Graphic Resources for Churches
I have been planning on posting some information about good sources for church graphics, but Kent Shaffer over at the Church Relevance blog beat me to it. Check out this great post which includes a listing of free church graphic resources. He lists companies that do still image backgrounds as well as video backgrounds. There are also some sermon illustration sites that are listed. Be sure to check out the comment section as well for more ideas from other readers.
I am frequently asked where we get our video backgrounds and sermon graphics from, so here is a quick listing of what we use. I hope this helps and please drop me a comment if you have any additional sources for great graphics. Just for info, I typically use Photoshop Elements for image editing, Premiere Elements for Video editing, and EasyWorship to bring it all together and project on Sunday morning. (I am always looking for someone with Final Cut experience or Adobe After Effects experience that is willing to work for cheap)
Video Backgrounds that we use at Cornerstone for Worship
- Digital Juice Jump Backs – It helps that Sam used to be the CEO of Digital Juice – It’s nice to have connections
- WorshipFilms – They have great nature scenes and seasonal videos
- Christian Collages – These are all good and I’m using these all the time. They don’t have a big collection yet, but I am impressed so far.
- Muddy River Media – These backgrounds are FREE (They have some good backgrounds and they are adding more. Did I mention they are free?)
Sermon Graphics
- istockphoto – This is where I can usually find any stock photos or vector art when I want to create my own church graphics or logos.
- Lifechurch.tv Open Resources – Lifechurch is awesome. They provide all of their sermon series graphics for free. They are doing some incredible things with technology.
- Vine Resources – Another church that provides church sermon graphics for free. These are from the college ministry at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky.
- Newspring Online – I haven’t used any of their free resources yet, but I probably will at some point in the future.
- Midnight Oil Productions – they have some great image & video packs that you can edit and build from. I am using these for our current Breaking Free series.
- Pastor’s Place – I have used some of their stuff before, but they have mostly images and powerpoint only.
Again, I hope these help you out in finding the right graphics to display for your church. Just remember that you want to enhance the message, not distract from it. I have seen too many churches go way overboard on the graphics they use and create distractions during the worship service. Don’t use something unless it adds to the message and theme of the service. Now try some of these out and get creative!
I forgot to mention a few of the sermon illustration sites that I use for video clips
SermonSpice
Worship House Media
Wing Clips