LifePoint Church

Since LifePoint Church started in 2004, I’ve worked there as a volunteer, intern, and employee and have revised and formatted LPC’s documentation to make them consistent and professional.

E.notes

E.notes are LifePoint’s weekly announcement e-newsletter and have evolved since 2004, for we’ve added many features as our list of E.notes grows every year. These features include a contents list; New! and Updated! labels next to new or updated announcements; subheadings with date, time, and location; and a footer with subscription information.

Right now, E.notes are distributed four different ways to the LifePoint audience: Web site, e-mail, PowerPoint presentation (scrolls on the TV in the community room), and “hard copy” (a basic print-out for members to take on Sundays). All these mediums require some amount of single-sourcing, so we manage E.notes from the Web site.

Worship Participation

In a LifePoint worship experience, we provide an opportunity for people to participate using the bulletin and worship participation card. The bulletin provides a copy of the week’s E.notes, a schedule of our regular events, and a tear-off version of the worship participation card. Both versions of the card collect name, address, phone number, age group, and e-mail address. It also asks visitors how they heard about LifePoint and provides a place to sign up for E.notes or our Prayer Network Newsletter. The back of the card allows participants to respond to the service and to give prayer requests, praise reports, or comments.

The bulletin shell was designed by Director of Creative Communications Chris Austin. Both the worship participation card and the bulletin were created with Adobe InDesign.

Explore LifePoint

Explore LifePoint is LifePoint’s semi-monthly visitor information session. At this session, visitors receive our Explore LifePoint booklet, which briefly introduces them to the church and explains our beliefs, our leadership structure, how to join LifePoint, and how we started. Pastor Lane wrote many of the materials as a part of LifePoint’s prospectus, and I revised them for the booklet. I also created its page design and information structure.

In addition to receiving the Explore LifePoint booklet, visitors also receive an information sheet to complete, which asks a series of questions to help us get to know our visitors and perhaps plug them into LifePoint’s activities.

Both the Explore LifePoint booklet and information sheet were created with Adobe InDesign.

First Point

First Point is LifePoint’s greeter and guest follow up team, and on Sunday mornings, they give guests “Getting Started at LifePoint” and a guest information packet, which contains the guest information insert (and utilizes our multi-purpose bulletin shell). Both of these are present on the First Point kiosk, which is where the kiosk sign is located.

“Getting Started at LifePoint,” the guest information insert, and the sign were created in Adobe InDesign.

Membership & Directory

LifePoint produces a membership directory about twice a year, and we make it available as a downloadable PDF on the Web site, but it’s password-protected to protect member information from those with bad intentions. The directory is generated from our membership database, which exports the information to a Microsoft Word file, where I clean up the CSV data. I then export the Word file to the Adobe InDesign membership directory template, where I edit the data and polish the design.

To make sure the membership database stays up-to-date, we use the membership application to gather data from new members, and we use the membership application to gather data from new members, and we use the member and regular attender information sheet to gather updated information from our members and regular attenders. We use the information sheet drop-off sign to indicate where completed information sheets may be turned in.

LifePoint uses NSpire software for managing its database. The membership application, member and regular attender information sheet, information drop-off sheet sign, and the member directory were all created in Adobe InDesign.

Servant Guide

Though LifePoint is a new and fairly small church, we have plenty of places to serve. To communicate with our members about these places to serve, we produce an annual servant guide that describes each position and includes contact information for all our leadership. On the Sunday we release the new servant guide, we emphasize servanthood in the worship experience and allow members to sign up for new positions using the Servant Sunday Sign Up sheet. In the future, around the Sundays when we emphasize servanthood, we anticipate sending a “Special Edition” E.notes of available positions with (with descriptions and contact information).

The Servant Guide and Servant Sunday Sign-Up were both created in Adobe InDesign.

Community Groups

At LifePoint, small groups called community groups meet throughout the week for Bible study. Each fall and spring the groups start a new study, and we provide a new list of community groups in print and on the Web site. Each fall and spring, we also have an exposition for the community group leaders to showcase their groups’ activities; this is where we use the expo signs and sign-up sheets.

All of these documents were created with Adobe InDesign.

Style Guide

As our library of documentation grows, I’ve established a common theme for LifePoint documents. The style guide covers the format of basic print documents, our editorial choices, the editing of message notes, and the formatting of E.notes.

the style guide was created in Adobe InDesign.

Policies & Procedures

The more LifePoint grows, the more important it is to establish policies and procedures for how we do what we do. I adapted our existing constitution (from our non-profit status application) into our policies and procedures and worked with Worship Pastor Dennis Smith to establish other policies and procedures, especially regarding use of the facility.

Our policies and procedures were created in Adobe InDesign and are maintained by both Worship Pastor Dennis Smith and me.

Sermon Notes

For about a year after LifePoint started, I collected sermon notes from Pastor Lane, and I reformatted and edited them for style. These sermon notes were then downloadable as PDFs from the Web site. This project soon became overwhelming, and no one seemed to be utilizing them, so Chris Austin and I decided it was best to abandon the project. About a year’s worth of sermon notes are available in our archives.

All sermon notes are formatted in Adobe InDesign.

One Concert

In October 2006, the LifePoint worship band released its first CD, and we held a CD release concert on October 1. For this concert, we allowed members to pre-order CDs using the One Preorder Form, and after the concert, members could buy and/or pick up their CDs in the community room, according to the signs on the sales tables.

Both the One Preorder Form and concert signage were created with Adobe InDesign.

Postcards

Occasionally, LifePoint (or one of its ministries) sends postcard to members reminding them of an event or meeting. These postcards are generally designed in color and printed at a local print shop. This printing is expensive, so to save on costs, I designed a generic postcard backside we could print inhouse. Once the front side is printed at a print shop, we print the backside in our office and then cut the postcards. This allows us to save on the cost of dual-size printing and allows us to put our return address on these postcards (so any postcard with an incorrect address is returned to us).

The postcards were created in Adobe InDesign.

Budget Ballot

The budget affirmation ballot was created in Adobe InDesign.

Lost & Found Sign

The lost and found sign was created in Adobe InDesign.