For the past two years, Associated Ministries has invested in our ability to communicate, both through the printed media like The Channel, and through electronic media. Many of you complimented us for the new look of The Channel when we brought a complete overhaul to it back in early 2010. Many people have also complimented us on the new look to our web site.
A growing number of people are engaging us through Facebook. The E-Channel has become a regular source of information about what is happening at Associated Ministries and how you can be involved as well as a source of information about what is happening at local congregations and in the broader religious community. We have also developed an interactive community calendar of religious events and activities that are open to the broader public. And we have been exploring the use of other electronic media (e.g., listservs, blogs, dropbox) to help provide ways for people of faith to connect directly with one another and enhance our role as a gateway for people of faith to become more involved in the community.
During this past decade we, like you, have seen a growing number of organizations migrate to the sole use of electronic media to stay connected with the community. As with many not-for-profit agencies making difficult choices, Associated Ministries has been wrestling with our ability to publish what was a monthly publication up until 2010, then a bi-monthly newspaper in 2010 and 2011. As with most things, there are any number of questions that are raised in the decision-making process about publishing a religious community newspaper: finances, effectiveness, environmental impact, and available alternatives.
After wrestling with all sorts of questions we have decided that this will be our last issue of The Channel. Uniting people of faith to build stronger communities is our new mission statement. The focus of our work at Associated Ministries is on uniting people of faith, because we believe that being united is what God desires of us.
We are committed to engaging and mobilizing people of faith to be of service in the community and encouraging people of faith to be united in their service --- that is, to participate in some way to contribute to the second half of our mission statement, to build stronger communities. Our ability to unite people of faith to build stronger communities is based upon two key ingredients: relationships and communications.
Moving forward, with clarity from our strategic plan, 2012 becomes an exciting time to re-calibrate our resources of time, energy, and funding. Re-configuring our staff, alongside the changes in our communications strategy, will be one of the most significant ways that you will experience the changes going on at Associated Ministries.
Specific to staffing, Rev. Heidi Calhoun will no longer be our Director of Mission and Development but will now become our Chief Mission Officer.
While all of us at Associated Ministries are focused on our mission statement, Heidi will stand at the crossroads between the people of faith that we seek to unite in service and the myriad of programs and services that make up Associated Ministries. It will be the responsibility of all of us to live into our new mission and vision statements. When something is everyone’s responsibility, it easily becomes no one’s responsibility because it becomes too easy to think, or even to say, “someone else was also going to do that.”
Heidi will be that constant reminder to all of us at Associated Ministries, from the board to the staff to the thousands of volunteers, asking us “how does your work engage people of faith?”
Communications tools like E-Channel, Facebook, the web site, religious community calendars, blogs, listserves, and the like, become ways for all of us to communicate with one another. Let’s look through our various windows of faith, step across the threshold of our doors, lower the walls that separate us from one another, and become engaged with people from varying faith backgrounds, understandings, and traditions. Together we can be of service in our communities- uniting people of faith to build stronger communities.
