Sermon Series Ideas and Church Design Trends This Week

This article comes from episode 3 of Designed for Sunday, our short weekly podcast on what churches everywhere are preaching and designing. Listen to the episode here.

Every week, Josh Starr pulls real data from what churches are creating and looks for patterns worth paying attention to. This week's numbers were larger than usual: 159 designs started, across 70 churches, covering 102 different sermon series. Another 86 churches joined for the first time, meaning most of the people in this week's data were starting fresh, first series, first time through the whole process. Three things stood out, and each one has something practical in it for church communicators and pastors.

What books of the Bible are churches preaching right now?

John, Acts, and Matthew were each being preached by six different churches simultaneously, with no coordination between them. Psalms came in at four. That kind of convergence across independent congregations is not random. It suggests something broader is drawing churches to these texts at the same moment, whether that is the liturgical season, wider cultural conversations, or simply where the Spirit seems to be moving.

If your church is in one of those books right now, you are not late to a trend. You are in the middle of one. And that actually raises the stakes for your communication. Your congregation is almost certainly encountering John or Acts in other places, through podcasts, Bible reading plans, and friends at other churches. That means your job is not just to preach the text. It is to make your series feel like a specific, local invitation rather than a generic treatment of the same material everyone else is covering. Your title and your visuals are doing that work, whether you are being intentional about it or not.

Should a sermon series title be clever or direct?

Two churches independently landed on the title "One Church, One Army." Two other churches both submitted "Quebrando el Alabastro," a Spanish phrase meaning "Breaking the Alabaster." Neither pair of churches was talking to each other. They just arrived at the same words.

Josh notes that when language surfaces independently like that, it is usually a signal, not a coincidence. Something in the broader culture is making those themes feel urgent right now: unity, sacrifice, surrender. If your series is touching any of those ideas, you do not have to search for a clever angle. The most direct title is often the one that lands, because it names exactly what people are already feeling.

The hard truth here is that clarity is not boring. Vague is boring. A title that tries too hard to be interesting often ends up saying nothing. A title that simply names the theme gives your congregation something they can repeat, share, and connect with before they ever sit down on Sunday.

Choosing the right visual style for your sermon series

On the design side, Typographic Giant led the week with 16 uses, but what Josh found more interesting was how tight the spread was. Gilded Reverence, Sacred Scrapbook, Cinematic Double Exposure, Atmospheric Environment, and Technical Schematic all came in between 13 and 15 uses each. No single look dominated.

That is actually healthy data. Churches are not all chasing one aesthetic. They are picking what fits their tone. Typographic Giant and Technical Schematic and Sacred Scrapbook are genuinely different moods, and the churches choosing each one are presumably doing so because it sounds like them. You can browse the range of available directions in the styles library to get a feel for what fits your congregation's voice.

The question to ask when choosing a visual direction is not "what looks good right now?" It is "what sounds like our church?" Those are different questions, and the second one is the one that matters.

A practical checklist before you finalize your series title and graphics

1. Write down your series title and ask one person outside your planning team what they think it is about. If they cannot tell you, the title may be too vague.
2. Check whether your series touches themes of unity, sacrifice, or surrender. If it does, a direct title is likely stronger than a creative one.
3. If you are preaching John, Acts, Matthew, or Psalms, clarify your local angle in your subtitle, series description, or opening week messaging.
4. Look at two or three visual styles that feel different from each other and ask which one your congregation would recognize as yours.
5. Make sure your graphic treatment reinforces the tone of the series, not just its topic. A heavy doctrinal series and a light community series can cover the same text and need very different visuals.
6. Before you finalize anything, show a draft to someone who attends your church but is not on your team. Their first reaction is your most useful feedback.

If you want to see what current design directions look like applied to an actual series title, the gallery is a good place to start before committing to a direction.

The broader takeaway from this week is simple. Churches that communicate well are not necessarily chasing what is popular. They are being specific about who they are, clear about what they are preaching, and intentional about how those two things come across visually. That combination is what makes a series feel like an invitation rather than an announcement.

If you want to put these ideas into practice, PixelChurch makes it straightforward to go from a series title to complete series graphics in minutes, and you can start at pixelchurch.co/new for free.

Frequently asked questions

What sermon series topics are churches preaching right now?

Based on current design data, a significant number of churches are preaching through John, Acts, and Matthew simultaneously, with Psalms also appearing frequently. Thematically, unity and surrender are surfacing across congregations in both English and Spanish contexts, often through titles that are direct rather than creative. If your church is in one of these books or themes, you are in good company, and your energy is better spent clarifying your local angle than trying to differentiate your topic.

How do I choose a visual style for my church's sermon series graphics?

The most useful question is not which style is trending but which style sounds like your church. This week's data showed no single aesthetic dominating, which suggests healthy diversity in how churches are presenting themselves visually. Start by looking at a few genuinely different styles side by side and noticing which one feels consistent with how your church already communicates, the words you use, the way your space is set up, and the tone of your preaching. Match the visual mood to the series mood, not to an external trend.

Does my sermon series title really need to be creative to be effective?

Not necessarily. Two separate pairs of churches this week independently arrived at the same series titles without knowing about each other, which points to something important: when a title is direct and clear, multiple people will land on it naturally because it names what is actually true. Creative titles can work well, but they carry the risk of obscuring the point. A title your congregation can repeat easily and explain to a friend is often more effective than one that requires unpacking. Clarity is a feature, not a compromise.