Now that we've all had some time to reflect on the announcement of the demise of ONEvoice! it's time to make a few personal comments and offer some suggestions for the future.
Obviously the demise of ONEvoice! is understandable considering the poor support the church-at-large has demonstrated. All of this is a further sign of how diverse the Church of God really is (I promise I will get back to that topic soon!) in that we cannot find common expression through one publication.
And, our world has changed at the same time. Centralized, top-down communications are losing favor everywhere and are being replaced by grass-roots communications like self-publishers, blogs, wikis, social web networks, feed-driven websites, and listserves. Even most of the other Christian periodicals out there are losing ground as well, but aren't showing it yet because they have more critical mass allowing them to survive longer. But, only survive.
So, what should Church of God Ministries do in light of these realities?
1. Stop trying to be the one, unified voice for the movement.
2. Recognize, celebrate and promote the diversity within the Church of God.
3. Provide networks for our diverse voices to interact with each other.
4. Harness new technologies, and integrate them well into an overall, consistent communication strategy.
What do you think?
P.S. - On a side note, I was involved in an interesting conversation last week where we analyzed the evolution of our movement magazine. We began with a clear proclamation (Gospel Trumpet), then changed emphasis to reflect the growing trend toward personal discipleship in American Christianity (Vital Christianity), and most recently we expressed the need for greater unity (ONEvoice!). The future will likely be best stated in a phrase like "Many Voices".
2 comments:
Good insight Lloyd. But, I am not sure that the next level will be "many voices." Maybe it needs to be "my voice," a place where I can both be heard, and where I can find others to speak into my life. Sort of the formalizing of the Blog idea.
But I do think that we need a national voice as well, but it can easily and wonderfully be digital and need not be so costly.
Ken DeMaere
Ken,
In my thinking "many voices" includes a national voice.
My concern, however, was that we assume the national voice can represent and speak for all the voices.
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