Follow the (Non) Reader
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 8:38AM Imagine with me. Imagine with me that the RCA had commissioned its own Bible translation some years ago. Imagine that the RCA took an extensive survey, and discovered that only about 40,000 of the members of the RCA read their Bibles. Most of the members, they discovered, owned no Bible and were not interested in reading it. Among the main reasons people gave was that they cost too much.
A goodly number, mostly younger folks, said they read their Bibles online. And imagine with me that an advisory committee recommended to General Synod of the RCA that we implement an orderly cessation of printing the Bible. What would a General Synod probably do?
The Church Herald is not the Bible. But the fact that many do not read it and that many do not want to pay the cost of producing it is not sufficient reason for discontinuing it.
If we were talking about the Bible, I hope we would say "Let's figure out how to get people to read their Bibles. Let's make every effort to get them to see the value of it. Let's disciple them." I think we would challenge our leaders to lead instead of following.
Imagine with me. What if we survey the denomination and discover that only about 40,000 read RCA today. (I would not be surprised if the readership of RCA today is lower.) Will some advisory committee recommend the orderly cessation of the RCA today? And will we quietly acquiesce and say, "The non readers have spoken?" That would be consistent.
It may be that the Church Herald is a bad magazine and not worthy of reading. I know that is the contention of some. But let's be clear.....that should be the focus of the conversation. Is it a good magazine? If not, the demise of the Church Herald is a failure of the magazine. But if it is a good magazine, the demise of the Church Heraldmay be a failure of leadership, perhaps a failure of discipling.
The leader of our Adult Sunday School regularly engages us in discussing matters of interest in the Church Herald. Our consistory has decided that every member should receive the Church Herald. They lead. In fact, they disciple me. I need it.
Imagine with me. Imagine that at this year’s General Synod, the commission on Christian Education and Discipleship had a section on "The Church Heraldand Discipleship," urging us to use the magazine as part of our discipling. Imagine that the Commission on Christian Unity stressed the importance of having a denominational magazine to hold us together. And what if the keynote speaker had been a Christian journalist, highlighting the value of independent denominational magazines? And what if we had had the Editor of the Christian Reformed Church’s The Banner say a few words, along with representatives of several other denominational magazines? And what if our General Secretary had made a plea for the full funding of the Church Herald, and urged us to set a 10-year goal of raising the readership? And what if the president of this year’s Synod had sung the praises of the Church Herald? Imagine that. And imagine what the outcome of our discussion on the Church Herald would have been.
That none of this happened tells us that the Church Herald was not high on the list of valued things for our commissions and leadership. Maybe they were even right to ignore the Church Herald. My point is this: The demise of the Church Heraldas an independent magazine has only a little to do with the cost of the magazine, and a lot to do with our leadership. And I include myself in that. I wonder if I should have done more. But let’s not hide behind the cost, which per member would have been less than the price of a dinner out. Instead of leading, have we followed the reader (or non reader) in this case?
Joe Veltman
Calvary Community Church
New Berlin, Wisconsin
Reader Comments (12)
I have heard many people question the cessation of the Church Herald, this post is no different. The problem with the Church Herald is that it was a bad magazine. It does not appeal to many people in the RCA because it simply was not good. I realize that sounds incredibly harsh, but the numbers speak for themselves. This has been a long time coming, and for people to sit here now and wonder why it happened seems a little odd to me. It's not that the Herald got bad recently, it has been bad for a while. That is why people moved to have it as a subscription instead of mandatory. When it went to a subscription basis many people finally were aloud to speak what they had been thinking for a long time. To call it an independent magazine when you are forced to pay for it is not independent. It truly became independent when it went to a subscription. Keeping a magazine around that not many people read makes no sense at all to me. The people of the RCA have spoken, and they have spoken quite clearly. It's understandable that some are mourning the loss of the Church Herald, but obviously the majority of people in the RCA are not.
What is your reason for mourning the loss of the Church Herald? What benefit do you see to keeping a magazine around that not many people read? Should we have given them an opportunity to change so that people could have become more interested? The fact that they added these blogs drew my attention - it is the one thing I enjoyed about the Herald, but it was online.
The Church Herald was a money decision - they decided to produce that magazine the way they did and not many people wanted it. The numbers, again, speak for themselves. I apologize if this post seems overly harsh and critical, but I felt that someone had to speak up for the side that is not reading the Herald.
The previous comment was harsh and critical!! In some cases the words expressed are hurtful. Constructive criticism would be more helpful than blanket criticism that is not specific.
We must also remember that the subscription numbers also reflect only those with the income to become subscribers. There are many on limited income who would like to subscribe, but cannot afford the "luxury" of subscribing. Many of these individuals are also left out when communication becomes online only. When a familily has a limited budget computers and internet access may not be affordable to them.
An independent magazine also means a magazine that can reflect many opinions and points of view of the members of the RCA. We are losing the availability of the priviledge to express our opinions in letters to the editor, platforms and the blog site, when we lose the Church Herald magazine. It is too bad we have not valued the priviledge to speak out and have our opinion be heard.
A wee bit of perspective here.
First, the advisory committee at GS was charged with the responsibility of mirroring back to the Synod what the Synod said. That some articulate voices now indicate that they were surprised by the committee's recommendations does not obviate the fact that group after group after group indicated that cost was the most significant issue. One may wish that their focus had been elsewhere, but it wasn't. It was where it was. The place to test that was on the floor of Synod -- and it did get tested, and apparently the advisory committee wasn't that far off in feeling the sense of the house.
Second, while we're in imagining mode, imagine a magazine that has been very dear to many, but by no means all, in the church, had been available for decades, but which had experienced a loss in revenue. Imagine, further, that a majority of delegates to one Synod decided to assess the WHOLE church for that magazine, despite the fact that it had very little readership in a large swath of the church. Imagine the consternation in those churches now assessed over $5.00 per member for a magazine they had never desired, but now were forced to support. Imagine that, once a magazine is funded in this form, it has become beholden to the forces outside its control that may choose to continue or discontinue its publication. As far as I can tell, these are not matters of imagination, but of fact.
I am not particularly fond of the idea that the Herald is going to stop publishing. I've always read it, and what I've liked, I've read,and what I didn't, I just skipped over. That's my choice. Too many people made a choice, apparently, to just skip over the whole thing.
As for RCA Today? Well, we wanted to find out who's actually reading it; that's why we recommended an interim period with a review involved. I think this will happen, and we'll find out not how many are being printed or distributed, and then we'll see what happens next. should be interesting.
Peace-
Paul Janssen
From my exposure to both RCA Today and the Church Herald, I found the Herald to be better at telling us what was going on in the RCA, while RCA Today was more about trying to tell us what to do. I think bringing both the Church Herald and RCA Today online (for free) would be helpful. Churches should request limited copies of both for readers who don't have the internet.
Paul - would you direct me (us) to where cost of RCA positions of leadership is summarized? That is, those positions above the individual church pastorates. Our Classis dues have again increased and i strongly suspect the RCA has become top-heavy with "management" as the RCA continues a 30 year decline in membership (may i suggest new management is of utmost urgency!). Losing the Church Herald - award winning at that - severely limits conversation across the RCA. It almost seems that we will send offerings to "Jerusalem" without representation. Reading Tim Brown/Western in the Spring '09 RCA Today nearly moves me to right now attend seminary - and i'm retired - but i don't see RCA Today as a viable replacement for the Church Herald.
In response to Mick N, while those numbers can likely be found, leadership salaries are not the main culprit for increased assessments. In fact, the GSC and Wes did a thorough job of shedding some administrative jobs in addition to freezing / cutting salaries and reducing benefits. My read on assessments increasing is that they go up due to 1) shrinking membership and 2) the increased number of staff positions. While Wes and the GSC have worked hard to eliminate administrative support staff, each year it seems someone makes a passionate presentation at synod for some new role. Last year, the case was made for a part-time coordinator for persons with disabilities. It was awful hard to speak against such a staff person when the concourse of the arena contained a number of disabled persons looking on. This year, a commitment was made to fund a staff person for women in ministry. Both of these staffers are / will be fine people, but one wonders if they are necessary in today's economic climate.
I appreciate Paul J.'s perspective on how the decision came about.
Mick...
I don't know if you're talking about the General Synod Assessments or the Classis Assessments. The way I read your post, it sounds like you're talking about the raise in your Classis assessments - that you'll have to contact the clerk of your local Classis for.
I don't know what Classis you're in, but if you let us know someone can probably get you contact information for him/her.
Hope that helps :-)
Grace and Peace,
`tim
Thanks Jon! Thanks Tim! And correct reference would be to the increase(s) in assessments by General Synod. May i next ask if the RCA's membership in the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches is of any good? From what i've read both the NCC and the WCC shamelessly embrace abortion and homosexuality which directly disobey God's first command to those created in His image, "male and female He created them. ...... Be fruitful and increase in number." Genesis 1:27,28a
I agree, The Church Herald was not a good magazine. It lacked spiritual depth and did not challenge it readers to grow with discernment in the Christian faith.
I often wonder if the National Counsel of Churches and the World Counsel of Churches are not on track with the One World Religious system ( government) to the point of political correctness rather then biblical correctness.
Shawn says "The numbers speak for themselves." No, they do not. We interpret what the numbers mean.
One interpretation: The readership of The Church Herald is down. Therefore it must be a bad magazine.
Other interpretations: The readership of The Church Herald is down. Therefore the quality of our members has declined. Or, Therefore the culture of the readership has changed. Or, Therefore the leadership has changed, or our quality as leaders has declined. Or, Therefore our readership has gotten poorer. Or, Therefore our members have gotten more materialistic.
There are host of interpretations of the fact that the readership is down.
What disturbed me was that I believe the deeper matters regarding the continuation of the Church Herald were not gotten to at Synod.
Most disturbing to me was the way we hide behind people complaining about the cost.
I repeat.... five dollars per person per year is a negligible expense.
Here is something I have a problem interpreting. The advisory committee said "well over thirty-five voices...alluded to the impact of cost as influencing their advice." Why did they weight that so heavily? Doesn't that mean that for well over 200 (or however many other delegate there were) cost was not a factor? Could we not say "only thirty-five voices...."
Let me try once more to make something clear. We choose our response to the numbers. The advisory committee wrote: "If there is a single observation to be made about the outcome of the process, it is the nearly universal concern about the cost of continuing the publication of both the Church Herald and RCA today." They chose their response in the recommendations.
Let me suggest another response and recommendation they might have made:
"To instruct the Commission on discipleship to include teachings about the value of communication in it's stewardship materials." Or whatever.
As an example of what I mean, Wes chose to urge us in his address to do better as a denomination in our mission giving. If giving for missions goes down, we do not necessarily conclude that missions must be a bad idea, or that our missionaries are doing a bad job. Rather, we urge more vision and generosity. In a similar way, Wes or someone else could have urged us to do better in supporting our magazines. If I recall correctly, it was when Lou Lotz was president of Synod one year that he recommended that the Church Herald be funded through assessments.
The other main substantive idea that I felt was not well considered was the value of The Church Herald as a TYPE of communication, as opposed to whether it is a good magazine.
Have we thrown out the baby with the bath water?
Ah well. I tire of swimming against the current.
Joe, I understand that you disagree with my belief that the Church Herald is a bad magazine. And that you are interpreting the loss of readers differently than I do, and you are entitled to your opinion.
The reason I believe that I am right not only stems from the fact that people do not want to support the magazine through subscriptions (however you want to interpret, people simply are not subscribing), but also the fact that it went to a subscription format in the first place. Many people did not want the Church Herald when it was assessment based, but did not voice their opinion loud enough until an entire Classis chose not to pay their assessment of the Church Herald. Then more voices began speaking out about this magazine. They decided to go to a subscription basis and when that happened the Church Herald's days were numbered. The Church Herald was a magazine that people simply did not want to read because they were not writing articles or commentaries that interested people. You can disagree with that statement, but again the numbers speak for themselves (I'm sure you're sick of hearing that statement, but it speaks volumes).
The problem I have with your argument for keeping the Church Herald is that you want EVERY member in the RCA to pay for a magazine that obviously only a few read. I do not understand your reasoning. Why should each member have to pay for something only a few want? If the Church Herald wrote articles that interested people and drew them in, they would not have a problem getting subscribers and the magazine would still be around.
You even said yourself that you are tired of swimming against the current; I take that to mean you are one of a few who are upset that the Church Herald is going away. I have not heard one member of my church ask me why the Church Herald is being canceled, not one. And I serve a congregation of predominately older members, many of whom you would not consider tech savvy and therefore not be able to get this information on-line. The large outcry is not there because the want for the Church Herald is not there. It is too bad that there are some out there who are truly grieving the loss of the Church Herald, and for those that are I pray that something else will come out of the RCA that meets there want and speaks to others in the denomination.
From my perspective I am very saddened by this decision to discontinue the Church Herald. Is it a perfect magazine? No. Could its focus been improved (i.e., focus on more controversial or informative issues)? Perhaps. But I still found it informative, to a point that I did become a subscriber.
The approach at the General Synod should had been how could the Church Herald be improved? What it appears to me is the discussion was rushed without longer-term consideration of options. And where was the advertising of its existence? I saw nothing going out to the churches of that variety.
The greatest concern I have is that a communication organ of this type is desperately needed. You desperately need some periodical type publication that can both provide a common platform for discussions that goes across the denomination, as well as to feed a sense of unity, that what a church in New York, Michigan, Illinois, or Iowa is going through is similar to the challenges our church is addressing here in California. Yes, some of these communication needs could be accomplished through a website version (but even this option wasn't proposed), but in the flow of information, a magazine can communicate much more effectively, and can have a much longer and wider impact (being physically printed rather than being just a on-screen option). A printed version is also important for those who do not have access to the internet.
I pray that there would be a way found that the magazine, perhaps in a limited independent state, could still survive. As in other places in my life, I will put my faith in the resurrection.
Richard Nordahl
Christ Community Church
Carmichael, California