wfn.org | Commission continues work on national TV campaign for church

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

May 11, 1998	Contact: Thomas S. McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville,
Tenn.    10-71B{294}

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - Governing members of United Methodist
Communications (UMCom) are continuing to work on  a national television
spot campaign for the denomination, which they will ask the 2000 General
Conference to support financially.

Meeting here May 7-8, the 25-member General Commission on Communication
heard Western Pennsylvania staff member Larry Homitsky share the success
of a pilot project involving three 30-second spots shown in the Erie
area between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. Radio spots were used
in a follow-up campaign.

Research showed that viewers had a greater awareness of the United
Methodist Church and wanted to know more. In addition to the  value for
non-United Methodists, the spots lifted the self-image and self-esteem
of  United Methodists in an area where membership has dropped from
275,000 in 1968 to 200,000 in 1997, Homitsky said. The conference has
plans for another campaign this fall after training United Methodists of
the region to be more "inviting" and to follow up with visitors.

Tests in  four other locations have also proved equally effective,
according to UMCom staff members Wil Bane and Alan Griggs.   

The campaign will cost at least $8 million, according to the Rev. Judy
Weidman, UMCom's top staff executive, with support anticipated from a
variety of sources. As part of the TV campaign, commissioners reviewed
the first draft of a theological statement prepared by Bishop Rueben Job
of Nashville, former president of the agency.

 Most of the commission's semi-annual meeting here was spent in a vision
process for the year 2000 and beyond.  

Meeting before the commission was the Foundation for United Methodist
Communications.  
In its second full year of operation, the foundation has made "modest
progress" in identifying donors for major individual gifts, reported the
Rev. F. Thomas Trotter, president. The foundation's approach is to
identify specific communication projects and seek major financial
support from individuals. Trotter said he expects at least one major
gift by the time of the foundation's October meeting.

Two new advisory members, both commission members,  were added to the
foundation, bringing membership to a total of 19.  New advisers are Joe
Stroud, retiring editor of the Detroit  Free Press, and Felix Gutierrez,
West Coast director of the Freedom Forum's  First Amendment Center.

Guest speaker for the foundation meeting was Stewart M. Hoover, director
of the Center for Mass Media Research at the University of Colorado in
Boulder.

For the church or religion to exist in today's public culture, it is
necessary to exist in the media, Hoover said. "To withdraw entirely in
the face of an omnipresent media sphere is to choose marginalization and
loss of voice."

He urged the communicators to abandon efforts to set up separate spheres
where religion or the church is seen as authentic and sacred on the one
hand and media are seen as inauthentic and secular or even profane on
the other. "That is simply not the way people think about or use media
today" he said.  

The recent erosion of the church's position in the public media might be
seen as an opportunity to think about a new theology of culture, Hoover
suggested.

"It no longer serves us to focus on the church and the media as
separate, autonomous entities locked in conflict over the hearts, minds
and souls of defenseless eyes and ears in the public square," he said.
"We need to begin to understand that most meanings are, in one way or
another, modulated by, constrained by, but -- most importantly - enabled
by the instruments of the media sphere."

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