On Monday I initiated some debate at a team meeting of the Greater London Presence and Engagement Network on the way stories of our work can be shared in and through the press and media.
I began with examples of press reaction from the weekend to the then decision by St Paul's Cathedral and the Corporation of London to obtain separate High Court injunctions to clear the Occupy London camp:
“It’s not a very good advert for Christianity … It’s a very well-organised protest. It’s peaceful. I was brought up to believe that a church was a place where people would find refuge.” Max Clifford, Publicist
I began with examples of press reaction from the weekend to the then decision by St Paul's Cathedral and the Corporation of London to obtain separate High Court injunctions to clear the Occupy London camp:
“It’s not a very good advert for Christianity … It’s a very well-organised protest. It’s peaceful. I was brought up to believe that a church was a place where people would find refuge.” Max Clifford, Publicist
“The church … has missed a sensational trick. Namely, the chance to hold out against the opaque Corporation of London and allow a space where an alternative view of the world could be presented.” Marina Hyde, Guardian columnist
“Really, Church of England, I despair … What astute Anglican … could look out over a sea of the best-behaved civic protestors in even our island’s long tradition of same and see a problem instead of a vast, synergetical opportunity? … Don’t emerge bleating about health and safety issues from a monument that even the Blitz couldn’t close like some local government jobsworth … Such petty risk aversion looks bad on anyone, but particularly those who purport to believe in an afterlife.” Lucy Mannan, Guardian columnist
One week before, The Revd George Pitcher wrote the following in a prescient Church Times article entitled ‘Ten media tips for the Church’:
“Our relationship with risk in the Church is ambivalent. We like to think that our faith is edgy, unpredictable, and invasive, liminal and envelope-pushing. In reality, we hide behind medieval walls. Our institutions are deeply risk-averse."
“Our relationship with risk in the Church is ambivalent. We like to think that our faith is edgy, unpredictable, and invasive, liminal and envelope-pushing. In reality, we hide behind medieval walls. Our institutions are deeply risk-averse."
Pitcher's ‘Ten media tips for the Church’ are relevant to engaging with the press and media at both national and local levels:
1. Define the issues – prioritise the crucial issues with which the Church is faced, and go for them
2. Stop being a victim – get on the front foot, and stop whingeing about how badly you are treated
3. Be clear on the core offer – exploit our unparalleled insight into how society works in the UK, and tell our stories
4. Integrate – weave yourselves into the fabric of the media, instead of lecturing to or complaining about them
1. Define the issues – prioritise the crucial issues with which the Church is faced, and go for them
2. Stop being a victim – get on the front foot, and stop whingeing about how badly you are treated
3. Be clear on the core offer – exploit our unparalleled insight into how society works in the UK, and tell our stories
4. Integrate – weave yourselves into the fabric of the media, instead of lecturing to or complaining about them
5. Talk the talk – use the vocabulary of the world, not of the Church. Reporters need to know that the hungry are being fed and the homeless sheltered, not that our pastoral ministry is a blessing in deprived areas.
6. Walk the walk – step up to the plate and say what you think
6. Walk the walk – step up to the plate and say what you think
7. Speak truth to power – this is not just the job of the media
8. Rapid rebuttal – don’t whine that you have been misrepresented. Hit the phone, and tell the journalist
9. Stand by the weak – stand alongside the marginalised
10. Allow access – let the media in. Sometimes you’ll regret it, but that is the price of all the times you won’t.
As examples of the way in which good news stories can be told when Pitcher's tips are put into practice, I pointed to coverage in the Birmingham Mail of the stand taken by inter-faith project The Feast prior to the EDL rally in that city over the weekend plus extensive coverage in the Ilford Recorder of the 10th anniversary of the East London Three Faiths Forum:
8. Rapid rebuttal – don’t whine that you have been misrepresented. Hit the phone, and tell the journalist
9. Stand by the weak – stand alongside the marginalised
10. Allow access – let the media in. Sometimes you’ll regret it, but that is the price of all the times you won’t.
As examples of the way in which good news stories can be told when Pitcher's tips are put into practice, I pointed to coverage in the Birmingham Mail of the stand taken by inter-faith project The Feast prior to the EDL rally in that city over the weekend plus extensive coverage in the Ilford Recorder of the 10th anniversary of the East London Three Faiths Forum:
I ended by pointing to translations of the Prologue to John's Gospel which translate 'logos' as 'conversation':
“It all arose out of a conversation, conversation within God, in fact the conversation was God. So God started the discussion, and everything came out of this, and nothing happened without consultation.
This was the life, life that was the light of men, shining in the darkness, a darkness which neither understood nor quenched its creativity.
“It all arose out of a conversation, conversation within God, in fact the conversation was God. So God started the discussion, and everything came out of this, and nothing happened without consultation.
This was the life, life that was the light of men, shining in the darkness, a darkness which neither understood nor quenched its creativity.
John, a man sent by God, came to remind people about the nature of the light so that they would observe. He was not the subject under discussion, but the bearer of an invitation to join in.
The subject of the conversation, the original light, came into the world, the world that had arisen out of his willingness to converse. He fleshed out the words but the world did not understand. He came to those who knew the language, but they did not respond. Those who did became a new creation (his children). They read the signs and responded.
The subject of the conversation, the original light, came into the world, the world that had arisen out of his willingness to converse. He fleshed out the words but the world did not understand. He came to those who knew the language, but they did not respond. Those who did became a new creation (his children). They read the signs and responded.
These children were born out of sharing in the creative activity of God. They heard the conversation still going on, here, now, and took part, discovering a new way of being people.
To be invited to share in a conversation about the nature of life was for them, a glorious opportunity not to be missed.” (John 1: 1-14 revisited)
To be invited to share in a conversation about the nature of life was for them, a glorious opportunity not to be missed.” (John 1: 1-14 revisited)
Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, has said that the Bible is the record of the dialogue in which God and humanity find one another: “Abraham says: God, why did you abandon the world? God says to Abraham: Why did you abandon Me? And there then begins that dialogue between Heaven and Earth which has not ceased in 4,000 years. That dialogue in which God and Man find one another … Only thus, can we understand the great dialogues between God and Abraham and Moses and Jeremiah and Job.”
Jesus says in John 8: 28 that he speaks just what the Father has taught him and in John 11: 42 that the Father always hears him. These two verses indicate that Jesus and the Father are in a constant dialogue or conversation.
On this basis, mission and ministry can be understood as inviting others to share in the conversation between God and humanity about the nature of life. Mission and ministry are about identifying the conversations that people in the parish may want to start with God or into which they could be drawn and contributing to those conversations (through action, meetings, preaching, press coverage, projects etc) from a Christian perspective.
The starting place for beginning mission and ministry in this way is to ask what are the conversation starters in my area and through which fora can those conversations begin? The press and media are a key fora within and through which such conversations can begin.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsies - Seize the Day.
The starting place for beginning mission and ministry in this way is to ask what are the conversation starters in my area and through which fora can those conversations begin? The press and media are a key fora within and through which such conversations can begin.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsies - Seize the Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment