Our Christian foundation is what makes our university unique. This is the place to bring prayer requests, discuss theological issues and how to become better Champions for Christ.

Moderators: jcmanson, Sly Fox, BuryYourDuke

By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#466852
Alright boys. I rarely air my junk on here but figured now's as good a time as any. As many of you know, I operate a blog that I regularly write on called This Isn't High School. Over the past few months, I've written a lot about going after your dreams. The funny thing about writing about your dreams is when you do that, you start remembering what yours were.

One of my goals for this year was to "find my place" in the church world. I’ve done student ministry, college ministry, weekend production, communications, and probably a few more things since graduating seminary in 2010. Over the past few months, I’ve been able to write more and even had the chance to speak at a college retreat, all while creating graphics to help promote places where people can meet Jesus.

During all of this, God’s given me this dream to be a free-lance designer working for churches and organizations across the country. It's not even churches though. It's bigger than that. It's the idea of supporting people who are doing work for Jesus, whether that's a church, an ad agency, or a Christian guy running a small business and impacting the world that way. Ideally I’d be on retainer for a few so I can give them consistently great designs for their church/business. I’d be able to provide them with professional graphic design at the cost of an intern. I can also do website updating, bulletins, and social media if a church wants to put that in the package.

On top of all of that, I’m also hoping to start speaking at retreats, camps, and conferences - ideally in student and college ministry.

Right now I'm at the point where the dream's being awakened and I'm just starting to figure out how to make it work. I have the skeleton of the pricing and packages and I'm tying all that together. The next step is finding churches, organizations, and businesses to work with. The whole thing is a huuuge change, but I think it's one for the best and I'm excited to see where it goes.

If you know anyone who fits in any of these categories and want to send them my way, I'd definitely appreciate it. If you want to see a little bit of my work, head over to CaroneDesigns.com.

Thanks boys.

-Jonathan
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By jcmanson
Registration Days Posts
#466854
Do sports blogs for the worlds largest Christian university fall under the umbrella?
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By thepostman
Registration Days Posts
#466866
I think BJ is looking for a design guy...

In all seriousness, you're a talented guy. Praying for ya buddy
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#466868
jcmanson wrote:Do sports blogs for the worlds largest Christian university fall under the umbrella?
Would love to.
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By alabama24
Registration Days Posts
#466874
As a side note SJ: I have a friend who is very talented in Graphic Arts. At one time he worked for a T-shirt shop... until he realized that the Design work was what brought people IN, but it was the t-shirts that made the money. He decided to open a shop out of his garage... Now he does all the t-shirts for a number of Vegas acts including Carrot Top, Blue Man Group, Louis Anderson, Penn & Teller, etc.

Worth thinking about.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#466881
alabama24 wrote:As a side note SJ: I have a friend who is very talented in Graphic Arts. At one time he worked for a T-shirt shop... until he realized that the Design work was what brought people IN, but it was the t-shirts that made the money. He decided to open a shop out of his garage... Now he does all the t-shirts for a number of Vegas acts including Carrot Top, Blue Man Group, Louis Anderson, Penn & Teller, etc.

Worth thinking about.
Great idea but I'll let another guy go down that road.
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By Sly Fox
Registration Days Posts
#466921
Freelance is exciting and frightening at the same time. Now is a great time in your life to take this big step. It gets tougher later in life when responsibilities weigh you down. I applaud your courage.

My only counsel would be prepared to adjust your path as you travel. You will be amazed at the opportunities that you didn't anticipate that will appear when you take this step.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#466925
Sly Fox wrote:You will be amazed at the opportunities that you didn't anticipate that will appear when you take this step.
That's the hope.
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By BJWilliams
Registration Days Posts
#466926
THis soundsds like something you might hear in a JOel Osteen message but there are two aspects to every dream: seeing it, and realizing it...you have been seeing it for the last few years, and now the Lord is blessing you and opening doors and you are starting to take that dream and make it a reality.

I have had a dream since I was in high school to be a broadcaster for ESPN. That dream is on the backburner right now but I still have that and I know the Lord will open doors for me to be able to keep doing what I have gotten to do for about 7 years. Maybe one day I'll be calling on you to do some graphics for me or something.
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By rueful
Registration Days Posts
#467564
Hey SJ, just saw this, and I'd say a few things:

1) I almost went down this road recently when I left my Youth Ministry position in Boston and was searching. I had been scouting for a few months to see what else was out there, and the plan that I had worked up was to offer a subscription type thing for churches, where for $100 a month, I'd do Series artwork and a bulletin cover with edits each week, $250 would include that and a bit more like designing banners for series, social media images, etc. $500 a month I'd also help manage your social media, post custom scriptures, etc. 4 times a week, and do two event designs. Before I started contacting churches, realized it wasn't what was for me, but I think something like that would work with churches, maybe not for what your dream is.

2) I also know churches are cheap. Most churches who would be interested in something like that wouldn't see the value in it, they'd want it for $25, $50, and $100 as opposed to my price scheme.

3) Look at what else is out there, I feel like a new company starts every other week trying to get money from churches (not their intent, but you know what I mean). Can you partner with some of them? Creation swap is a great resource, they somewhat rip you off in their cut, but they have a huge audience and its little work. I have my own shop on youthmin.org/youthminresources.com and were building that up selling youth ministry designs, and its been awesome because I make about $1000 a month from it, but it takes more work to promote my store.

4) You do good work. Ill start recommending you when people ask me for designers. I don't have the patience to deal with the customer service that freelancing/designing for churches takes. I get asked a lot and have to turn down because I either get walked over or come off as a jerk.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#467590
I agree churches are cheap. My hope is to find 2-4 that get it and partner with them almost exclusively. Your larger churches are going to mainly contract work instead of having in-house video/graphic guys. Many churches in the 400-800 range realize the need for good looking design to attract people but can't afford to hire a guy full time. My selling point is I can give you almost a decade of professional design experience for the cost of an intern.
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By Sly Fox
Registration Days Posts
#467592
Thr larger churches (5k+) that I am working with regularly actually are hiring more designers. But the catch now is that they are also being asked to produce more video content. Considering the obvious crossover skill sets, it does make more sense. But often times you either have great design guy or great video producers. Tough to find a combination.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#467594
Agreed completely. The giant churches are their own bird. Although the guys like North Point have their in-house guys to do their day-to-day, they contract out their big projects.

Cross Point in Nashville, for example, has one on-staff designer and one video guy. The rest are contract guys who do their work. Those types of churches are hiring project managers in the communications department to be the go betweens from the creative and the ministries in the church. It's much easier to find project managers than designers who can manage as well.
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By Sly Fox
Registration Days Posts
#467605
Ouch! I think I was just dropped with a "Project Manager" tag and not in a positive sense. Not that there is anything wrong with being a project manager. HaHa

I have been a big fan of churches being wiser with their resources and that includes outsourcing design and web management.
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By rueful
Registration Days Posts
#467619
Agreed with all above. It always irks me when I see a church with a dedicated graphics person and they have terrible graphics. Or when I see someone getting contracted to do graphics and they make terrible resources.

Regardless, praying for you. Praying you're able to partner with a few churches you really love and who love what you do and this takes off for you.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#467626
Sly Fox wrote:Ouch! I think I was just dropped with a "Project Manager" tag and not in a positive sense. Not that there is anything wrong with being a project manager. HaHa

I have been a big fan of churches being wiser with their resources and that includes outsourcing design and web management.
Ha. Didn't mean to make it negative. I think it's the best way to go honestly. I tried to do project managing and the graphics and ended up working way too much and not putting out stuff that was as good.

This was the project I worked on today. It's a Christmas party promo for our student ministries:

Image
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#467627
rueful wrote:Agreed with all above. It always irks me when I see a church with a dedicated graphics person and they have terrible graphics. Or when I see someone getting contracted to do graphics and they make terrible resources.

Regardless, praying for you. Praying you're able to partner with a few churches you really love and who love what you do and this takes off for you.
Oh I agree completely. If you're gonna pay for it, get good stuff. My goal is always to make the most attractive thing possible to make people as interested as possible. If we can get them in the door, they can hear about Jesus. Churches don't compete with each other for people to notice. They compete with Apple, AT&T, and Allstate.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#467820
My new role at the church will officially start January 1. I'll be doing a lot of what I'm doing now but on a contract basis, working from home mainly. We're still working out the details, but it's looking like I'm going to be able to get exactly what I was hoping for financially and possibly get benefits for at least a little bit as well. With benefits, it'll put me only $1000/mo away from my break even point. Without benefits, it puts me at 50-60% of my monthly needs starting out which is awesome.

We'll likely tell the staff at our all-staff meeting December 1 and then I'll be able to tell the rest of the church later that week. It's great having my church leadership on my side and rooting for me. It'll definitely help getting everything off the ground.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#471134
After some back and forth, the church is paying me a little less than I originally asked for but I also got 1-2 things taken off of my responsibilities. We broke the news to the staff today and I also wrote a blog post about the whole thing. If you'd like to read it, you can get to it by clicking here.
By SuperJon
Registration Days Posts
#486843
Update on everything:

I'm nearly seven months in and things are going pretty well. I lost the contract at my old church but I think that's a good thing. I'm now working with clients who see the value in what I do and don't take advantage of it. With that said, I've got a couple things I'd love to let you guys know about since I know you're all connected at different churches/businesses.

Low-cost church website
Image

I have developed a low cost church website for smaller churches and church plants. It's $1000 and I set up everything for you. It's completely responsive and mobile friendly. To see some examples:

Two Rivers Chattanooga
Open Table Community
Living Germany

Mobile Apps
Image

I'm also doing low-cost mobile apps for churches and businesses. The cost is $200/month plus a setup fee of $500-$1000. I'm needing to build my portfolio so I'm running a deal where the first five apps are going to have no setup fee and the second five are going to have the setup fee at 50% off. We've seen some great results on these apps for restaurants, local shops (boutiques, etc), and churches.

Custom Websites
I also do custom websites for small businesses. I've done one for a catering company/restaurant, a billion dollar tool company, and another local business in Knoxville. To see an idea of those websites, check out these sites:

Brown Bag Catering
Hoffmann Group USA
TradeKnox

If you know anyone who would like any of these things, please let me know. I'd love to work with them.

Thanks a bunch.

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