Sermon on the Disc

Unless you're a politician, the president of the high school debate club or have some weird addiction to Toastmasters, you're probably like everyone else in the world who finds it difficult to be "on" with any regularity. Most people are just too swamped with all the miscellaneous details of life to be brilliant even just once a month. For church pastors, it's the same deal. But unlike most people, they've got just as much on their to-do plates but there's a whole congregation that shows up week after week and are expecting brilliance and touching moments of insight. Jewelboxing user Drew Binkley knew this and realized there was something he could do to help out, as well as launch a new side of his business doing just that. Here's from Drew:

"We believe our tagline for SermonPaks, 'Package. Promote. Preach.,' describes perfectly what our company is all about. Pastors today can get so carried away with trying to promote their next sermon that they sometimes forget the true purpose of what they're doing, or neglect the time needed to properly prepare for one of the most important aspects of their job. They are there to preach, because that's where their talents are, not in designing miscellaneous promotional items. That's where we hope SermonPaks will come in -- we create all the promotional materials so they don't have to, letting them get back to what's important and successfully pull off their next sermon series. We provide them with everything they need, from bulletin shells to mini-inviter cards, to even CDs with things like photos and movies to use with their projection software, images to place on their web site and a variety of posters and jacket and CD labels, all with the idea of lending a hand to in-house media ministries and overall promotion throughout the church. And we try to keep it all very affordable by charging less than two hundred dollars for a complete kit."

"It goes without saying that we could not have pulled it off if not for Jewelboxing and the ease of use that comes with it. Your system helps us keep a very low inventory with on-demand fulfillment within a matter of minutes, which is ideal for the type of product SermonPaks are."

Here's to hoping some hands are being lent to those in Riverside, Oak Park, State College, Sunbury, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Brea, New York, Louisville, Chattanooga, Oslo, Live Oak, Chandler, Vancouver, Boston, Baltimore, Fall River, Tybee Island, Harrogate, Sparks, Chicago, Sugar Hill, Apple Valley and Pasadena.

Jewelboxing Helps Get 'Porn' Into Churches

Very often, we'll get a sample in from a Jewelboxing user with something totally unique. But what we found when we opened an envelope sent into us by Rob Supan, of Ohio-based Gate Creative, the other day really took us back a bit. But instead of us ruining the surprise of what it was, here's the whole rundown of the project by Rob (who also, it sounds, was initially a little shocked):

"The guys at XXXchurch.com presented us with a project: They had a DVD of one of their first PornSundays held at the Peoples Church in Nashville that needed a better packaging solution than the trigger case they were shipping it in. Now, if you're not familiar with XXXchurch or if you're hearing the term PornSunday for the first time you think, "This has to be a joke, right?!" It's not. Craig Gross and Mike Foster put the ministry together four years ago and positioned it as 'The #1 Christian Porn Site', but it's not what you think. It's an ANTI porn ministry that encourages accountability to those who struggle with porn. And while they've had a great deal of success spreading the word at adult expos, porn shows, and the seedier corners of the internet, taking the message to a church on Sunday morning is another story. Seems churches don't like discussing topics like porn from the pulpit, so we worked with XXXchurch to put together National PornSunday, a nation-wide effort to take the XXXchurch message to churches across the country. But in order to be taken seriously by the nation's pastors, the packaging of the marketing materials had to have a good bit more polish to the presentation than the made-in-the-basement approach of the existing DVD."

"As soon as Craig handed me the disk, I knew that I had my first large scale Jewelboxing opportunity. We comped up a sample knowing that as soon as the guys saw it they'd be sold. The case really sold itself. I just got to look like a genius for putting it in front of them. The before and after pictures illustrate the huge improvement. The quantity they ordered presented a small challenge, though... too large a number to produce on the office ink jet, but too small a number to send to a commercial printer. The solution was to use a local printer who could run the templates on a Xerox Digital Color 2060. I was hesitant at first, but after doing a few test runs we were able to nail it. Then came the assembly. We all got together one evening, had a great meal, and then spent the rest of the night perfing, folding, and inserting until they were completed. My kids loved it! The 10-year-old handled the tray inserts, the 2-year-old stacked (and frequently unstacked) the cases, while the 4 and 5-year-old collected the scraps and produced their own projects... Now along with 100s of great looking DVDs, we have a killer set of PornSunday woven placemats!"

"The DVD has gone from being a cheap throw-in to a great marketable product and has helped to position the ministry as one of the leading voices in the area of online accountability. And National PornSunday... It was a huge success with over 100 churches across the county and overseas all participating in a one day event to becoming the strength and hope for thousands struggling with this dirty little secret."

So certainly one of the more unique projects we've seen Jewelboxing put to use for. Though we have high expectations for everyone in Knutsford, London, Lachine, Saint Charles, Paco de Arcos, Washington DC, Portland, Grimsby, Livonia, Charlotte, Austin, Missoula, New York, San Diego, South Haven, Dallas, Brownsburg, Brooklyn, Pasadena, Tucson, Colorado Springs, Bath, Winnepeg, Yucca Valley, Carson, Cupertino, Ashland, Gretna, Toronto, Bradford, Ottawa, Cherry Hill, Cambridge, Chicago, and Greenwood Village.