Church Magazine

Church magazine editors are special people. They produce so much

with so little - for so many – for so long!

Church ministers often have years of training, stacks of books, and lots

of other resources to help them preach to the people in their church on

Sunday.

Church magazine editors rarely have the same advantages – and yet

their Christian witness reaches dozens, if not hundreds more people

each month than the minister does.

Church magazine editors help the people in their church to stay in touch

with each other, but they can do even more. They can help their church

to stay in touch with its community. A church magazine can bravely go

through letterboxes into homes where no minister has gone before!

In fact, your church magazine may be the only Christian contact that

many people in your community will ever have.

What an opportunity! Here’s how you can make the most of it.

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Where to begin?

If you are thinking about improving your church magazine, a good place

to begin is to take a good look at what you have at present. This

involves a simple audit that will help you decide :-

Who are your present readers?

Are they just the members of your church?

Or do they include members of the wider local community?

Who would you like them to be?

Does your current magazine give them what they need?

The majority of the editorial decisions you make about your magazine

will depend on your answers to these questions.

Why not ask your minister and your church leaders to think again about

WHO they want their church magazine to reach? And WHY?

Audit your present magazine

What have you got in your current

magazine? Take a good look by going

through the last four issues. List all the

different sorts of items you find.

How many of the articles are of interest to

just church people? How much space is

wasted by ‘inside’ information which only

affects some church people? How many

items might interest your community as

well?...