church of the king
gulf coast, ms

My church. My home. My family.

My husband and I found Church of the King- Gulf Coast when we lived in Gulfport, MS back in 2008. From the instant we walked through the doors, it was home for us. If you read my "about" page, you read a small portion of my testimony. God really did a doozy on me with this business. I seriously didn't know anything about graphic design. I mean NOTHING. When I needed it, and prayed about it, He gave me everything I needed and more. It is part of my job and honor to give back. This isn't my talent, this is all HIS and He is only lending it to me. I should give it back when I can, so when we found our church and they had a need for a website, I pulled the pastor aside and asked what I could do to help.

I met with the media director/youth pastor/graphic designer/small groups pastor//// (you get the point... he wore a lot of hats). I offered to take this project on and do everything that I could. They had already hired a church media company for a template and hosting package by this time. It wasn't what they were looking for (they wanted a custom design), but they were locked into a contract and what was done was done. I was able to take that template and design some graphics, redesign the logo and plug it all in. I was able to help them learn the website and show them how to upload information and content on their own after time.

Our church began to grow. I will never forget the first time that someone came in and when he was asked how his family found our small church, the family said it was because of the website. See, I was growing not only as a person, but in my walk. It was HARD giving hours and hours a day when I could have (and sometimes should have) been working or with my family but was at the church getting the site up and/or designing graphics. It felt like a thankless job at times and that was my own problem that I was dealing with but it was also a lot of Satan attacking me and not wanting me to serve. (didn't know we were going to get deep did you? I didn't either til I just started writing this....) Anyways, when the guy told our pastor, he then came up to me and told me. He knew the hours I had been spending at the church, but had no idea the hours I had been spending at home on the project and just how drained I was feeling emotionally and spiritually over all of this. He had no idea the kind of struggles I was having with this. When I heard that someone actually came to our church because of something that *I* did, it reminded me of why I was doing it. It reminded me that those hours that I had been spending were all worth it. 2 months later when I witnessed his children accept Christ and begin attend church regularly, I was again reminded of why it was so important that I continue serving. We never know the impact that our services have on someone else. We don't serve for ourselves, we serve for Him.

Anyway (phew), so the site was built and at a place that was finally easily maintained by the church staff. I was then able to design for our sermon series graphics. I was in charge of our Christmas production graphics, the women's graphics, tshirts as well as several other projects.

Over time, we began to outgrow our current building and needed to expand. That launched the "Imagine" campaign. I designed a website that documented our church's journey from what if to what is. The website was live for 1 year during it's scheduled campaign.

Oh, and our church did finally get a new building and they have just recently moved to the new location, however since we moved to Texas, we have not been to the new location. I miss my church and family dearly! I learned so much from everyone there. Our new church home is actually a sister church... who would have thought that we would move something like 800 miles away and not just find a church that is like home and family, but a church that IS home and family and is only a couple of blocks away. How does that happen? Oh yeah... God. He knows what's up.

So... that's the (little) story of my service with Church of the King- Gulf Coast and my involvement (graphically). Anyways, just a really long and personal story about how serving and sacrificing can be really hard and trying but isn't is supposed to be? This isn't an easy job, leading people to Christ. It takes everyone to do it. There are people behind the scenes everyday that make your experience at church (or home watching online sermons) as easy and convenient as possible. He sacrificed the ultimate for us. If I have to be uncomfortable and tired for a little bit of time to bring even just 1 family to know Him, I call that well worth it and not even comparable to what has been done for me.

provided: logo redesign (multiple versions), website design (2), content management and layout, website graphics, tshirt designs, media graphics