THE IDEA

The Book of Acts is a story about a movement — ordinary people empowered by something beyond themselves, scattered across the known world, changing everything they touched. The creative challenge was finding a visual language that could carry that kind of epic, expansive narrative across 12 weeks without losing momentum or cohesion.

The inspiration was the retro field guide — naturalist illustration, National Parks badge aesthetics, the visual language of exploration and discovery. Something that felt like it belonged in the hands of an adventurer heading somewhere unknown. Because that's exactly what Acts is.

The series was structured in two six-week halves. Acts: The Invitation focused on identity — who we are as a community, what it means to be gathered, filled, and sent. Acts: The Adventure focused on mission — how that community moves outward, crosses barriers, and changes the world around it. Two phases, one visual system, one unfolding story anchored in Acts 1:8: witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

THE BUILD

The visual system was built around a set of custom illustrated stickers — each one designed in the National Parks badge tradition, with arched frames, hand-lettered titles, and illustrated scenes tied to each week's passage. Every sticker was a standalone illustration that also functioned as part of a larger campaign narrative.

The stickers lived everywhere. Promo posters were printed with empty outlined frames — each week, the new sticker was applied live, filling in the story week by week. A large arched orange stage panel anchored the series visually for the entire run, with stickers added on stage during the service. By week six, the poster and the stage panel together told the complete first half of the story in a single image. What started as a design asset became a weekly ritual.

For the second half, the system extended into a 26-page printed Field Guide booklet — handed out at the start of Acts: The Adventure. Inside: a recap of all six Invitation stickers with key insights and applications, a 12-week Acts reading plan, two full Mediterranean world maps tracing Paul's journeys in detail, and individual spreads for each of the final six weeks with a map detail showing that week's geographic movement, a thematic summary, Trail Thought, Ask Yourself, and Take a Step prompts, and space for message notes. The back cover grounded Acts 1:8 in the literal — a road map of the Austin metro with Gateway's campuses marked, the verse overlaid: to the ends of the earth rendered as your own backyard.

The giving campaign — Bibles & Backpacks, tied to Gateway's partnership with Ancora feeding 1,500 kids weekly — was integrated directly into the booklet and extended onto custom envelopes distributed across two giving Sundays.

THE OUTPUT

Twelve custom illustrated stickers, physical promo posters with progressive weekly application, a large-format stage panel, a 26-page printed Field Guide booklet, a Bibles & Backpacks giving campaign insert, custom giving envelopes, social media graphics, broadcast title slides, and message-specific weekly assets — all built from the same illustrated world and deployed across 12 consecutive weeks.