missio

Here’s a great resource on Biblical eldership (with Biblical citation) from Pastor Mark Driscoll if you don’t have it yet. You can download the PDF at the bottom of the page. (here)

I’ve had quite a few comments on my design style (the blog and the rough draft of the HarmonyDC website are done by myself - can’t afford outside design yet, plus I’m OK for now [I think] ). People wonder about my color scheme (it’s almost Christmasy), why I lowercase everything, and where the logo came from. I’d love to explain it.

First of all, I’m working off of this principle: the Gospel invades everything. That being said, let’s continue.

• The Logo: The logo is simple, because the Gospel is simple. Following basic design rules, I also chose an easy to read font (Futura family, combined with District Thin (a DC font) ). The logo image is a reiteration of our name: harmony. We believe harmony is achieved only when people gather together around the Cross. This is part of the Gospel. The Cross is fundamental to the Gospel, in fact, in a large part it is the Gospel. We keep the Cross central to our logo, because it is central to the Gospel. Why green? Well, that’s another question.

• The Color Scheme: Our color scheme is dark green (#67865D), light green (#8CB480), and red (#B13E1F), and a neutral grey. The greens are explicit of the entire Biblical narrative, of God’s restoration from one Garden to another. The dark green represents the Garden of Eden: the original Garden which was fallen because of Man. The light green represents the perfect Garden in the City of Heaven in Revelation 21. The grey? Design principle: easy to read, good on both black and white. The red? Easy. It’s the blood of Christ. One design principle claims that Christmas colors don’t work because of their Christmas association. We disagree. Either way people associate us: it’s with Jesus. If they see the Gospel, they’ll see Jesus. If they see Christmas (as non-Christians will), they still see Jesus. Either way, there He is. Everything should reflect Him.

• The Lowercasing: We lowercase things to emphasize God, not us. We are not about us, we are about Him. Of course, we capitalize occasionally just to avoid confusion. But overall, such as in our logo, we humbly display ourselves in order to exalt Him.

So there you are. That’s our design process. Hope you see Christ throughout, and now, hopefully, I won’t have to explain it much more.

Isn’t She Beautiful is a conference on the church as a whole, put on by Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI. Rob Bell, while I’m not a huge fan of his theology, did have a a pretty good quote:

The church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non-members.

While not entirely true (it’s not the only charitable organization), it makes you think nonetheless. You can check out more of the conference here: Isn’t She Beautiful