Faith Works 4-29-17

Faith Works 4-29-17

Jeff Gill

 

I read the news today, oh boy…

___

 

Along with preaching and social media and, well, this column, I've got a church sign that I can use to express myself.

 

The purpose, of course, for that sign is to a) help our congregation communicate the Gospel to the world, b) share information about upcoming events or special announcements, from births to deaths or the dates of our clothing bag sale, and c) to let public programs use our sign for awareness and promotion if they don't conflict with our church need to keep a) and b)  before c).

 

As I've said in this space before, a church sign is a challenge that makes Twitter look loquacious. No 140 characters, it's more of an informational haiku of three lines but less than 90 characters, which limits your expression and forces some creative rephrasing. "God is love" is eleven characters, but anything more complex gets tricky, fast.

 

Sometimes, we do a favor for outside groups who ask nicely and when there's not a church need, and put up a few words and dates about noodle dinners or plant sales or outside service opportunities.

 

What makes that choice a rare one is that once you do it, there's an expectation that you'll always do it. Answering "well, we have a church event this year that's the same week" gets a testy response; telling someone "yes, I changed it, because what you sent me won't fit" turns into an odd discussion of "what do you mean you only have 90 characters?" And yes, even my own church folk sometimes ask why I can't cram more on the big board.

 

All of which I recount to explain that I understand all too well why the "powers that be" or "the suits" (not that many people in the news biz these days wear suits, or even ties) or whomever has decided to bring the feature "Church Notes" to an end.

 

Yes, I've gotten your emails. I try to answer, even if briefly, every email I get, but this was a busy time (Easter, etc.) and lots and lots of unhappy people. "Church Notes" as page 2 or 3 of the "Your Faith" D section of the Saturday Advocate has been around for decades. MANY decades. As in, back when the "news hole" was big, and ads sold easily, and we had printing presses in the basement.

 

The presses are gone, there's a smaller paper, and frankly, fewer people backstage. Trust me on this. I'm just an outside contributor, but I've been contributing a long, long time, going back to when the newsroom was a long narrow flight of steps from Main St. that just got torn down a few weeks ago. There's just not many people all doing many more things working to put this paper out.

 

And I'll say what they'd rather not: church folk sometimes thought they had a right to that space, and were rather unhappy at having their paragraph edited. Like community groups unhappy with me about not getting the signboard this year, it really is frustrating to be accused of an event's lack of success "because you didn't give us the free space."

 

This is, I have to say, and I'm not paid to say it, an opportunity. As a pastor and church communicator, I have to speak the truth, and say it clearly: putting something in "Church Notes" was a way of pretending to publicize an event. It really was mainly something our own people looked at to make sure our own church was "there." It was not, has not been an effective way to reach unchurched, non-churched, de-churched people. And that's the goal, right?

 

If the end of "Church Notes" means that congregations will have to be more intentional, more anticipatory, more targeted in our communications, with social media and mailings and ads and church signs and, yes, purchasing ads in the Advocate from time to time, then it will be a positive step in our outreach and engagement. Let's be candid here: as newspapers get tighter, why would they give away the space and the editing time to material that they've got other churches paying for?

 

There's a part of me that will miss that weekly discipline of the Wednesday 3:00 pm deadline, but just as most bulk mail newsletter operations are now history, let us bid a fond farewell to "Church Notes" . . . and look honestly around us at how we as faith communities can reach and communicate with our ministry context.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him how you like to tell your faith story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.