Shelbyville Community Church

Shelbyville Community Church, or SCC, was one of my earlier monthly subscription churches. The engagement ran from late 2021 through late 2022. My main point of contact was Pastor Brad Davis, but the staff regularly looped me in directly. Brandon ran tech and document templates. Lee handled student ministry. Susan led women's ministry, including the Bridge to Hope program. Mike and Jessica brought in projects from the discipleship side and connections side. It was a steady, multi-stream relationship where I was effectively the in-house designer.

How we started

My monthly invoicing for SCC was already in motion by December 2021, so the relationship started slightly earlier than the email trail picks up. The earliest active project I have is the Malachi sermon series in December 2021, which ran into January 2022, and the Christmas Eve graphic that same month. The pace was already what I would call a real production church. Sermon series art for the senior pastor's preaching calendar, plus parallel tracks for student ministry and women's ministry, plus one-off banners and signage as needs came up.

The work

The 2022 cadence was relentless in the best way. Sermon series for Malachi, the spring series, Easter, the Romans 8 series, the summer series Faithful in the Ruins: The Book of Habakkuk, then 2 Timothy in the fall, Sermon on the Mount, the Generous Series, the Generosity Series, and into the Messiah Series at Christmas. Student ministry brought their own series art and registration forms through Lee. Susan kept me on the Bridge to Hope logo, business cards (she finally landed her own in November 2022 after a long wait), and the Ladies Craft Day promo. Mike commissioned the Discipleship Pathway graphics. Brandon kept me set up with document templates so the staff could drop content into a consistent look.

A big chunk of the work was scaling one master sermon-series graphic into every aspect ratio the church needed: a 1920x1080 stage screen, social tiles, print bulletin art, and occasional banner sizes. Once a series was approved by Brad, Brandon was the one who took the file handoff for production.

A specific moment

Pastor Brad's preferred way of approving a sermon series was a single screenshot with a single small change. The 2 Timothy series in August 2022 is the cleanest example. He sent me the chosen art on August 24, 2022 and wrote, "This is the one we decided on, with one small change. We'd like you to remove the line behind the M in Timothy. Does that make sense?" I sent the revised file the next morning. He came back the same afternoon with, "You bet! Thank you!" Then we hit the rest of the sizes. A week later he pinged in to check on progress because Brandon hadn't received the final files yet, "I just wanted to make sure that stuff wasn't floating around out there in cyberspace." I had them out shortly after. That little checkpoint was a good reminder that handoffs need to be confirmed all the way to the person doing the production, not just the person doing the approval.

In their words

"Hey Emily, Wanted to check in and see how you were progressing with the 2 Timothy stuff. Brandon mentioned he didn't have anything yet, and I just wanted to make sure that stuff wasn't floating around out there in cyberspace. Thanks!" Pastor Brad Davis, Lead Pastor, August 31, 2022

Where things stand

The SCC engagement wrapped at the end of 2022. The last invoice in my records is October 16 to November 16, 2022, and the last active project was the Messiah Series for Christmas Eve. I look back on it as one of the cleanest examples of how a subscription model can serve a multi-track church staff at once. One pastor on sermon series, a youth pastor on student ministry, a women's ministry director on her own brand line, a tech director on document templates, all running in parallel.