Collide Magazine

Church Spotlight: North Point Community Church

COLLIDE STAFF - Originally posted Tuesday, February 16, 2010 -

North Point Community Church may be known for the teachings of their senior pastor, Andy Stanley, but this church features many impressive ministries. Specifically, North Point’s media and creative arts ministries are leaders in their respective fields. Recently, we talked to three members of the creative team about media and ministry at North Point.

Brad Bretz - Media Director

COLLIDE: What is your background in media and creative arts?

Bretz: Back in 2001, Brad Weston, the creator of ProPresenter and founder of Renewed Vision, was part of a technology solutions company and offered me a job doing some editing and DVD authoring, neither of which I had ever done before. He handed me Final Cut Pro (1.0) and said, “Go through the tutorial and let me know if you have any questions.” That lit something in me I didn’t know was there. One of the most valuable things Brad taught me was how to problem solve. He had knowledge about the tools he was using that contributed to the success of any design or programming problem. To this day, I place a high priority on knowing the tools you use everyday. If you don’t know your tools, you can’t get what is in your head onto the screen.

COLLIDE: How does North Point utilize media in their worship services and beyond?

Bretz: We utilize media in two major ways to help make the Sunday morning service an unforgettable experience. First, we develop the key art. This art serves as the foundation for branding the series. We brand our series through bulletins, transitions, lower thirds, notes, title packages, and message graphics. Second, we create a pre-service video called “The TenBefore.” Our goal with “The TenBefore” is to engage the audience by creating compelling commercials for our ministries. Beyond the service, we utilize the Web—currently North Point Ministries podcasts and online videos demand an average of more than 500,000 downloads and streams each month. In April 2009, we began North Point TV with Andy Stanley which is now on FamilyNet and Gospel Music Channel. 

Julie Arnold – Multi-Campus Service Programming Director

COLLIDE: How do you go about planning and organizing every piece of the services across multiple campuses?

Arnold: We have a meeting with the speaker and the service programming directors at our campuses every week. In this meeting, we determine bottom lines for the series and the individual messages. This is our time to funnel our creative ideas through the speakers to make sure they enhance their bottom lines. Next, we have a creative meeting with the three campus service programming directors and a “creative” person from each campus for a total of six people. In this meeting, we brainstorm how to enhance the speaker’s bottom line in an unforgettable way. These are usually big ideas about look and feel of the environment (both inside the auditorium and outside the auditorium), performance songs, live or video comedy, giveaways, contests, closing songs, etc. Then the campus service programming director has a meeting with his or her own department directors (production, media, music, drama, and guest services) to flesh out the big ideas or think of new ones. In this meeting we develop the worship service order.

COLLIDE: What words of wisdom do you have for churches looking to move to a multi-campus approach?

Arnold: Brainstorm and organize together. Communication happens there. And you get the bonus of synergy between campuses. Be respectful of the other campuses—don’t criticize each other. If you have a problem or don’t understand something another campus is doing, don’t talk about it with your volunteers or to your staff. Go to the person responsible at the other campus. Keep comprehensive branding the same. The look and verbiage should be the same from campus to campus. This applies to our sets, bulletins, philosophy, mission statement, core values, preschool environments, student environments, etc. This just makes life easier for everyone. 

John Saddington - Web Creative Director

COLLIDE: How is North Point utilizing the Web for its ministries?

Saddington: Whether it is smaller “sitelets” for ministry campaigns, initiatives, sermon series, or full-blown campus pages, North Point leverages the Web in a number of different forms and fashions. We have blogs for many of our properties as well as Twitter and Facebook pages. We also leverage a number of third-party services to help us with media such as Vimeo, 316 Networks, and others. We’re not afraid of trying new things, and only a few things are held as “sacred” in terms of our methods and design strategy.

COLLIDE: What purpose should a church website serve and how does North Point use its website?

Saddington: A church website can serve a number of different purposes. The more important question is whether or not it’s effective in what it should be doing for the ministry. Essentially, there is no right or wrong answer since a website is almost completely dependent on the overall strategy of the much larger ministry as well as the context in which it is leveraged and used. North Point uses its websites in a variety of forms but we always approach the design and development with two questions: Who is our target (primary) audience? What exactly are we trying to communicate?

COLLIDE: You recently launched northpointonline.tv to host online church services. Tell us about your experience with this so far and the response you’ve seen.

Saddington: The response has been overwhelmingly positive. We’ve had a great time launching something of unique and high value as well as having the freedom to navigate in rather uncharted territory. The support of the leadership has been incredible and Jeff Henderson’s vision and oversight (the campus pastor of Buckhead Church) has been invaluable. One of the most encouraging things about the new campus are the stories of significant life change that is already happening as people begin to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ through it. This is our mission and aim and for our properties to be producing this result is a great satisfaction.

COLLIDE: We noticed that North Point is hosting the Drive 2010 Conference in May. What is Drive 2010 about and who is it for?

Saddington: North Point hosts its annual Drive Conference with the hope of helping other ministries and ministry leaders do what they do better. We share our lessons learned, best practices, strategies, and methods to help create “irresistible environments” for those that attend our services. This year the theme is “Take it Off-Road” where we’ll be specifically focusing in on how best to “plan for the unplanned” and how to manage the ever-changing elements of ministry. At Drive 2010, we’ll explore a number of difficult questions and challenges together. From unpacking the tools used in our environments to dissecting the “what if’s” we all face when doing things differently, we’ll share everything we’ve learned in 14 years of taking it off-road. This year we’ll be having a very special and unique breakout called “Developing an Online Campus.” We’ll explore how we developed a strategy and product for our ministry to engage the online world via social networking. You don’t want to miss it!

To learn more about North Point, visit www.northpoint.org.