My church rolled out a new calendar system to visually represent our weekend:
Why We Did This:
After becoming a multi-site church, our communications team realized how complex all the planning for weekend services had become. Keeping track of announcements, bulletin content, videos, speakers, etc., was difficult to keep up with. We had an Excel document where we recorded these things, but I found myself rarely using it. It’s a bit old school, but having a physical board where everyone could see our weekend services plan seemed like a good solution.
How It Works:
We ordered an 8’ x 4’ sheet of metal and created more than 52 custom, dry erase magnets. Each magnet represents one weekend and includes information like: sermon series, Biblical text, teacher, spoken announcements, feature in our bulletin, videos, etc., for each campus. We color coded the magnets so that each month is a different color so when you glance at the board, you can quickly find where a new month begins. Additionally, we created a few green magnets to designate special services (Maundy Thursday, Easter, Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas Eve).
What Difference It Makes:
This board was just recently installed but its physical presence serves as a reminder for us to make sure that we are prepared for the weekend. Additionally, other staff at the church frequently stop by and see what’s planned for upcoming weeks which leads to better communication and understanding. This board will also serve as a historical record for us to reference to see how we have communicated past events and ministries. We’re hoping this leads us to greater consistency with how we communicate at the church.
Mike
January 25, 2017
I love this idea. How did you guys create the dry rase magnets?
Dwayne Phillips
January 26, 2017
Point a web cam at it and put this video in a hidden area of your website. Give access to people who can use it for the church. Those who aren’t in the office everyday can receive the same benefit.
Aaron
January 26, 2017
So, are you going to produce these and sell them to other churches so that we can use the same materials… or at least show a tutorial with a physical example on how to make the magnets… Please.
Samantha Prosowski
January 26, 2017
My guess is they had them made at Staples or something. It’d be awfully time-consuming and difficult to try to hand make these as professionally done as they look.
Carrie Givens
January 27, 2017
I work with Tim and can answer the magnet production questions. We designed the magnets in house, which gave us the chance to make them specifically fit our needs and track the info we need to track. We chose a size that worked to get all 52 weekends + special services up on the board, and printed aT that size.
I connected with our sign printing vendor (a local company) about magnet printing and worked with the options they had. I would expect any sign printing company or franchise would have similar options. Our vendor could print on magnet stock–like what you see people put on car doors. Our company couldn’t do custom die-cut shapes, but could round corners, so we chose that option. Then they were able to cover the print with a veneer layer that makes the surface useable for dry-erase markers.
I love using local vendors, because they’re so great at brainstorming a product with you to make it fit your needs. Shout-out to Ross at 310 Signs in Charlotte!
Kris
February 8, 2017
This is awesome! Any chance you could make available the source file you used to print the magnets?
Tim Briggs
February 13, 2017
Here you go. It’s an Illustrator file. I’ll also include a PDF.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iv6329lvcyzhufs/magnet.ai
https://www.dropbox.com/s/btqlbymvxvioiln/magnet4-01.pdf
Kris
February 16, 2017
Love doesn’t begin to express my gratitude. My inner organization-freak self is freaking out right now. Thank you!