Author: Jason Franklin

  • #SacredResistence

    #SacredResistence

    The thing I love about my church is the same thing that drives me crazy; we are neither required nor expected to be unified in our beliefs. And we often disagree. The same is true of our parish compared to other parishes in our diocese, and our diocese compared to other dioceses in the entire Episcopal Church.

    Try working for a church with those many divergent opinions! I’ll tell you, it can be hard.

    Still, there are some things that we overwhelmingly believe as followers of Christ, such as;

    These two statements come from our baptismal covenant, and they speak truth to what unites all of us disagreeing Episcopalians.

    Have you ever started singing a song with a bunch of friends, and you get to the second or third verse and suddenly everyone is saying something slightly different; then, the chorus returns and everyone is singing in unison once again? That is what it means to be a Christian I think. We’re singing the same song, but we each know it differently.

    And then you have that friend that is only pretending to sing along because they don’t really know the song. And that other friend who makes a nasty face and says they hate the song. And you feel annoyed, and wished you hadn’t offered them a ride, because they’re never happy about anything. Wait, where was I going with this? Anyways…

    What I am trying to say, I guess, is stay passionate in your beliefs as long as you remember the chorus that unites our song; namely, loving our neighbors as ourselves. If you cannot see beyond your own needs, you will always be that person who hates the song. Don’t hate the song. No one really likes that person (but we still love them.)

    I don’t have to be marginalized, to feel the pain of other people’s marginalization. I don’t have to be a victim of prejudice, to react angrily to people’s mistreatment. I don’t have to be a segment of this country that gets paid less because of their gender, to know that it isn’t right.

    This week, while leading prayer at church, I was able to both lead the prayer for our President and quote Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s call for peaceful resistance. I was able to “passionately discuss” our Episcopal Church’s involvement in the inauguration, and take to the streets with dear friends at the Women’s March in Los Angeles. I couldn’t be more grateful for that level of agreement and disagreement. It’s one of those things that makes my faith feel real. It is challenging and it is wonderful.

    Last weekend, a good friend was ordained and I attended the service. During the sermon, the priest said that every good priest must “commit a little heresy.” I love that idea, and not just for priests. Defying the orthodoxy of faith is quite liberating. I recommend you try it if you haven’t yet. God knows Jesus did! Something tells me that many of the Rabbi’s of his time didn’t like him much, or so I’ve read.

    So be brave, be opinionated, be in agreement and disagreement; and if the mood fits, take to the streets. Just make sure though that it is always from a place of love, and if it’s not, try to find a way to fake it until you make it back to the chorus.

  • I, a Church Communicator, Survived Christmas

    I, a Church Communicator, Survived Christmas

    In fact, not only did I survive, it was quite wonderful. Sure, it was filled with looming deadlines, printers not guaranteeing on-time delivery, and coworkers not providing me with the copy I need until the very last moment, but it was still wonderful. Let me explain.

    I find that my closest relationships are also the most complicated, and it makes sense. If, say, a casual acquaintance voted for someone I fundamentally disagree with, it’s rather effortless to simply avoid the person (avoidance is both an important vice and coping mechanism for me.) If that same person is someone really close to me, then the avoidance tactics can only work temporarily, because they are too important to me to let it divide us. It’s the setbacks, disagreements, and trials in a relationship that make it stronger, and well, complicated. Believe it or not, complicated is good. It’s proof that the relationship is real.

    That was a convoluted way of describing my relationship with Christmas. It’s like hosting a big family gathering, where you are looking forward to seeing each other, but are equally happy once it is done, because the whole thing is exhausting. That’s how I feel about Christmas (and Easter, but that’s another story.)

    As if on cue, there are dreadful moments leading up to Christmas, usually the closer the day comes. While the Advent season winds down, the big day becomes more real. Christmas is delegated to a deadline. Like clockwork, there’s IT problems, broken copiers, deaths with funerals to plan, and deadlines missed. On top of all that, you have coworkers all also stressed and overworked, each with their own unique way of dealing with it. It feels like a ancient, scripted reality show, played out at churches across the world every December.

    But throughout this time, there are important moments; a song during a service, a thank you from a parishioner, a hug from a coworker and a friend.

    If you were nice enough to read all the way through, here comes the good stuff. My unsolicited advice to other communicators (and church employees in general) is to make space for quite moments. For me, it was the same day that I had to move my leaflet production schedule a week ahead to get it printed in time for Christmas. I had no idea how I was going to make it happen. I couldn’t even get the correct text for the leaflets from other people in the office.

    It was that predictable, mini-meltdown moment for me.

    So I stopped what I was doing, closed my office door, and spent a few hours redesigning the covers for all four leaflets. I didn’t have time for it, but I did it anyways. Headphones on, deadlines pushed out of my head, I designed recklessly. I remembered why I love my job and the significance of what we do as designers in the church. Being lost in Photoshop and inDesign was my centering practice. It was a recipe of solitude and creativity that served as the elixir to my ailments. I encourage you to find yours, particularly when it seems hardest to do. Be creative in your practice. Sure, it could be a prayer, a church service, some sort of meditation; but, it could also be getting lost in artwork on your computer screen, singing your heart out in your car, or some other action that could only possibly be calming to you alone.

    Do it or don’t, but be rest assured, Christmas will always be wonderful, as long as you want it to be.

    PS. Despite (or maybe because) of that design time, I still managed to get everything in on time.

    [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”2″ gal_title=”Xmas16″]

  • Storytelling as Stewardship

    Storytelling as Stewardship

    “It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”
    -Mother Theresa

    One of the most challenging projects any church will face is creating an effective stewardship campaign. A successful stewardship season can help set a progressive tone for the church year, and equally, a lackluster campaign can dictate a staff to reduce programming for the year and even into subsequent years.

    While there are many ways to craft a successful campaign, this article focuses specifically on the theme of storytelling as stewardship.

     

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    We live in a time where division is easier than connection. We often define ourselves in divisive ways; “I am a Democrat, you are a Republican. I am black, you are white, she is asian. I am a male, you are a female. I am husky, you are skinny. We are gay, you are straight.” Wether your church body wants to believe it or not, we are constantly looking at people as “the other.”

    That is why storytelling is such a successful method of stewardship. To quote one of my all time favorite books of the old testament:

    “It’s better to have a partner than go it alone.
    Share the work, share the wealth.
    And if one falls down, the other helps,
    But if there’s no one to help, tough!”
    -Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (The Message, a paraphrased bible translation)

    For the specific project that I worked on, the first step was identifying stories. There are many ways to do this, but from experience, the most successful way is to find a key volunteer to curate stories from your community. The resulting stories are a treasure trove of resources. They are clay for many different sculptures that can define a stewardship season. A collection of your church’s stories can become ad campaigns, videos campaigns, jumping points for dinner series, and most importantly, a device to encourage your parishioners to feel invested in their Christian home.

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    Once you have curated stories, visuals become the focal point. For the ASBH campaign, we focused on high quality, editorial style images reminiscent of Humans of New York. There are many techniques that can be implemented that even amateur church photographers can utilize. Creating a strong photographic style is an important part of the process. Always look to your Communications Director and other creative consultants to achieve the strongest visual styles. They truly will succeed where others have not.

    Finally, once you have a body of stories and images, it is time for the designers to do the work. Always know your audience. What are the demographics of your church? What regional factors affect design? What are emerging trends on a national level? These specifics can define the success and failure of your campaign.

    Ultimately, while all of us find it easy to see how we are different, the church can be a powerful, life-changing way to show where we are the same. Those commonalities help us to fulfill the greatest commandment, for when we know how we are the same, we can find pathways to truly love each other. That is not just powerful as a stewardship campaign, it can change the hearts of your congregation in unparalleled ways.

    All the images in this post are copyrighted and are not allowed to be reused without permission in any way. Photography courtesy of Chris James Media.

    [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”1″ gal_title=”Storytelling Stewardship”]

  • Christ The King

    Christ The King

    This is the welcome message I wrote for All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Beverly Hills on 20 November 2016.

    Today, the Feast of Christ the King marks the completion of our church year. While months remain in our secular lives before the ball drops and we make our ill-fated resolutions, in our Christian world, we have reached the end. After we hear the final Gospel reading of the year, we will leave church waiting for a new story to begin.

    And like many a depressing story, our Gospel reading ends the liturgical year with a violent, gut wrenching loss in the form of Jesus suffering on the cross. We don’t hear the rest of the story today. There is no word of resurrection, no promise of forgiveness, Jesus doesn’t even actually die, he simply suffers as the story fades to black, and we’re left with just a gnawing sense of unease about an unknown future.

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    Sound familiar to anyone right now?

    But we know where this story goes. We know, thanks to the Bible that from fear, uncertainty, and betrayal comes rebirth, new life, and new movement. Mother Teresa once said, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

    So we must begin. We begin to realize just how hard it really is to love one another. We begin to speak to each other again or not. We begin to search out common ground or not. We hopefully begin to be authentic with our feelings while honoring the feelings of those around us. And while we sit in that in-between time where one story has ended and another one is about to begin, we love our neighbors, family, enemies and leaders (both coming and going) fiercely and without restraint; because we’re Christians and that’s how we roll.

    Welcome.

    Jason Franklin
    Communications

  • 2.0

    2.0

    “Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” -John Lennon
    “Be strong and courageous” -The Bible

    Very often, something needs to be reimagined, but you don’t yet know it. You build something up and put so much effort into it that it becomes a beast of expectations. Eventually the beast becomes so encompassing that it is impossible to see anything but it. Your concern to nurture it becomes a full time job, and the beliefs that were once cornerstones crack from its gravity.

    And the whole time, you never take a minute to wonder if what you are doing is really what you should be doing.

    BombDrop

    Until a bomb drops; figuratively, actually, emotionally, or all of the above, because something with that much weight is never sustainable. The beast of expectations suddenly becomes 1.0 and you need to start thinking about 2.0.

    But you don’t, because you cannot imagine a post 1.0 life. Everything is askew and you’re mad. How did this happen? What went wrong? So you waste some time on the past. You indulge in self pity and pass blame and judgment along.

    Eventually, 2.0 begins to take shape. It grows in spite of your resistance and you realize just how resilient you are. It’s just like that moment of first love, after it’s gone. You begin to look back at 1.0 mythologically and the yearning for it dulls enough to finally look forward.

    It was necessary, the wasting time, but now the necessity is courage and strength, because there’s work to get done, and it’s called 2.0.