Your church can only serve people who know it exists. When life falls apart, people reach first for what they already know, then they ask friends and family, and only then do they ask Google. If your church is not in that first step, you are the completely forgettable church, the building on the corner nobody thinks of. In this episode, Dave and Justin Nava explain why most churches are forgettable, and how to plant your church in people’s minds so you are the answer they remember, not just another option.
The problem: your feed is nothing but advertisements
Look at the average church’s Facebook page or website and count what you find. VBS announcements. The senior adult trip. A new sermon series graphic. Event after event after event. Justin puts it plainly: pastors say they want to be known as a people and not a programmatic church, but they only promote events, so they only attract church shoppers and event-goers.
His grocery store test makes it land. Picture a man whose life is coming apart: on his last strike at work, sleeping on the couch, kids not listening. He asks what the church and Jesus can do for him. And the church answers, “Come Sunday, we’ve got a new series. VBS is next week. We need someone to run the snow cone maker, and there’s a picnic.” That is exactly how an event-only Facebook page talks to a hurting person scrolling past it.
Speak to what keeps people up at night
The alternative is relationship marketing instead of church marketing. One of Justin’s clients said it this way: “I don’t care if they forget about us. I do care if they forget about Jesus.” The church is the vehicle. The message is Jesus, aimed at real felt needs: parents worried about the culture shaping their kids, families wondering if their children will be safe and cared for, people lying awake over money or purpose.
That means posting content that feeds people hope and truth, including stories of how Jesus has redeemed real people, instead of projecting a perfect facade. Event posts still have a place. They get peppered in. They are just not the message. Justin covers how to post daily without burning out in his BEAST method trainings inside Church Training Academy.
Be the answer, not an option
Justin calls his approach Influence Inception: gently and consistently planting your church in the community’s mind as a safe place where true joy, community, and purpose are found, so that on the day their life falls apart, your church is the first one they think of. “If people don’t know you, they cannot go to you,” he says. “And if they can’t go to you, you can’t serve them.”
The standard is Walmart. Everyone in town knows where the Walmart is, when it is open, and what to expect there, whether they love it or not. Even the vegetarian in the family knows the best steakhouse in town. Your church should be known the same way, by people who have never walked in and may never agree with you. Being louder will not do it. Noisy “look how great we are, don’t miss it” marketing gets tuned out like a nagging child. A message that lands says: we understand what you are going through, here is how Jesus meets you in it, and here is what changes.
Step one: one clear message, repeated past the point of boredom
Pick one clear, public message that connects a real need in your community to Jesus, and repeat it everywhere: social media, your website, your announcements, word for word. By the time you are tired of saying it, other people are just starting to catch on. Justin tested this on his own audience. He says his message about five times in every thirty minutes of video, then asked if anyone had heard him say it. Not one person had.
Two warnings from the episode. First, your message is not your mission statement. “We exist to make disciples” is an internal statement. Nobody walks around wishing someone would disciple them, the same way nobody can quote Nike’s mission statement. Second, churches destroy memorability by changing the message constantly. Dave’s own church, Tate Springs, has used the same framing for about five years since their rebrand: “helping you discover your part in God’s story,” bookending announcement videos with the same words at the start and the finish. Consistency always beats complication.
Step two: consistent visuals, so the color alone identifies you
Use the same brand colors and fonts on everything external until people recognize your church mid-scroll without reading a word. People respond to color more than logos: Coke red, Pepsi blue, the orange Home Depot roof. Churches carry this too, like Elevation’s orange and Saddleback’s teal. Justin’s recipe is simple: one major color, one secondary color, and two alternative colors, saved as a brand kit in Canva so every graphic starts on-brand. In the episode he shows the Instagram feed of Options for Life, a pregnancy center in New Braunfels, Texas, before and after this kind of consistency work. The after feed is identifiable at a glance, and the same recognition transfers to their signs and flyers around town.
Sermon series artwork can change for internal pieces. The external face of the church should not, because people who come for a series leave when the series ends. People who come for the church, and for the Savior, stay.
Give it about a year
None of this is a campaign. Dave and Justin are clear that you should expect roughly a year of consistent message and consistent visuals before recognition starts compounding, before someone sees your colored tent at a community event and knows it is your church without reading the logo. That is a long game, and it is the honest one. If you volunteer in media, you can start it: build the simple brand guide, and ask your pastor to try consistency for a season, on the grounds that consistency creates trust, and trust helps people remember the church when the day comes that they need to hear the gospel.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my church not growing even though we post on Facebook?
If your feed is mostly event advertisements, you are only reaching people already shopping for events. Hurting people scroll past, because nothing in the feed speaks to what they are actually carrying. Change the mix: lead with content that speaks to felt needs and points to Jesus, and pepper the event posts in.
How do people actually choose a church?
In order: what and who they already know, then recommendations from friends and family, then Google. Everything in this episode aims at step one, being remembered before the need arises, because if you lose step one you either lose them to competing recommendations or you are competing on Google against everyone else publishing there.
What is Influence Inception?
It is Justin Nava’s name for planting your church in people’s minds over time through a clear, consistent message and consistent visuals, so your church is seen as the answer to real needs rather than one option among many.
How long does it take for a church to become memorable?
Plan on about a year of consistent output before recognition compounds. Repetition works slowly: people forget the first several exposures before the message finally sticks, which is why the message cannot keep changing.
What should be in a simple church brand kit?
One major color, one secondary color, two alternative colors, and your set fonts, saved in a tool like Canva with a short brand guide your volunteers can follow. Design serves the message. Nobody joins a church because of a good logo, but consistent visuals make the message recognizable.
Now, take everything you’ve learned and use it to go change lives.