First Christian Church Santa Maria

First Christian Church in Santa Maria is the longest-running relationship in my Create Church Media practice. We have been working together since May 2021, which puts us past the five-year mark. Five years of slides, banners, social sizes, business cards, giving envelopes, sermon series art, holiday graphics, and one coffee shop logo. When I look back at the file folder for FCC, I count somewhere around 769 finished JPEGs sent over to Jackie alone. That number does not include the working files, the resized variants, or the print-ready PDFs.

How we started

Jackie Brigham, the communications admin at FCC, was my first point of contact, and she still is. The earliest emails in my archive are from May 2021. She came in with a list of weekly requests already organized: sermon series titles, event flyers, sizes (1920x1080 for the slides, 1080x1080 for Instagram, plus Facebook covers and Stories), and the specifics on wording and deadlines. From the first exchanges, it was clear she had run a comms desk before. She knew what she needed. My job was to give her finished files quickly and to flag the things that would not print well at the size she was asking for.

The other consistent thread in those early emails is Pastor Jim. Jackie would send me an idea, I would send three or four options back, and the next email would say something like "Jim likes the first one, the bright one." That feedback loop is still the same today.

The work

FCC is a full-service church with multiple ministries that all need graphics. Over the years I have built and maintained a library of repeatable assets for them: the Thru The Bible series, the Good Samaritan Shelter Meal monthly graphic, the Fireworks Booth campaign that funds the youth Tijuana mission trip, the annual July 4th Celebration, the Holiday Market, Christmas Tea, Easter handouts, VBS branding (logo, banners, posters, lanyards), giving envelopes, biblical counseling business cards for individual pastors, and a coffee shop logo for the church's in-house cafe.

Pastor Josh Schack handles the student and young adult ministry and emails me directly for the youth-side graphics. Pastor Jordan Munoz comes in for worship pastor projects. Bree, who joined as Jackie's new communications admin in April 2026, has started looping in too. Laurie Hale on the finance side handles the invoices and set me up on ACH in February 2026 after years of mailed checks. That ACH conversation was a small thing but it tells you how the relationship works. Laurie wrote back the same day with "If you want to send me your account information I can set it up as an ACH through our bank. I have set up multiple people this way and it is hassle free." It got done in two emails.

The pace at FCC is steady. Some weeks Jackie sends a single business card revision. Other weeks I get a stretch like the one in May 2022 when she came back from vacation and apologized for sending nine emails in one weekend. I told her it was no problem. With a church this size, the work comes in waves around the calendar.

A specific moment: the VBS banner that would not enlarge

This is the kind of project that happens often enough that it is worth talking about. In June 2026 Jackie forwarded me a small image from someone else and asked me to size it up to 118 by 52 inches for a banner. I tried, took a screenshot at 100 percent zoom, and sent it back. Pixelated. Her exact reply, June 10, 2026, was "No, that's not good. What size do I need?" I walked her through what file format would work and we landed on a different source.

That exchange repeats almost monthly across five years. Source images come from Google Images, from a PNG of a logo, from a screenshot of a previous flyer. I check resolution at the requested print size, send a zoomed-in proof so she can see exactly what the printer will see, and we either source a better file or rebuild the graphic from scratch. The Holiday Market banner in October 2025 went the same way. The first file was a PNG. I asked for the AI. She tried to send one. It was still a PNG. We rebuilt it.

The reason this matters as a case study moment is that it is not a sermon series cover or a Christmas Eve poster. It is the unglamorous middle of a church communications calendar: someone sends a low-res image at 4 p.m., a banner has to print by Saturday, and a designer who has been with the church for five years already knows how to ask the right question and what the answer probably is. That is the value of a long-term partner versus a job-by-job freelancer.

A second moment: the coffee shop logo

In June 2022, Jackie sent me a request for a coffee shop logo for FCC's in-house cafe. The brief from the manager was a coffee cup with steam coming out of it with the FCC logo in the steam, or liquid being poured into the cup with the FCC logo in the liquid. Two strong concept directions in one paragraph. I sent multiple options. The chosen mark is still in use. It is the kind of asset that lives beyond the weekly social calendar and ends up on aprons, signage, and disposable cups for years.

In their words

Pastor Josh Schack on the Don't Waste Your Life graphic, sent March 2, 2026: "Love it! Thanks, Emily!" When the round-after-round revision on the I'm Not Fine series in February and March 2026 finally landed, his response to the final direction was equally direct: "#4 looks like the best place to start! Any filters or edits you could make to make the picture behind it more dynamic?" That tight, decisive feedback loop is what makes the FCC relationship work. Jim says yes. Josh says yes. We move.

Where things stand

As of June 2026 we are full speed. The current open list includes the VBS banner finishing, a July banner for the corner of the church property, business card runs for the biblical counseling ministry, and the ongoing Thru The Bible series art including a standalone Easter Gospel of John piece. I am on ACH with Laurie. Bree is integrated into the request flow. Pastor Jim is still the final voice on the look. Pastor Josh runs the student side independently and emails directly when he needs the student-event graphics. The relationship has the steady rhythm of a comms partnership that has been working long enough that everyone knows their lane.

If you are looking at this case study because you are evaluating Create Church Media for a long-term church engagement, FCC Santa Maria is the proof point. Five years, 769-plus finished assets to one inbox, three pastors, two communications admins, one finance lead, ACH on file, and the printer in town knows my files. That is the version of this that ages well.