How Kelly Selick of Victory Family Church helped create health and momentum for a growing, multisite church

Kelly Selick of Victory Family Church

Victory Family Church has a message of hope for families in Pennsylvania: “Be the real you, meet the real God, and make a real impact.” For over 30 years, Pastor John Nuzzo and his wife Pastor Michelle Nuzzo have imparted this message and cultivated a growing, thriving congregation.

This growth presented some new opportunities. As the church’s Experience Director Kelly Selick shares, they soon recognized the role of communication in sustaining culture among a growing church body. This, they realized, was a chance to strengthen their brand.

Kelly and the leaders at Victory Family Church realized that sustained growth called for fresh clarity—especially when it came to communication and messaging.

Growing pains

From a quaint gathering in a cinema in 1993 to their first building in Cranberry Township just four years later, it seems Victory Family Church has always been poised for growth.

“They had built a building in 1997, and when I began attending in 2005, we were busting at the seams,” Kelly says. “We started a campaign to build a 1,000-seat sanctuary in 2006, and once it was complete, we doubled almost overnight.”

But the growth didn’t stop there. Over time, they added onto the sanctuary to accommodate 2,400 seats and launched multiple services. Today, their footprint has expanded to include campuses in Meadville and New Castle, Pennsylvania.

With the blessing of expansion came new opportunities, Kelly shared. While their visual identity was strong, they faced challenges maintaining a unified message across multiple locations. Kelly and the leaders at Victory Family Church realized that sustained growth called for fresh clarity—especially when it came to communication and messaging.

Articulating the brand message

At the heart of Victory Family Church’s opportunity was articulating its core values. While these values were present in the church’s culture, they hadn’t been clearly defined or communicated.

“It’s not that the church didn’t have core values—we just didn’t have them written down. There wasn’t a way for us to articulate them in a concise, sticky kind of way.”

The leadership team knew that the path to sustain growth and foster a steady, unified culture had to start with clear, communicated core values. Beyond that, Victory Family Church realized its need for a complete brand strategy—one that would provide them with brand messaging, an enhanced visual identity, and a target audience.

This brand needed to stand the test of time, like a baton that could be passed to future generations. It became clear to Kelly and the team that a strategic approach was necessary. That’s when they contacted ArtSpeak.

We were able to uncover the core values that had always been embedded in the church’s DNA and bring them to the surface.

Getting to the heart of the matter

We started with discovery and clarity. Our team met with Pastor John, his wife Pastor Michelle, Kelly, and other key leaders to ask reflective questions and get them thinking about the heart of Victory Family Church. We assessed their current communications strategy and discussed ways to innovate and scale.

“You were able to speak such valuable insight into some of the systems, how we think about communicating, and the different concepts, and to really lay a groundwork for what communication should or could look like. It was super helpful; I would even say foundational for us.”

Brand Messaging

Through these conversations, we were able to uncover the core values that had always been embedded in the church’s DNA and bring them to the surface.

“You guys spent a lot of time sitting with us and with Pastors John and Michelle to hear the heart of Victory and to pull out what those core values really are. That was huge for us. To now have six core values that every person can articulate and that can run through the culture of our church has been a huge blessing to us.”

Core Values

• Start with people.
• Let love lead.
• Real faith risks everything.
• Expect multiplication.
• Make it count.
• Surrender to the Holy Spirit.

With their core values clearly defined, we set them up with guidelines to help effectively communicate them. Then, we helped them put handles on their existing brand by writing concise brand messaging and creating personas to bring clarity to their target audience.

Armed with the results of our on-site brand strategy session, we got to work creating a full suite of brand elements, including a Brand Promise and One-Liner.

Brand Promise

Be the REAL you.
Meet the REAL God.
Make a REAL difference.

One-Liner

“Victory Family Church invites people to live a life of unshakable hope grounded in God’s unconditional love.”

Visual Identity

Victory Family Church had a clear, recognizable logo that worked well with their brand. We kept that existing logo and bolstered it with a visual identity that included alternative lockups, graphic elements, typography, and a vibrant color palette.

We also created new brand icons to accent merch and other exclusive environments to infuse them with meaning.

When it came to typography, we chose the header and display font Larken to give the messaging a human touch. For additional impact and interest, Larken in an outline-only style conveys optimism and openness.

For header and paragraph font, tried-and-true Gotham lends the feeling of being anchored and steadfast.

All of these elements meld together under one primary color palette:

• A toasty golden yellow that is equal parts friendly and heartfelt.
• Paper white that appears clean and pure.
• Light neutral gray to add balance.
• Dark navy to give you the sense that this place is trustworthy and grounded.

Tangible results: when you celebrate, you can duplicate

Victory Family Church has seen tangible results of this new brand strategy. By clarifying and communicating its brand messaging, the church has established a solid cultural foundation for all staff and congregants to rally around.

“It’s been great to help create culture because now we’re all speaking the same language.”

Kelly shared that the core values have been so impactful that Pastor John launched a sermon series based on them:

“It’s one of the series that all of our church members say, ‘That one changed my life. That’s the one I listen to over and over again.’ Yes, the values are something Pastors John and Michelle have developed and cultivated over the years, but they really are the heart of God.”

Putting words to the engrained core values has unified the staff and given voice to the church’s heritage. Pastors John and Michelle met with the entire church staff and told the stories that inspired each core value—stories from within the church that have shaped its origins and formed its heartbeat. This has had a profound effect not only on the way the church communicates corporately but also on how individual members exhort one another.

“It’s been great to help create culture because we can celebrate and say things like, ‘I love the way that you let love lead in that situation,’ or ‘I love the way you start with people.’ We know when we celebrate, we can duplicate, and it’s been an accelerator for us for sure.”

By clarifying and communicating its brand messaging, the church has established a solid cultural foundation for all staff and congregants to rally around.

A future full of potential

Victory Family Church is now reaping the benefits of what we know to be true: when you define strategy and gain clarity, it creates health and momentum. Through a process that centers not on downloading core values wholesale but rather mining them out of a church’s culture, we were able to help Victory Family Church articulate the messages that are unique to them. As a result, the church has witnessed extraordinary growth and multiplication. With these timeless truths that anyone can apply in place, the church is equipped for the future of ministry.

“These core values aren’t just a ‘Pastor John thing’—they come out of the heart of God, so they can transcend time. The church is going to continue on, and there may be different leadership down the road, but those values run deep.”

And they’re not done yet. Victory Family Church is planning initiatives and conferences, preparing to build a new venue, and dreaming up a vision for the ministry’s continued expansion. Furnished with a full suite of brand elements, the church will continue to carry consistency in its messaging and culture across multiple locations.

Looking ahead, Victory Family Church is focused on discipleship. Small groups are multiplying, and the church is seeing growth at every campus location. The members’ recent steps of faith and generosity have Kelly and the staff excited to see what’s next.

Clarity changes everything

“If you are in a stage of ministry where you don’t feel like you have a good grasp around the language, the mission, the vision, who you’re trying to reach as a church—ArtSpeak has been a Godsend to come alongside and help guide us in that journey. Because it lives in you, you just need help getting it out. And that’s what it felt like for us: we just needed help getting it out, and ArtSpeak was the perfect guide to help us do that.”

— Kelly Selick
Experience Director