Are we on the right track?

Until it was axed, Plugged In was one of two magazines I would literally read cover to cover. It was filled with reviews of TV shows and films from a Christian family perspective. It was well written and relevant and exactly what this young dad needed. The other was The Presbyterian Record – intelligent, newsy and produced by first-rate professional journalists.

What made them great – in my mind at least – was the content. It spoke to my interests. It dealt with issues which mattered to me. It satisfied my needs. It piqued my curiosity. It got me motivated. It got me thinking. Often, I was inspired.

The days of print are waning and there’s nothing we can do about that. But interests, issues, needs and curiosity remain. While I haven’t found any website that I can literally consume in one sitting, there’s plenty that satisfy the hunger. First Things may be Catholic, but it’s solidly evangelical – and deep. The Aquila Report is unabashedly Reformed and conservative. The Gospel Coalition has a Canadian edition. There’s a lot of great stuff out there.

What makes these publications great is the fact that they speak to a community. As faith-based publications, they speak to our deepest motivations.

Community, in a group sense, is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common.” A healthy community is marked by its ability to share freely with others of like mind. In a faith community, it would be with kindred souls. Identity is an important part of it.

A geographic community has a town centre. Prior to the advent of radio and TV, neighbourhood parks and village commons were filled with people. After hours, it was the pub. Or the social club. And so on.

A faith community has a church or perhaps a denomination which fits one’s outlook. My kin – those with whom I most closely identity – are Reformed followers of Christ who adhere to the authority of scripture as written, who acknowledge Christ as the way, the truth and the life, who get their primary inspiration from the Holy Spirit and who recognize that our lives and bodies are not our own. We know following God’s will might not make us friends with the world and contemporary secular values.

A congregation or even some presbyteries can provide a bit of community. Sadly, many mainline denominations have abandoned their foundation and are theologically adrift.

So how do we get together? We’re too scattered for a town hall or village square. Organizations are cumbersome and can be messy. Enter the special-interest and trade publication. The marketing, advertising and media industries understand this: “National news is the voice of the nation; new age publications represent people; local press stands up for community,” industry advocacy organization Campaign states on its website.

More to the point: “Your magazine is your identity,” said Sue Todd of NABS, a support organization for the advertising and media industry.

We need a village square, a gathering place, a sharing space. Most church courts aren’t going to cut it. We are splintering and scattered.

We need a magazine.

And that’s what we’re doing. Renewal Fellowship is retooling to focus most of its resources on the publication of a new online magazine. Launch date will hopefully be in the spring. A team has been assembled to put together a design and business plan.

We’ve been having many conversations about content in recent months. We’re aiming for a product that would coalesce our common values but not be identified with any specific denomination. In the words of one team member: “a wonderfully evangelical publication.” We’re aiming to provide what’s missing from other publications.

Here’s what we’re thinking for sections or tabs.

  • People & Places – what’s new and exciting.
  • Worship – ideas and practices which are reformed and bold and speak to new generations and cultures.
  • Theology – religious truths and how they can be applied in a changing world.
  • Politics & culture – how to engage and react to what’s going on.
  • Essays – insight and inspiration.
  • Leadership – advice for pastors, elders or anyone.
  • Discipleship & Evangelism — how to normalize it and cultivate new communities.
  • All in the family – Christian parenting, healthy grandparenting.
  • Holy Spirit – the person and work of the Third Person of the Trinity is often overlooked.
  • Opinion – positions on various issues.
  • Mission and ministry – planting seeds of faith and feeding the needs.
  • Prayer – how can it be more effective.

Are we on the right track? Let us know what you think.

Are you interested in contributing an essay, blog or story? We can’t pay you, but we’d love to have you on the team.

Share your thoughts at renewalfellowshippcc@gmail.com.

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The publication planning committee: Andy Cornell (convenor, RF), Paul Johnston (co-convenor, PSALT), Jinsil Park (RF board), Philip MacFie (RF board), Glynis Faith (Living Stones), Jon Wyminga (Living Stones), Sandy Copland Dufour (RF chair)

7 thoughts on “Are we on the right track?

  1. I recently renewed my Renewal Fellowship membership and was pleased to see the idea of an online publication. My news feed is full of excellent, newsy, thought-provoking, entertaining, and controversial online publications that have sprung up in the aftermath of the decline of print.

    Do something cool. How about blistering commentary and witty, revealing asides on contemporary church life? Sure, include some GA prayers. They prayed on the Titanic, didn’t they? But wouldn’t it be fun to read a satiric review of GA? Remember. If they don’t want to throw you in the well, you aren’t doing it right.

  2. The only magazine that I receive is “Tabletalk” published monthly by Ligonier Ministries. It has monthly topics: “The Holy Spirit,” for January, “Augustine of Hippo” for Feb to be followed by “Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience” in March. Daily devotions are included which presently cover the Book of Acts. I could not recommend a more encouraging, inspirational and Biblically centred publication. In an age when magazines are on the decline, Tabletalk increases subscriptions to an amazing level.

  3. To be frank, it does not seem to me that the idea of another publication is one of your better ideas. In your opening remarks you said that the days of printing are waning. Everyone is on the internet and what we read there must be true, of course! Do you remember “Presbyterian Comment”, or the “Record” or “Presbyterian Connexion”? Were or are they well received and widely read? Andy’s blurbs are short, concise, and pertinent. Why struggle with mailings, publication deadlines, and costs to subscribers? I am exhausted already.

  4. Andy, you’re not forgetting the EFC’s “Faith Today“, are you? And chiefly out of respect for you and them, I’ll mention to you the quite astonishing “Word on Fire” ministry of Bishop Robert Barron. Utterly RC, to be sure, but very respectably evangelical, too (while being orthodox, of course), and oriented to the USA, I suppose, but I haven’t seen anything that troubles me in that respect in “Word on Fire”. You may find it profitable to monitor His Grace’s voluminous work on line, at least for a while. Bless you in this and all your work.

  5. Before I open my mouth too far, I would like to understand what we mean when we say “Reformed” as quite frankly we have some practices in our Book of Forms that are not, shall we say, Scripture-based. Yup, break out the rocks; it’s time for a stoning! 🙂

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