Urban Church Leadership Center: Building a Movement for Community Flourishing
At the Urban Church Leadership Center (UCLC), faith and community intersect to create lasting change. Rooted in Grand Rapids, UCLC equips and connects church leaders to collaborate, innovate, and build thriving communities. Their mission is simple yet profound: to see individuals and neighborhoods flourish through collective action, practical training, and spiritual leadership.
When UCLC began deepening its focus on community flourishing through the Thrive & Prosper movement, they partnered with LTrice Marketing & Consulting to bring that vision to life through clear messaging, strategic storytelling, and cohesive marketing. Our partnership has evolved from defining UCLC’s message to helping their mission reach people across West Michigan—church leaders, community partners, and everyday residents alike.
Defining the Message: UCLC Brand Messaging Workshop
Our partnership with UCLC began with a full-day Messaging Workshop designed to ground their voice in clarity, purpose, and connection. Together, we worked through collaborative exercises that helped the team identify and prioritize their key audiences, refine brand messaging pillars that reflect both faith and impact, and map audience journeys to strengthen outreach. We also developed a framework for consistent storytelling across digital and print communications, ensuring every message felt cohesive and mission-driven.
From this session, LTrice delivered a comprehensive Messaging Guide and Marketing Strategy, a toolkit to help UCLC communicate its purpose with confidence. The insights and direction that emerged from this workshop became the foundation for all future initiatives, setting a tone that felt authentic to their team and resonant with the wider faith community.
Staying Connected: Ongoing Marketing and Communications
Today, LTrice serves as an ongoing marketing partner to UCLC, providing social media management, e-newsletter creation, storytelling, website management, graphic design, and event promotion support across their growing ecosystem. Each month, we craft and design the UCLC e-newsletter—a storytelling-driven communication that highlights faith leaders, community impact, and resources for growth.
Through social media, we translate UCLC’s mission into daily engagement—sharing insights from faith leaders, inspirational Bible verses, highlights of UCLC’s mission and vision, community impact stories, local event promotions, and uplifting reflections that point back to their core message of flourishing. Our goal is to keep the message consistent, inspiring, and actionable, helping audiences not just follow UCLC, but participate in its vision.
A key part of this ongoing partnership is storytelling for impact. We collaborate closely with UCLC’s partners such as churches, nonprofits, and community organizations to capture stories of transformation taking place across the city. These features highlight the real-world results of UCLC’s mission: faith leaders launching new initiatives, congregations serving their neighborhoods, and communities strengthened by collaboration. Each story deepens connection, builds trust, and helps others see the tangible ways faith can drive flourishing.
Mobilizing a City: The Bless the City Campaign
One of our most impactful collaborations has been the Bless the City campaign—a week-long initiative calling churches and community members to serve together throughout Grand Rapids.
LTrice partnered with UCLC to lead marketing strategy and full-scale implementation for the campaign, developing a multi-channel approach that would rally diverse churches and community partners under one shared message of service, renewal, and collective impact.
Our strategy began with strong event branding, including a custom campaign logo, t-shirt designs, on-site signage, and digital materials that visually unified every aspect of the movement. We built a dedicated Bless the City webpage to serve as the central hub for event details, creating a cohesive experience for participants and partners alike.
To equip the network, we developed three comprehensive communication toolkits tailored to each audience: one for UCLC to engage and resource church leaders, one for pastors to connect with and mobilize their congregations, and one designed for the broader community. Each toolkit included flyers, PowerPoint slides, handout cards, and branded graphics, ensuring consistent messaging across every touchpoint—from pulpits to neighborhood streets.
Alongside creative execution, we managed public relations outreach and pitching, securing media coverage that spotlighted UCLC’s vision and helped spread awareness ahead of the week of service.
Throughout the campaign, our team supported both the kickoff celebration and the closing community event, ensuring that every detail—from communications to visuals—reflected the heart of the mission: unity through service.
The result was more than a campaign; it was a movement. Bless the City mobilized hundreds of volunteers, strengthened partnerships among local churches, and demonstrated the power of faith in action showing what’s possible when communities come together with a shared purpose to serve.
Impact That Lasts
Our partnership with UCLC is built on a shared belief that marketing can do more than inform, it can mobilize. Through strategic storytelling, creative design, and consistent brand alignment, we’ve helped UCLC amplify its message, strengthen community engagement, and turn vision into movement.
Together, we continue to shape a story of flourishing. One that starts in the church, but reaches far beyond its walls.
