Read it and reap
Welcome back, readers. Over the past couple of months, many of us have spent time away from home, workplace or school. There are at least two reasons why I know this to be true. First, it's very hard to arrange interviews or sales calls anywhere near the August long weekend. Connecting with people in summertime can take three weeks of near misses. Second, it's a challenge to keep track of the people in the ChristianWeek orbit. We've been coming and going like everyone else.
Each summer brings this strange combination of leisure and busyness. Gentle times away from the office turn harried when picking up the slack left when others go away. What were we up to? Thought you'd never ask. Here's a sampling of what some of us were doing when we set our ChristianWeek responsibilities to the side.
Publisher's assistant Kris Harder spent a week in Ethiopia as part of her child adoption arrangements. Designer Isaak Janzen got married and insisted on taking some time for a honeymoon. Ontario editor Robert White celebrated his 25th wedding anniversary with a five-day rail trip to Quebec (Pam went with him). The wedding of his second daughter occupied some of publisher Brian Koldyk's summer.
Towards the end of July, managing editor Jerrad Peters spent a week at the lake with his family and a few days in the city just chilling. Associate editor Kelly Rempel peppered her summer with "staycation" activities arranged to cooperate with our print deadlines. Account manager Darrell Friesen found several opportunities to wedge in camping trips with friends and family.
I finagled a few days for my annual gig as a volunteer at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and took several more for an amazing writing retreat as a guest of the Collegeville Institute of Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville, Minnesota. I also needed to take a few weekdays to fully participate in the preparations and festivities for my second son's mid-August wedding. Full days. Fun days. So gratifying.
Changes ahead
All these activities away from the office are wonderful, necessary and good. But work doesn't go away in the summer. In fact, the general lull is when we do a lot of thinking about how to improve ChristianWeek and begin to implement some changes.
This summer has been busier than most in that regard. We've spent a lot of time in meetings discussing all aspect of our ministry (budgets, distribution methods, production schedules, online strategies and much more). Among other changes, we will soon be reducing the frequency of the subscriber edition, producing it on a monthly basis instead of the current 19 editions per year. Our web site, however, will soon be updated on a daily basis, a major leap forward in this digital age.
You can anticipate another major modification as early as October. This one will be very visible. Plans to change the format of ChristianWeek to read more like a magazine are advancing steadily. It will be more reader friendly in its presentation, easier to pick up and pass along.
This isn't change for the sake of change. We are eager to keep providing Canadian readers with good news from countless congregations. We yearn to become more effective in our role of keeping the Christian community well informed. We want to continue to encourage unity among the churches. We want to profile Christian individuals and highlight valuable ministries. And more.
We believe that the people of God benefit when we make the effort to learn from each other. In this season of change, ChristianWeek is aiming to make even more stories of the trials and triumphs of the faithful readily available to more people in more places. Read it and reap.
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