve to be compensated appropriately for their work.
Follow a Style Guide
If your church does not yet have a style guide, create one. A style guide should include your logo and how it is to be used, fonts, and colors. Utilizing a style guide will create visual cohesion and consistency for all communication pieces your church puts out and help ensure everything doesn’t look random but well thought out with intentionality.
Click here to view a sample style guide your church can mimic.
If you can create a style guide for each set of sermon series graphics, do it.
Prioritize Content over Creativity
When thinking through your church sermon series graphics, begin with the content of your sermon series. Be very careful if you decide to go in reverse and come try to make a sermon series fit a clever series title. It can seem like a good starting point, but often it leads to a series that is more focused on trying to fit the title than sharing the right content with your church.
Get Feedback from the Right People
Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback on your sermon series graphics from designers, people you trust to give honest and valuable critiques, and maybe other communicators and pastors. The Pastors Circle Facebook Group is an excellent place for this. Ask people who can provide an outside perspective to share their thoughts.
Yes, your graphic may be the culmination of hours of work, and you may LOVE it. But be open to feedback and insight. You might have something you have created in your mind that you think is perfect, but be able to trust the professionals. Your sermon and your church will significantly benefit from your ability to listen to feedback.
Spellcheck
Check your spelling and make sure you are saying things the right way. Use Grammarly or your writing program’s spell check tool, or have a strong proofreader in your congregation look over your graphics and slides. You don’t want a missed spelling or grammatical error to be what people remember from your sermon.
Sermon Series Graphics Inspiration
There are seasons in a church’s annual rhythm where sermon series graphics are vital. These are the seasons when people who don’t usually attend your or any church are exploring and more open to attending a service.
In the same way spelling errors might be a turnoff to a teacher attending your church for the first time, strong and well thought out artwork can draw in a guest.
The sermon series graphics you choose for Easter, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Graduation, and other holidays where you experience a bump in attendance won’t be the thing that compels someone to return the following week, but it will communicate the vibe they could expect should they decide to return.
Here are some examples of seasonal sermon series graphics for inspiration.
Christmas Sermon Series Graphics
The biggest season for churches is Christmas, hands down. Choosing a title with Christmas sermon series graphics that will speak to your church and your community is essential, but coming up with something new each year can be challenging. Here are some examples and inspiration for strong Christmas sermon series graphics.
At Christmas we celebrate that God has come to us in love to save us. This Christmas message proclaims God’s initiative in coming to us in the Christ child. We are encouraged to trust that God isn’t far from broken people or a broken world. The Savior has come for us all, and the Savior is with us all.
Hope is Here: The Savior Has Come
Throughout the Bible, births often herald great hope and expectations and are the result of great faith in God. Many births are a foreshadowing of the greatest birth of all, the birth of Jesus Christ.
Advent and Christmas are seasons filled with joyful expectation. During Advent, we look forward to the birth of the Savior. During Christmas, we celebrate his arrival and marvel at all the ways he exceeds our expectations. Chief among these is the joy he brings through the good news of our salvation.
In this series for Advent, we will explore the first chapter of the Gospel of John. What did it mean for God to take on human flesh and walk among us? As we grow in understanding, our hearts will become more prepared for the Christmas holiday and for an encounter, once again, with the living God.
Jesus Christ has been born! He is the fulfillment of the promises of God to his children and the world. Simeon’s prophecy about Jesus shows us how Jesus came to bring light into our darkness.
Easter Sermon Series Graphics
Easter is second only to Christmas in the importance of a church calendar. Thinking through the many facets of the Easter story to land on your Easter sermon series graphics and titles takes time and can often use inspirational help. Here are a few of our favorites:
This stand-alone Easter message reminds us that Jesus’s resurrection is the basis of our belief that death does not have the final say. Because Jesus is raised to life, we will also be raised to life.
This stand-alone Easter message reminds us that Jesus’s resurrection is the basis of our belief that death does not have the final say. Because Jesus is raised to life, we will also be raised to life.
Followers of Jesus will encounter problems of all kinds, but God’s presence and redemptive plan cannot be stopped. Easter is the time in the liturgical year when we recognize that the heavens and earth will be restored to glory, death will be reversed, and evil will be defeated forever.
Unstoppable Kingdom: An Easter Series
This stand-alone message for Easter Sunday unpacks and drives home Jesus’s claim (and the evidence for it): “I am the resurrection and the life.”
Scandal is a stand-alone sermon that would work well for a Good Friday service. In this sermon, we’ll look at the scandal of the cross and the paradoxical blessings that come from it.
Scandal: The Scandal of the Cross
Acts Sermon Series Graphics
If you are looking for an in-depth teaching series, the Book of Acts is a great place to live and explore with your church for a year. Stories of the revolution, the beginning of the church as we know it, and the dramatic life change of Paul. It’s all packed into this one book.
Final Comments About Sermon Series Graphics
If you truly desire to have strong artwork to compliment your sermons and also represent your church well you will never go wrong with planning in advance and seeking out expertise.
Think about graphic design in the same way you think about different expertise you may lean on when you own a house. You may be capable of doing some handiwork or some light plumbing, but when there are major electrical issues or cracks in the foundation, you’re going to bring someone in who won’t dabble to find a fix, they’ll know exactly how to produce the outcome everyone wants and needs.
Yes, you may be able to open Photoshop or load Canva on your browser to produce a graphic, but it is far more effective to leave your graphic design to someone who has a clear plan for producing a design that everyone will benefit from.
You focus on being the pastor and find a resource you can lean on to be the graphic designer.
If you’d like to go further, you can watch an episode from our podcast, Hello Church! Podcast below.
Sermon Series Graphics Done Well from Hello Church! Podcast
Chapter Markers
0:00 Welcome to Hello Church! Podcast
2:02 Why You Should Listen to This Podcast
6:00 Ministry Pass Announcement – Canva Integration
7:27 The First 5 Commandments
15:34 The Second 5 Commandments
21:49 Support Our Podcast
