Branding

I here a lot about the need to have a "brand".  Churches are encouraged to have a "brand".  People are encouraged to develop their own personal "brand".

Here is an interesting take on Brands

The reason brand conversations get so convoluted and end up feeling like wordsmithing exercises is because so often brands don’t stand for anything.  So instead of capturing what you stand for, or capturing how what you stand for needs to evolve or be sharpened, you instead end up pretending to stand for something and then writing pretty words around an idea that has no core and no truth.

Unfortunately, the branding team (and the firm they’ve hired) isn’t in a position to actually get the company to stand for something.

The next time someone suggests a branding exercise, a new logo, a snappier tagline, grab ten people in your company and ask each of them to tell you in simple, plain words: what do we stand for?

Instead of asking what's your "brand" can I just ask: "What do I stand for?  What do we as a church stand for?"