I picked through one of my books this morning, “Successful Church Publicity” by Carl F. Henry, and found a section on “Baptist Journalism.” The section discussion several different Baptist publications like the “Christian Reflector” And the “Christian Watchman”, the “Examiner”, and the “Christion Secretary”. The passage also mentioned some other Baptist publications as well. What caught my eye were the publications titled “Missions” and “Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Magazine”—the other denominations had their respective Missions Journals as well. Last week, I received a copy of the “Compassion” magazine, from Compassion International. I had first thought that I saw the magazine called the “Commission” which ended several years ago by the International Mission Board, I was mistaken. This passage and the reflection back to the many mission magazines of the past make me realize that the age of the Missions magazine is slowly coming to an end.
I understand that money has much to do with the demise of the missions magazine. Money that could be used for actual missions projects were being diverted to writers, editors, printing, and postage. But the benefit of educating people on the work of missions is declining as well. It is very difficult to pray for missions, or lead others in missions, without a background story to tell. What exactly ARE they doing over there? While there are many other avenues that are developing to share the story of missions with our church—Facebook, twitter, blogs—the need for publication, print or digital, of groups of stories remains necessary. I am excited to hear and see my children learning about missionaries in their home school studies—but the stories need to be told to the churches.
We must have churches to pray for our missionaries. We must have churches that give to the mission efforts. We must have churches that encourage their young people to go to the mission field—overseas or at home. This comes partly from knowing the stories of the missionaries-which could be told through missionary publications. Publications that are slowly fading away.
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