Supporting Remote Learning
Resurrection Church

Overview

Resurrection Church is a regional faith community based in Tacoma, WA. At the time of this project they had around 1000 attendees from across the South Puget Sound region.

Not long after the organizations launch, the staff wanted to have the congregation grow together in their founding values.

To do this campaigns were created that included synchronization of content, small group remote experiences and larger gatherings.

My role was to design and creative direct the online & print resources, branding direction and content.

Rhythms of Community

As a community they gathered weekly. The experience took place in 3 contexts.

‍1. Solitude of personal study‍
‍2. Interpersonal connection in small groups‍
‍3. Formative experiences in large gatherings

‍The challenge was to provide opportunity to tie the episodic focus through each experience. Each person would experience the content in their own way, in tandem with others working through the same content allowing for personal and community growth.

Creating a Holistic Experience

Up to this point, the experience in each context wasn't focused in one direction. There was mixed use among the community of digital and physical tools, so we worked to make the content and activities usable in both ways. Many people engaged solely with our church's app, while others used notebooks, and printed text.

The community demographics spanned across generations. The large majority being young families, mostly made up of younger Generation X and older Millennials. After spending a lot of time in whiteboard sessions and gathering feedback we landed on a hybrid strategy. We would provide an experience that could be engaged with in digital or analog.

1. An entire new section in our organization app

  • Devotional prompts, 5 days a week for 10 weeks
  • Small group discussion videos and prompts for response
  • Weekly Gathering content posted for reference

2. Printed Companion Workbook

  • Devotional prompts and space to reflect
  • Small group discussion questions and space for reflection
  • Weekly Gathering content, including questions for reflection and key verses

3. Reworked Small Group Experiences

  • Reordered elements of gathering to incorporate topical videos and reflection time
  • Supported group leaders through shared resources via technology
  • Synchronized starting questions to bring unity among the groups

Prototyping & Design

We built on top of an app building platform that we could execute our ideal experience on. Thankfully this allowed us to continue to focus on content as a team and build a resource with a consistent pattern for the community. Each series included custom content, but we followed a similar model that we developed for each of the deliverables.

Results and Feedback

Overall the feedback was positive, and this paradigm became a new standard for community study at the church. Small group participation grew from about 30% of the community, to 70%. We saw larger involvement and engagement, with more people leading and volunteering.

Themes of Feedback

  • Appreciation for thoughtful structure of content, throughout experiences. Allowed for more depth in discussion.
  • Appreciation of tools created: simplicity of app, workbook balanced info with space for notes well.

Areas to Improve

  • Content at times was too structured and dense, conversations wouldn't cover all the material in time allotted.
  • Compact nature of workbook didn't always provide enough room for notes.
  • Weekly Gathering content, including questions for reflection and key verses