By John Halford
By John Halford
VERSAILLES, Indiana—We’ll conclude this survey of the Worldwide Church of God’s international publications with two from the Southern Hemisphere.
Western Australia
About two years ago, the Australasian region stopped publishing its bimonthly magazine for financial reasons. The congregation in Perth, Western Australia, filled the gap in their area by beginning a publication titled Life Today.
The goal is to “bring hope and encouragement” as a community service. The circulation is essentially limited to Western Australia, and the editor and staff are all area church members. This 16-page magazine is printed in black and white, and is published several times a year.
Looking through the latest issue, I
see an interesting selection of articles from a variety of authors. Most are
local, but Life Today also reprints articles from other publications. It
has a high standard of creativity in the illustrations and design. My
impression of Life Today has always been that it is surprisingly good.
It does not look like an amateur publication, and it shows what a small,
talented and enthusiastic team can do with the resources of desktop publishing.
Southern New Zealand
From even farther south comes Living Now, from Invercargill at the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island. It is published twice yearly by the members of the WCG in Southland and Otago provinces. The articles are a mix of original material by area members and reprints from other publications. The latest issue has 16 pages, and is printed in black and white (a design limitation they have capitalized on by offering a picture for a children’s coloring competition).
Summing up
In this survey I have included only the publications that could be classified as outreach. Many dozens of smaller in house magazines, bulletins and newsletters are published by local congregations for their use. Some of them also have a small outreach, but that is not their primary focus.
As I said at the beginning of this
series of articles, publishing seems to be in the DNA of our church. For those
of us who have what used to be called printer’s ink in our veins, it is
rewarding and fun. But don’t think it isn’t hard work. In fact, if ever a
project needed you to “sit down first and consider whether you have sufficient
to finish” as Jesus advised in Luke 14:28, it is publishing a newspaper or
magazine. Even a small one. It is far more work than you might think it is going
to be.
Personal computers, desktop publishing and the Internet have made some aspects of the job easier. But what isn’t easier, and never will be, is the task of sitting down and writing something that others will want to read.
Small magazines usually fail not because of lack of finances, but for lack of creativity. Writing is hard work—it has been called the manual labor of the mind.
When enthusiastic people ask me for advice about starting something, I tell them, “Make sure you have the material for a third issue before you publish the first one.” You see, the first issue is fun, and everyone has a high energy level. The second issue is still a novelty. But by the third, production has settled down around the few people who will put in the grunt work to keep things going. If you can get to the third issue you probably have a chance of sustaining the effort.
Long distance outreach
It is well worth it. The written word can help and inspire long after you have forgotten what you wrote. Regular writers for the church still get comments on things they wrote many years ago (sometimes to our great embarrassment). You just never know where what you have published will end up.
For example, David Agreda, the editor of the Spanish language magazine El Noticiero, reported: “Our brothers in Honduras are using El Noticiero as an evangelism tool. They even sent several copies to Iraq, where a study group was formed using copies of previous editions of El Noticiero.”
Our Spanish language magazine, edited in Latin America, is helping a study group in Iraq! You just never know, do you?
Copyright © Grace Communion International, 2004