hmmmm. personally i find most sans very impersonal, including most on your list. i think for a church to have an impersonal identity would not make sense. Perhaps try some san-serif designs with a bit more warmth:
Mundo Sans or
Beorcana
both by our very own Carl Crossgrove

Thanks for the reply. Mundo seems more than $550 -- no chance with that price. Beorcana just seems too traditional, churchy. The church should look fresh and relevant to people -- especially those outside the church. Also, it needs to be used in many different contexts, and I think that Beorcana goes a bit too far into just one direction.

===
EDIT
well, having just seen this makes me wonder. I guess it would be good to have a headline/quote font combined with a more 'straight' one for general text.

I struggle a bit with the idea of only using a sans throughout too - bit old fashioned I suppose.

Having said that I haven't seen Jos Buivenga's fonts before and I am rather impressed. I've just had a quick play and they seem work well together too. They are quite tonally compatible. They lend themselves to quite open spacing, so I don't see why they shouldn't be able to comply with the situations you mentioned and get a modern and approachable look. It may take a bit of extra effort to get the spacing/feed/layout combinations working just so, but that's where the time goes. Serif heading, sans text, vice versa, nice coolour palette - could look the business.

Just a thought, but if you wanted a character or two modified for this client, he looks like the kind of chap who might oblige.

Save the dosh for the organ fund, or something nice for the christmas party.

And remember everybody - e for envelopes (stationery).

Paul's right. You need a little more personality. But I understand your desire to avoid calligraphic forms for something more modern. Thus:

Mundo Sans -- a great option -- is $550 for the entire package of 14 styles. But you don't have to buy the package. You can buy each style separately for $42. Just consider how many weights you actually need.

i don't know why i forgot to be a Storm salesperson, like i usually am:

John Sans

Sebastian

or maybe Klavika has enough freshness+warmth?

I've been using Seria Sans lately and liking it. Its small x height gives it an elegant feel. The only trouble I had is that the italic is a bit too close to the roman to make much distinction. Rumour has it a new italic is in the works. Any news, Steven?

The related Nexus Sans might be a better choice...more versatile, with an OpenType version.

Another possibility might be Eva, from OurType: http://www.ourtype.be/home.htm (you have to wait for the Flash to load, and take it from there)

And, don't forget Cronos...the optical sizing makes it exceptionally suited to your varied requirements, and, although you might not think so now, you'll be glad of the swash characters in the italic when Christmas comes around.

That's why John Nolan is much more than a puppet maker.

I'll ask Majoor about the Seria Italic.

spirelli,
thank you for considering Apex New. You might have noticed that we offer smaller families of the face: Central and Extremes. The Central set includes Book, Medium, and Bold weights in Roman and Italic, which might be perfect for your use.

You also noted that you would need to license for 4 computers; a single license of Apex New allows for use on up to 4 computers of mixed platforms, since the fonts ship as OpenType. (Maybe we should clarify this on our site...)

We have received very good feedback from users of the fonts, and they have been specified for some identity programs, and work well in print and on screen. You can see how the fonts work on the German Football League's site: http://bundesliga.de/de/

You can contact us directly on village(at)vllg.com if you'd like to receive some PDF files showing the types in use.

Thanks again
village

I understand that you want a fresh look, but I'd say if you want it sans serif, don't go for anything too cool.

To add another candidate to the list: Emigre's Vista (by Xavier Dupré), a warm contemporary sans serif with a stylized handwritten touch expecially in its set of alternates (which may or may not be impractical in daily use, depending on how you want Vista to look most of the time). Like most sans serifs, Vista won't win a price for optimal legibility, but as you intend to use a sans exclusively, I assume you won't have to set long text.

What it looks like:
www.hostarea.de/server-10/Oktober-665cf28481.pdf

Home:
www.emigre.com/EF.php?fid=200

Quick subjective thoughts on your candidates (that are to be understood in context of what I think you want to do with them):

Delicious
Hm. Pretty special.

Alber
Not bad. Friendly curves.

Depot
Alber's wider, less friendly twin.

Priva
Quite a bold stance. Rather not. (Plus I just don't like open G's like these.)

Credo
Maybe not the right guy for the job with that fancy comma, i-dot and k. Lacks some elegance.

Aaux
Uh. Heavily DIN-inspired with what I'd call an irritating g.

ApexNew
Could use some more warmth with those squary glyphs. I'm not exactly in love with the figures, either.

Myriad
No eye-striking individuality, but that's why you can hardly ever go totally wrong with Myriad (or Scala, by the way, which also comes in a handsome serifed version).

/Edit: Too slow, once again. I didn't realize that there were other replies after your second post. I see that Stephen Coles has already mentioned Vista.

Many thanks for all the comments. You are shaping my opinion. That's great! I guess now it's time for the lovely People here in Europe to wake up, so keep it coming.

Thanks also j_p_giese for commenting on the entire original list :)

How about Aspect?
Friendly and welcoming while still having enough formality for services.
http://www.typography.net/type/aspect.htm

Tim

Thanks for the suggestion. Even though I am now much warmer to the idea of using a more organic, less cool typeface, to me Aspect is too quirky as a type for main body text. E.g. when displaying lyrics for songs this would be a real pain. Maybe could be considered as an additional face for headlines. But then I wonder whether it could be even further away from a sans serif type face.

In a hurry, just a quick one: why not take a good look at Porchez' Parisine PTF (how could I forget?). At EUR 210.00 per four font package (2 weights plus italics, 8 CPU lic) it isn't exactly a steal, though, but it's comprehensive charset makes good use of OpenType tech. (Also check out the Clair, Sombre and Plus flavours.)

http://www.typofonderie.com/alphabets/view/Parisine

Your main type family should be a crisp, warm, elegant serif: Linotype Sabon with oldstyle figures, downloadable for $22 per font for four fonts from Linotype. For highlights, use the sans-serif Linotype Syntax, also with oldstyle figures, also at $22 per font downloadable. Between those two, you'll be in type heaven!

-Would anything really make me choose this apart from the price?

Well... I personally think that Delicious is less suitable for headlines or a logo. Currently I'm working on a new version of Delicious (DeliciousX) with less condensed caps and a number of other 'revisions'. But it's nowhere near completion yet.

For now my choice would be FF Strada.
Maybe –whatever font you choose– some sort of ligature "St" could help building a bit more personality.

I'm partial to Scala Sans and John Sans.

Absara Sans
Absara (Serif)

Many thanks for all your good suggestions!
I've printed samples of most of them and then stuck heads together with another guy. Here is what we came up with, and maybe you can give more opionion and advice on this. Would be great!
It seems we are not quite there yet.

**************

1. We did not think much of faces that appeared to be chosen especially thinking of 'church' - e.g. stuff with traditional connotations.

2. We wanted some face that has something rasonably special about it, e.g. noting like Depot or Albert, so that we can justify spending some money, rather than just using Arial/Times NR or such.

**************

Therefore:

In the end, after having also looked at what you can get for what price we thought that we'd like to use
Locator and Locator Display possibly in conjunction with a serif face.
However, I've just now discovered that the low price on the site is for a 1-computer license only, and it seems to get too expensive for more.

What can we do? Locator seems just nice with this extra Display version. Also it would work well on Projector display during church services - nice and clear.
The only worry I had with Locator is whether the low cap height would make it actually more difficult to read, esp on a projection screen, and it seems fairly wide, forcing smaller point sizes to fit content.

So, are there any other suggestions as an alternative to Locator?

**************

Another typeface I liked is PMN Caecilia. (I think,I like it better than Absara Serif, poms).
What are you views?
I'm a bit worried to display anything serif on a projector where people have to head and speak/sing out words on the spot (good readability is essential).
But maybe this coud serve as a headline typeface?

Or would I choose Chaparral instead?

**************

Thanks for your replies.

Locator, Caecelia and Chaparral all fit the bill with regard to looking modern. I just don't think any of them convey a whole lot of warmth.

I've used Chaparral extensively for instruction manuals and can tell you that it's never disappointed me, but I'm not so sure I would use it for wedding announcements or other church stuff. But then, I don't go to church.

Like someone else said, Cronos is an excellent, legible, warm sans with most of the OpenType luxuries you could want. Shouldn't be too be expensive.

How about Today Sans? Cronos is an insincere imitation according to some opinions here (on Typophile):

http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~luc/cronos.html

Today Sans has a plethora of weight variations for a number of applications, and it has a very warm and open feel.

..................................................

My ADD mind wanders yet again...

In Typography 5 published by the University of Reading in 2003, there's a nice detailed account of how the Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England was redesigned. The designers tried several typefaces before settling on Adobe Monotype Gill Sans.

The book actually looks quite handsome.

Today Sans is a lovely suggestion. Thanks Solipsis.

I used Cronos before , and even in my test prints this time I just found it looking too round. It always gives me the impression that there is something went wrong in the printing process and the ink didn't print nicely.