The Ultimate Church Resource List
There are a ton of church media and resource companies. It seems like new ones pop up every day. Which ones are worth subscribing to and which ones should be passed up? Well, glad you asked. In this post, we have compiled the Ultimate Church Resource List including both free and paid options.
Visual and Design Assets
Visual Media Church is the leader in church visuals for lyrics displays. I've said for years that their membership packs in more value than any church media company out there. Whether you're a screen operator, social media manager, video editor, or photographer there's something for you!
If you're more interested in freebies, VMC is your company too. Their massive free library contains more than what most of us could ever use!
Stokhub is one of the only church stock video companies and is by far the best! You simply can't beat the quality of content and low cost.
Unsplash is known as the free photo site. A lot of the more popular photos are quite commonly seen in the "wild" but that doesn't mean it shouldn't have a place in your toolkit. What sets Unsplash apart is unlike other free stock photo sites (and even paid TBH) their photos don't look like stock photos. Expect to find high-quality beautiful stock photos ready to download for free.
Unsplash
Envato Elements is, at least in my opinion, quantity over quality. For the price, you get boatloads of assets and resources, but they're not all worth using. The good thing is that even though you probably won't use half of it, it's priced at a level that makes it well worth it. There are some great assets hiding in there! Be sure to check their freebie page often for new free items.
Need an icon for a brand or service? Simple Icons is the place to look. Just search for the brand's name and download an SVG of their logo. If that's not easy enough, they take the guesswork out of choosing what color to use by providing the hex code you need to make it look "right."
I've been a subscriber to NuSupply since the founders launched. It's $5/m and delivers three digital asset packs to your inbox every month. It's simple, cheap, easy, and high quality. You're getting assets and templates that would normally cost $20+ each at other shops for a fraction of the price.
GPT-3, maybe you've heard of it in the news. If not, it's a natural language processing API that uses AI trained on internet content to generate text responses. You can use GPT-3 directly in the browser using their playground and when you sign up you get credits to try it out. If you're just using it for generating writing prompts or copywriting social media posts it won't cost much at all.
Here's what it had to say about The Church Factory and how it would invite someone to church:
Prompt: Summerize the website thechurchfactory.com
Output: The Church Factory is a website that provides resources and information for churches. The website includes a blog featuring church-related products and services. The website is designed to help churches grow and thrive.
Prompt: Write a paragraph inviting people to church.
Output: Welcome to our church! We are a community of believers who come together to worship God and grow in our faith. We would love for you to join us on Sundays at 10:00am. We have a vibrant worship service followed by coffee and fellowship. There are also Sunday School classes for all ages. We hope to see you soon!
OpenAI
Social Media Content
I know, it's a repeat, but I must mention this! Visual Media Church has Adobe and Canva templates. Now, look, if you know me you know I'm not a fan of Canva but many of you are and no matter if you use Adobe (👑) or Canva (😢) you can still find high-quality templates ready to go. That's simply not something you see every day and is what earns VMC a second spot on our resource list.
Fonts and Typography
Fontjoy is a nifty little tool for creating font pairings. Not a trained typographer? Neither are we. Fontjoy is an easy-to-use quick little tool for finding fonts that perfectly match and complement each other.
Google Fonts is a great resource for those of us who don't want to spend $$$$ on a typeface. You get over 1000 font families ready to download or use on your website all for free. Can it be any easier?
For those of you with an Adobe Creative Cloud membership (nonprofits can get it for $20/m), you get access to Adobe Fonts. Adobe's font library seems more professional and premium than Google Fonts. You'll find a lot of font families here that you won't see on Google Fonts plus it integrates perfectly with the entire Adobe suite.
WTF. Oh, you thought we meant something else? WTF in the graphic designer world means WhatTheFont. Noticed another church's cool design and want to copy their font? Well, using WhatTheFont you can. Upload an image and watch the magic happen.
Websites and Mobile Apps
I'm a web developer and even I recommend The Church Co. I literally do not know how they are able to provide such a high-quality service starting at only $20. If your website is not on The Church Co what are you doing?
I can't talk about websites without mentioning WordPress. Don't believe what some folks tell you. WordPress isn't prone to hacks or hard to use, it's all about the user and how it's set up. If you're not interested in The Church Co (highly recommend!) use WordPress. To set up WordPress correctly you want to get a theme called Divi from Elegant Themes and host your site somewhere like Flywheel. Sure, it won't be free but you won't regret it.
Wrap Up
There are a ton of media companies. Truly a ton. So we know we didn't shout out every company but we did mention our favorites and ones we think that every church should check out. If there's something we missed please reach out and let us know by contacting us here.
As you'd probably guess this page does contain affiliate links on some of the links. If you make a purchase with one of those companies we may get a small commission at no cost to you. What you probably didn't guess is that most of the links on this page are not affiliate links so we like to keep things as unbiased as possible!