wfn.org | New Foundation Addresses Communications Concerns

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24 Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED
METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (397 notes).

Note 396 by UMNS on Oct. 20, 1997 at 16:23 Eastern (6345 characters).

CONTACT: Thomas S. McAnally			584(10-21-71B){396}
         Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470	Oct. 20, 1997

New foundation hears from two veteran
United Methodist communicators

	NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)  Two veteran United Methodist communicators spoke here Oct. 17 to members of a new foundation seeking
money for expanded communications efforts of the church.
	The Rev. William Fore, for many years staff executive for the Communications Commission of the National Council of Churches,
expressed alarm at how media has changed the values and world view of the entire culture in only 50 years.
	The church has a unique opportunity to help people understand what is happening to them, he said, because "the church is one of
the last places in American culture where people meet together face to face each week.  Television has distanced us from all
other community activity and mediated everything from sports to politics."
	Instead of rejecting movies and television as "bad," the Rev. James Wall, editor of the ecumenical Christian Century magazine
said the church must find ways to help people know "how to see and  receive television, how to understand whats happening to
them, how to identify the good and deplore the bad."
	Fore is a member of the 17-member Foundation for United Methodist Communications, launched in the fall of 1996 by governing
members of United Methodist Communications (UMCom).  Wall spoke at a foundation dinner on the eve of the semi-annual meeting of
the governing body of United Methodist Communications. Foundation president is the Rev. F. Thomas Trotter, former seminary dean
and college president and chief executive of the denominations Board of Higher Education and Ministry.
	Some members likened the challenges faced by UMCom and the foundation to the biblical story of David and Goliath but Trotter
reminded them that early Methodists changed their culture.  He cited the influence of the Methodist movement on the church and
society in 18th century England and the frontier revivals of the 19th century.
	The Rev. Judy Weidman, staff executive for UMCom, shared the agencys desire to recommend a major initiative on communications
to the 2000 General Conference.  The church shouldnt run from a challenge to make itself visible in the culture just because it
is expensive, she asserted.
While UMComs governing body has not put a price tag on its proposed initiative, Weidman said it is not unrealistic to ask the
church for one dollar per member. The denomination has 8.6 million members in the United States and more than a million in
Europe, Africa and the Philippines.
During their business sessions, foundation members reaffirmed their earlier decision to seek major gifts for a permanent
endowment and to continue work on funding for short-term projects.  These short-term projects include fellowships to provide
ethnic minority college graduates an opportunity to work for one year alongside communications staff members in some of the
churchs 66 U.S. annual conferences. 
Money is also being sought to connect by computers the 27 congregations in the churchs Alaska Missionary Conference and to help
finance "News Odyssey," a weekly religious news program produced by UMCom for the Odyssey Cable Network.
Wall, a clergy member of the Northern Illinois Annual (regional) Conference, said the name of the magazine he edits was changed
at the turn of the century to signal the dawn of a Christian century. "I must report to you it didnt happen," he said. 
While significant advances were made, he said "one reason we are so far from having a Christian century is that we have forgotten
that vital piety must be linked to social action."
	Problems such as hunger, oppression and environmental destruction have occurred, he said, because people - many highly educated
- have failed to see private faith and public action as "two sides of the same religious commitment."
	He encouraged the foundation to seek support for video projects that would help church leaders make a connection between a
private faith rooted in prayer and Scripture and public responsibility for care of the earth.
	Fore, a clergy member of the California-Pacific Conference, proposed starting with seminaries to help them train church leaders
to help people approach media from a Christian perspective.  He also called for communication vehicles that would help United
Methodists have an "identifiable common understanding" of what it means to be a United Methodist and a Christian.
	Several foundation members echoed this concern.  The Rev. William K. Quick of Detroit said the communication challenges facing
United Methodism are nothing short of a crisis.  "Our problems are identity, faith, and marketing," he said.  "We dont know who
we are, what we believe, and we dont know how to share it."
	Member churches of the National Council of Churches once were given time on the major commercial networks, Fore noted, but
following deregulation he said the system is "tougher and tighter."
"Tougher," he explained, means "nothing but the bottom line of profit at the expense of anything having to do with human values."
 If the church is no longer the leavening agent for the culture, he said, it may have to "teach people what to eat."
	Regarding the importance of helping people understand the mediated culture in which they live, Fore said "seminarians just dont
get it." Unimpressed that their parishioners watch an average of 30 hours of television a week and spend only three-fourths of an
hour reading a book, Fore said pastors may be talking about one Madonna from the pulpit while the people in the pew are thinking
of another Madonna.
	Trotter said the year-old Foundation for United Methodist Communications has emerged at an auspicious time when people
appreciate the importance of communications and when disposable wealth in America has grown dramatically.  "For our foundation
not to become a part of this growth in charitable giving would be disappointing," he said.  
Next day, at the close of his report to the full governing body of United Methodist Communications, he quipped, "Anybody know Ted
Turner?"  The communications magnate recently announced a personal gift of more than $1 billion to programs related to the United
Nations.

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