Why does Ministry publish controversial articles?"
"Ministry should publish more controversial articles."
"I like to read Leadership more than Ministry."
"Ministry doesn't publish enough Black writers."
"Ministry does not publish enough articles by pastors."
"Ministry does not publish enough authors from overseas."
''Ministry does not publish enough on public evangelism."
"I wish there were more theological articles in Ministry."
"I wish . . ."
Do you have a wish to add to the list? I could add many more from the various questions raised about the purpose and editorial stance of Ministry.
Ministry has grown and changed much-from a digest (5" x 7 1/2) in 1928 to a full journal of 32 pages in 1991; from a readership of a handful of ministers, mainly in North America, to 15,500 subscribers every month, half of whom reside outside North America, and then to an additional 65,000 ministers of other denominations. Our regular mailing list also includes 1,700 laypeople who subscribe on their own.
The monthly Ministry currently reaches only English-speaking pastors. However, many of its articles are translated into Spanish for the Latin American quarterly edition of Ministry. One of our goals is to have a regular edition in French and in Spanish.
Each year we publish articles within the following categories: minister's personal life, family and spouse, theological and biblical studies, professional skills, issues in the church, and reports.A t our planning retreat we vote percentages for each of these categories so that we keep a balance during the year.
Further goals include 60 percent of articles written by pastors or their spouses, with a minimum of 20 percent of articles coming from overseas. We have recently begun an elders' column that we hope will become a regular feature.
Since pastors constitute the major portion of our readership, we target our articles mainly to ministers. However, we do face a dilemma in that the magazine simultaneously has to meet the varying needs of pastors of a wide range of congregations, from highly sophisticated churches in large cities or connected with institutions to simple rural churches. That is part of the reason our magazine does not always read like Leadership. We cannot cover just one area of ministry--the professional skill areas. We have to cover a wide range of issues relating to theology, the church, science and religion--and also meet the needs of a nationally and culturally diverse audience.
There are benefits from reading an article written by a Third World pastor. It enables a world church to have a feeling of unity. It lets the First World know a little bit of how the Third World is thinking. Instead of the Third World pastor always receiving, he can now make his contribution to the denomination's ministerial magazine.
Controversial issues
Some question why we publish articles such as "Does Our Past Embarrass Us?" (April 1991). We do so for several reasons: (1) while truth never changes, it needs to be dressed in its cultural context; (2) some concepts that were adequate for one generation may no longer be adequate today; (3) while principle never changes, application may we need to understand the difference; (4) many pastors begin to lose faith in the church if its leaders and magazines are unwilling to face or discuss controversial issues. Credibility is enhanced when the church is candid about the problems it faces.
When Robert Spangler called me to work here, he presented three reasons I should come. The one that caught my attention concerned investigative reporting. He wanted to cover church issues that are often left to independent journals to report on. Why shouldn't church papers discuss issues confronting the church?
Our desire is to build credibility in the church, not destroy it. We want our doctrines and structure to be firmly rooted in Scripture, not in tradition. We can always find a better way to state what we believe.
We often send articles to our consulting editors and other individuals for review and counsel. As a result we have not published some authors.
The burden of this magazine is to exalt Jesus Christ and Him crucified as the answer to every need. The strength of the Seventh-day Adventist Church lies, not in its unique doctrines, important as they may be, but in how well it is presenting Jesus Christ and His righteousness. And in doing that we need to be candid and truthful even as the Bible is.
The Associated Church Press (of which Ministry is a member) in its Standards of Ethics and Professional Practice declares: "Disciplined journalistic curiosity seeks out information and insight in the service of the reader and the common good, out of the knowledge that the individual readers--the ultimate 'consumers' of journalism--need truth to form their opinions and conduct their lives in consonance with God's will, and that society as a whole, and each community within society, specifically the churches, needs trustworthy sources of information and interpretation in order to function as community."
As Jesus so succinctly stated: "The truth will set you free" (John 8:32, NIV).