Editorial

Running a magazine is a business. Running churchwide agencies and colleges is big business. Congregations pay attention to labor laws for their employees, budget for operating expenses and decide how to depreciate assets. A healthy church will have leadership that understands the business side of ministry.

Often, however, we bifurcate business from church. At times, members with successful businesses are treated in a dismissive manner. Or we assume the church is so different that good business practices are irrelevant. But business disciplines, such as strategic planning, are especially important during times such as these.

The consultant who led our board of directors and staff members in its strategic planning session on March 20 said to us all: “You are not a print magazine any more. You need to think of yourself as a content provider.”

We now print fewer than 10,000 copies of this magazine each time we go to press. However, the total number of people who read what we publish has reached a 10-year-high. That’s because we now publish in four different media. (See chart below.)

This is the evolution of the magazine business. Four years ago our board of directors saw the writing on the wall, or rather, the writing on the Internet. Looking ahead, they invested heavily in a new Web site that would have many new capabilities. These include the ability to link electronic magazines (ezines) to the Web site.

In the next month or two we expect the Web site to have as many users as there are subscribers to The Mennonite. These are people who prefer to receive their news and articles electronically. Or they like to receive as much information as possible and read both the print magazine as well as everything we publish electronically.

Our free weekly electronic magazine, called TMail, now has more than 1,500 subscribers. Our free Spanish-language ezine, called Meno Acontecer, has nearly 500 subscribers.
Together these four media—The Mennonite magazine, our Web site (www.themennonite.org), TMail and Meno Acontecer—are the ways we are responding to the market available to us. Fortunately, we are beginning to generate advertising revenue from the Web site and ezines. As the numbers grow, we can generate more advertising income because advertisers will pay more for the additional eyes that read their messages.

Those of us providing editorial content for members of Mennonite Church USA know well how difficult it is to be in this business. But we also know that the marriage of business with the work of the church is a great privilege. Thanks for being such a good customer!