wfn.org | Media campaign proposal moves forward

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

Oct. 18, 1999 News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{544}

NOTE: A General Conference logo may be used with this report. This is a
sidebar to UMNS story #543.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) -- The afternoon was hot, and the two boys were
looking for a cool place to hang out. 

They jimmied the lock on the back door of the church and entered the empty
sanctuary. As sunlight filtered in through the stained glass, the boys
walked through the sanctuary and down a staircase. They moved quickly,
knowing exactly where they were going. Once in the cool basement of the
church, they began shooting pool.

Their game was halted abruptly when the pastor stepped out of the shadows.

You boys, he said, have been trying harder than anyone else to get into the
church. He reached into his pocket, then pulled out his hand. He held a key.

"Here," he said, "come any time you want."

That episode changed the lives of the two brothers and their parents. Their
mother eventually became a treasurer of the church, and the father became a
trustee. The youngest of the boys, Roger Swanson, became a pastor.

"It's still, today, for me, the best image of Christ that I have," said
Swanson, director of operation evangelization for the Florida Annual
Conference and former United Methodist Board of Discipleship staff member.

Swanson's story is re-enacted in a short, polished television ad aimed at
helping build awareness of the United Methodist Church nationwide. It will
be part of a major media campaign that United Methodist Communications
(UMCom) will propose to General Conference when the legislative assembly
meets May 2-12 in Cleveland.

Governing members of the United Methodist Commission on Communication
received an update on preparations for the "Igniting Ministry" campaign
during their Oct. 14-15 meeting in Nashville. They voted to request $5
million in funding annually by General Conference for the 2001-2004
quadrennium. 

That amount would ensure "adequate threshold funding for the campaign," said
the Rev. Steve Horswill-Johnston, a UMCom staff executive.

The $20 million total would be spent strictly on national cable TV ad time.
It is expected to result in nearly 765 million "impressions," and 65 percent
of the target group members with cable are expected to see the spots, he
said.

"What we're talking about is a bold new evangelism," he said, leading off
the staff presentation on the campaign.

The centerpiece of the four-year campaign will be cable television
commercials broadcast nationwide. The spots will play during the key
Christmas, Easter and back-to-school seasons, periods in which people are
most open to religious messages, according to UMCom research.

Local and regional campaigns will supplement the national initiative.
Igniting Ministry also will be supported on the World Wide Web, in print and
on radio. 

Each TV spot will be tagged with the denomination's Web address,
www.umc.org, so viewers can find more information and even locate United
Methodist churches near them. UMCom plans to offer addresses and locator
maps for local churches, plus links to local congregations' Web sites.
Infoserv, which operates the denomination's toll-free information hotline,
also will have contact details for the churches.

However, Horswill-Johnston reported that no agency has the actual street
addresses of all the 36,000 U.S. churches in the denomination. Fifty-five
percent have street addresses, but of those, some belong to the pastor, he
said. Forty percent of the churches are listed on denominational records
with only their post office boxes, and an estimated 5 percent have unknown
addresses.

As a result, UMCom is embarking on a six- to seven-month process to secure
the needed street addresses, and the United Methodist General Council on
Finance and Administration has agreed to maintain the list,
Horswill-Johnston said. Getting the information will require many phone
calls, backed by letters, and is expected to cost $30,000 to $50,000, he
said.

The crux of the campaign will involve preparing local congregations, Steve
Downey said. The churches must know what to do when people start visiting
them or returning to them, drawn by the promise of the ads.

"When they walk through that door (or) back through that door, somehow we've
got to live up to that promise," he said.

Congregations will receive training resources plus Igniting Ministry
planning kits. The kits could include such items as a video; a campaign
overview; a theological understanding of Igniting Ministry, hospitality and
evangelism; billboard ad materials; a sample press release; instructions on
buying time for ads; information on demographics; a sample schedule for
churches to follow in putting up banners and so on; an order form for
companion products, such as T-shirts and mugs; and a glossary of media
terms.

UMCom is also providing dollar-for-dollar matching grants, up to $25,000,
for local campaigns. Churches and annual conferences can use the money to
buy television ad time.

The agency began making the grants available this year, and the demand from
congregations has been strong. This year, 14 conferences have aired 15,156
spots, UMCom staff member Jackie Vaughan told the commission. The agency has
already exceeded the $250,000 budget that it set for the matching grants
this year.

The matching grants program sparked enthusiasm that spread to the local
churches, according to UMCom staff member Barbara Nissen. Church members
reported that they felt a part of something bigger than themselves, and
visitors and worship attendance levels increased, she said.

The Igniting Ministry ads are geared toward a wide range of viewers. One is
focused on the denomination's historically black colleges. Another
emphasizes children. Another features a mother talking about Jesus Christ as
a role model for her children.

Each ad concludes with a mosaic representation of the face of Jesus, along
with a voice-over message. One ad, for example, ends with, "The United
Methodist Church. Offering hope and forgiveness. Offering Christ."

Another ad plays off of possible viewer anxiety about the new millennium.
Its punchline: "If you can't find the manual for the new millennium, we'd
love to share ours."

All of the spots will be closed-captioned, and selected ads will be in
Spanish and Korean.

Commission members discussed at length some of the ads' fine points, such as
whether to include a toll-free phone number. However, the Igniting Ministry
presentation went over well.

"I think it's very ambitious, and I'm impressed with what we've seen," said
member Felix Gutierrez of San Francisco.

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United Methodist News Service
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