What Churches Are Preaching and Designing Right Now

This article comes from episode 9 of Designed for Sunday, our short weekly podcast on what churches everywhere are preaching and designing. Listen to the episode here.

Quieter weeks in data can be surprisingly revealing. When fewer churches are working at the same time, the choices they make stand out more clearly against the noise. This week covered twenty different sermon series across twelve churches, and the patterns that emerged are worth paying attention to, whether you are planning your next series or trying to tighten up your church's visual identity.

What styles are churches choosing for sermon series graphics?

The style spread this week was unusually wide for a smaller sample. Six distinct visual styles all received meaningful use, with Neon Circuit and Cinematic Double Exposure each chosen five times, and Gilded Reverence and Lo-Fi Zine each chosen four times. Studio Pop and Golden-Hour Editorial each picked up two selections.

As Josh notes, a smaller week typically pushes churches toward one or two familiar, safe choices. That did not happen here. Six styles getting real traction in a single week suggests churches are approaching the style decision as a genuine creative choice rather than a reflex.

That distinction matters more than it might seem. Your visual style is making an argument before anyone reads a single word. Neon Circuit and Lo-Fi Zine communicate something entirely different from Gilded Reverence, and the congregations who encounter those graphics will feel that difference before they consciously process it. Treating your style choice as a default, rather than a decision, is a missed opportunity to set the right tone for a series from the very first impression.

If you want to explore the range of what is available, the styles page is a good place to start before you commit to a direction.

What scripture are churches preaching through right now?

Twelve churches this week produced graphics across a wide spread of books. Colossians and Galatians each had two churches working through them independently, and then the list fans out quickly: Romans, Philippians, Second Timothy, Isaiah, Joshua, and First Thessalonians each claimed by a single church.

No single book dominated. That is notable because it suggests churches are not chasing whatever feels culturally prominent or popular online. They are preaching what their specific congregation needs right now. Josh puts it plainly: preach to your congregation, not to your feed. The churches with the sharpest series identity tend to be the ones who stopped looking sideways at what other communities are doing and focused instead on their own people.

Three practical lessons from this week

The data this week points toward three concrete things any church communicator or pastor can act on directly.

1. Choose your visual style on purpose, not by habit. Look at the full range of options available to you and ask which style actually fits the emotional and theological tone of this series. A style chosen deliberately will always serve your series better than one chosen because it felt familiar.
2. Make your graphics bilingual if your community is multilingual. One church this week produced a kit in both English and Spanish for the same series. If your congregation includes people who worship or read in more than one language, your series graphics can either include them or quietly exclude them. The decision is straightforward once you name it that way.
3. Build your series around your actual congregation. Start with the questions, struggles, and seasons your people are living through. A series built from that place will have a clarity and specificity that no amount of borrowed inspiration can produce.

One other pattern worth noting

The twenty series across twelve churches means most churches were starting or working through more than one series at the same time. That is a higher series-per-church number than typical, and it is a good reminder that planning rarely happens in isolation. Communicators are often managing graphics for an upcoming series while the current one is still running. Building flexibility into your design process, and giving yourself enough lead time, makes that overlap easier to handle without everything feeling rushed.

Frequently asked questions

What visual style should I choose for my church's sermon series graphics?

The right style depends on the tone and subject matter of the specific series, not on what looks good in general. A series on grief or lament calls for a different visual register than one on joy or mission. Before selecting anything, write one sentence describing the emotional mood you want the series to carry, then look for a style that matches that sentence. If you want to browse options before you start, the styles page shows the full range so you can compare side by side.

How far in advance should a church plan sermon series graphics?

Most church communicators find that four to six weeks of lead time gives enough room to refine the direction, gather any needed approvals, and adapt graphics for different formats like social media, slides, and print. When churches are running overlapping series, that buffer becomes even more important. Starting earlier than you think you need to is almost always the right call, especially for larger series with more moving parts.

Should our church make bilingual graphics for a sermon series?

If any meaningful portion of your congregation worships, reads, or engages primarily in a language other than your default, then yes, bilingual graphics are worth the effort. Series visuals are often the first thing people see before they ever walk in a door, on social media, in a bulletin, or on a screen. If those graphics only speak to part of your community, that gap sends a message even when no one intends it to. Producing graphics in more than one language is a practical way to signal that everyone in the room belongs to the series.

If you are ready to put any of this into practice, PixelChurch lets you type in your sermon series title and get complete series graphics in minutes, free to try.