The Power of Print
Posted by JohnS (November 18, 2007 at 6:44 am)
Over a year ago I was in a Borders Bookstore perusing books in the theology section. I encountered a Dutch Reformed minister and his seminarian son. We had a wonderful conversation about contemporary culture, the Church Fathers and the domestic church. The minister had just published a new book on home discipleship Christianity, which I might add is a very interesting read. He gave me several copies of his self-published book. In fact, he had several cases of the book in the trunk of his car. My only regret is that I had nothing in print to offer him in return.
This experience has turned over in my mind multiple times in the past year. The power of personal Christian witness and encounter is intense. When personal encounter is married to the printed word it is perhaps doubly effective.
The Antiochian Orthodox Church (AOC) has a wonderful ministry called Conciliar Press. It’s roots run back to the Evangelicals like Father Peter Gillchrist who heeded the call to return to their “roots in historic Christianity once … again.” Conciliar Press began with the publication of their newspaper, which is now a magazine by the same title … AGAIN.
Sayidna Philip gave the the newly Chrismated Evangelical Orthodox the task of bringing the story of ancient Christianity to the modern world. Sounds like the New Evangelization to me. Thus, Conciliar Press was born.
As the Conciliar Press website notes they “now produce two quarterly magazines, dozens of books by the best writers in American Orthodoxy, icons, cards, and more. Conciliar Press is the primary distributor of the New Testament Orthodox Study Bible, and will begin distributing in early 2008 the Old Testament Orthodox Study Bible, published by Thomas Nelson.”
I might also add that Conciliar Press recently combined its evangelical efforts with the equally excellent Ancient Faith Radio internet-base station.
About a dozen years ago I started purchasing high-quality icons from Conciliar Press. I now have many of their fine books in my personal library. Moreover, I recenlty subscribed to AGAIN magazine.
The AOC is effectively using both print and web – New Evangelization media – to bring Christ to the modern world. There is something here to learn for Byzantine Catholics. Some thoughts on that next.
Running a print organization is time consuming and expensive. You may want to do some practice runs with PDFs and other electronic media. We’re experimenting with that @ St. Peter and Paul with our elevation to parish ceremony.
Comment posted November 19th, 2007 at 11:40 am
PDF is fine, but there are those who don’t want or can’t use electronic format.
Comment posted November 25th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
That’s true, which is why it’s an experiment. A long time ago I worked in print. You want to avoid making your mistakes there. Get your workflow, your financial support, all the infrastructure set up to a move to print by starting it out in electronic and I think you’ll find yourself scaling better. You can take your electronic files and go to someone who will convert them to print for far less than it takes to go the other way.
Comment posted November 30th, 2007 at 6:15 pm