Custom Church Shirts
Custom church shirts for the people who make Sunday happen and for the weeks your congregation will remember. Greeter tees, youth group shirts, kids week shirts and mission trip shirts, printed in Fort Collins, Colorado and shipped anywhere in the United States.
Order one shirt or enough for the whole congregation. You see a proof and approve it before anything is printed, and the design studio below shows your price as you build, so the number is settled before it goes to a committee.
Design Your Church Shirts Here
Put your church logo or event art on a real shirt, set the quantity, and watch custom church shirts pricing update as you go. The studio opens on a soft, lighter weight tee, the kind people keep wearing long after the event is over. Change the garment, the color or the print location whenever you like.
Custom Church Shirts Do One of Two Jobs
Before anyone picks a color, decide which job the shirt has. A serving shirt and an event shirt look similar on a table, but they are bought, worn and reordered in completely different ways, and treating them the same wastes budget.
The Serving Shirt
Church volunteer shirts work like a name tag you can read from across the parking lot. A first-time visitor should be able to spot who to ask about the nursery without reading a word. That means one consistent color, a large clear print, and no date.
Because the roster changes all year, this shirt has to be easy to reorder in ones and twos. Keep the design to one ink color on a shirt color you can get again, and resist the urge to redesign it every season.
The Event Shirt
A retreat, a mission trip or a kids week shirt is a keepsake. People wear it for the week and then for years afterward, so it is worth a softer tee and artwork with the theme, the place and the year on it.
These are ordered once, to a known list of names, against a fixed date. The risk is not durability. The risk is the sign-up sheet closing late and the whole order going in with too little time left to spare.
When one shirt tries to do both jobs, it does neither well. A dated event shirt cannot be handed to a volunteer who joins in the fall, and a plain serving shirt is not something a teenager keeps from camp.
Church Apparel We Print and Embroider
Volunteer and Greeter Tees
Bold, simple church t shirts for greeters, parking teams and kids check-in, printed in one consistent color so visitors can find help quickly.
Screen Printed Event Shirts
Shirts for kids week, retreats, mission trips and youth nights. Screen printing keeps the price per piece low once the whole group is on one order.
Embroidered Polos and Hats
Stitched polos for staff and the welcome desk, plus hats and beanies for outdoor teams. Embroidery looks tidy and holds up through years of washing.
From Sign-Up Sheet to Boxes in the Lobby
Six steps, and nothing is printed until your team has approved the proof.
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1
Pick Your Garment
Three we actually recommend, with the reasons why. Full catalog is one click away.
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2
Drop In Your Art
Upload a logo or start from a sketch. We fix files that will not print.
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3
See Your Price
Per-piece pricing moves as you change quantity and print locations.
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4
Approve A Proof
Nothing runs until you have seen exactly what we are about to make.
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5
We Print It
Screen print, embroidery or DTF, whichever your art and quantity call for.
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6
It Ships
About 14 days from the day you approve the proof, printed and boxed.
Price Serving Shirts and Event Shirts Together
One order with a higher count brings the price per piece down. Set your quantities in the studio and see it for yourself.
Easy to Reorder
A new greeter joins in October and needs one shirt. With no minimum order, you can add a single piece in the same design whenever the roster changes.
A Proof for the Committee
Every order gets a proof showing placement, size and colors. Forward it to the pastor or the team lead and approve it only when everyone is satisfied.
A Price Before the Meeting
The studio shows the price as you change quantity and print locations, so you can bring a real figure to the budget conversation without waiting on a callback.
A Person on the Phone
Questions about youth sizes, shirt colors or a tight retreat date are easier out loud. A person answers the phone on weekdays, 9am to 5pm Mountain.
Planning Custom Church Shirts Around the Church Year
Church calendars are predictable, which is a gift when ordering apparel. The same handful of dates come around every year, and each one has a different deadline hiding behind it. Work back from these four and nothing has to be rushed.
Vacation bible school shirts need child sizes you will not know until registration closes. Set the registration deadline first, then leave standard turnaround after it, with a few extras for walk-ins.
New small groups and new volunteers arrive together. This is the natural moment to top up serving shirts and to introduce a fresh youth group design for the school year.
Teams often want a matching shirt for travel days so leaders can count heads in an airport. Order after the roster is final and well before the commissioning Sunday.
Retreat shirts are usually handed out at check-in, so they must arrive before the bus leaves. Hoodies and long sleeve tees suit cold weekends in the mountains better than a tee.
A simple habit helps here. Put the shirt deadline on the planning calendar at the same time as the event itself, about three weeks ahead of the day you want boxes in hand. If a date is already tight, call and ask, because sometimes it can be done faster.
Collecting Sizes Without Losing a Month
The printing is rarely what makes a church order late. The sign-up sheet is. Sizes trickle in over several Sundays, somebody is out of town, and the order waits on four names. Give the sheet a firm closing date and announce it from the front more than once.
Ask for sizes in writing instead of guessing. A youth group spans small middle schoolers through seniors who wear adult large, and leaders wear something else again. Youth and adult sizes can run in the same design on the same order, though artwork is often scaled down slightly so it fits the smaller shirts.
Order a few extras in the middle adult sizes. Somebody always joins late, a visitor comes on the trip, or a shirt gets left on a bus. Extras ordered with the main run cost far less trouble than explaining to one child why theirs is missing.
Combine where you can. If the kids ministry and the student ministry both need shirts this month, putting them on one order raises the quantity and lowers the price per piece. The studio shows that drop live as you change the count.
Have a Date on the Calendar
Tell us the event and the day you need shirts in hand. We will tell you plainly whether standard turnaround fits.
Getting Church Artwork to Print Cleanly
Church designs tend to carry a lot of words. A theme, a verse reference, a year, the church name and sometimes a full passage on the back. Small lettering is the first thing to suffer on fabric, because fine type fills in with ink, especially light ink on a dark shirt.
The fix is usually editing rather than technology. Put the theme large, the reference smaller but still readable at arm's length, and move a long passage to the back where it has room. On the proof you will see exactly how each line sits before approving it.
Ink colors drive the cost of screen printing, since each color needs its own screen and setup. A one or two color design on a well chosen shirt color often looks stronger than six colors, and it leaves more of the budget for a nicer garment.
Full color art is a different case. Illustrated kids week themes with gradients and many colors are a good fit for direct-to-film, which prints the whole image at once. If the artwork comes from a purchased curriculum, check that your license allows printing it on apparel.
Embroidery suits polos and hats, but thread cannot hold tiny text or thin outlines. A simplified mark, a cross, a name and little else, stitches cleanly. Send whatever file you have and it can be cleaned up or redrawn to suit the method.
Church Shirt Questions
Is there a minimum order for custom church shirts?
No. You can order a single shirt, which is useful when one volunteer joins the team mid-year or one child registers late. The price per piece drops as the quantity goes up, so larger groups pay less per shirt. Set your count in the design studio and you will see the price for custom church shirts change as you go.
How far ahead should we order for an event?
Standard turnaround is about 14 days from the day you approve the proof, and that clock starts at approval, not at the first email. Add time for collecting sizes and for shipping to your city. If the date is already close, ask. Sometimes an order can be done faster, but it is never something to count on.
Can youth and adult sizes be on the same order?
Yes. Youth group shirts and kids week shirts almost always mix youth and adult sizes in one design. The artwork may be scaled down a little for the smallest shirts so it does not wrap toward the side seams. All sizes count toward the same quantity, which helps the price per piece.
Which print method is best for vacation bible school shirts?
It depends on the art. A bold design in one or two ink colors is ideal for screen printing and keeps the cost low across a large group of children. A detailed, full color illustrated theme is usually better as direct-to-film. Upload the art in the studio and compare, or send it over and we will recommend one.
We only have a small logo file. Can you use it?
Usually, yes. Many churches have nothing but a small image from the website or the bulletin. We clean up or redraw rough logos so the edges print sharp on fabric. You will see the redrawn version on your proof, and nothing is printed until you approve it for your custom church shirts.
What shirt colors work best for volunteer shirts?
Pick a color that stands apart from what the congregation normally wears, and one that suits every skin tone and age on the team. Mid-tone blues, greens and warm neutrals are forgiving. Very light shirts show stains from coffee and parking lot duty, and very dark shirts are warm for outdoor teams in summer.
Do you make choir robes, aprons or jackets?
No. We make t-shirts, long sleeve tees, tank tops, polos, hoodies, hats and beanies. For a kitchen or hospitality team that would normally wear aprons, a matching tee or polo under the apron is the usual answer, and custom church shirts in one color tie the whole team together.
Do you ship outside Colorado?
Yes. The shop is in Fort Collins, Colorado, and orders ship across the United States. Shipping time is on top of the production time, so include it when you work back from your event date. If you are nearby and have questions, a person answers the phone on weekdays from 9am to 5pm Mountain.
Where We Are
Olive Branch Apparel
706 East Stuart Street
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Shirts That Help People Find Their Place
A good church shirt helps a visitor find a friendly face and gives a teenager something to keep from a week that mattered. Start in the studio, approve your proof, and we will print it in Fort Collins.