Commission continues work on national TV campaign for church
5/11/1998
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - Governing members of United Methodist Communications (UMCom) are continuing to work on a national television spot campaign for the denomination, which they will ask the 2000 General Conference to support financially.
Meeting here May 7-8, the 25-member General Commission on Communication heard Western Pennsylvania staff member Larry Homitsky share the success of a pilot project involving three 30-second spots shown in the Erie area between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. Radio spots were used in a follow-up campaign.
Research showed that viewers had a greater awareness of the United Methodist Church and wanted to know more. In addition to the value for non-United Methodists, the spots lifted the self-image and self-esteem of United Methodists in an area where membership has dropped from 275,000 in 1968 to 200,000 in 1997, Homitsky said. The conference has plans for another campaign this fall after training United Methodists of the region to be more "inviting" and to follow up with visitors.
Tests in four other locations have also proved equally effective, according to UMCom staff members Wil Bane and Alan Griggs.
The campaign will cost at least $8 million, according to the Rev. Judy Weidman, UMCom's top staff executive, with support anticipated from a variety of sources. As part of the TV campaign, commissioners reviewed the first draft of a theological statement prepared by Bishop Rueben Job of Nashville, former president of the agency.
Most of the commission's semi-annual meeting here was spent in a vision process for the year 2000 and beyond.
Meeting before the commission was the Foundation for United Methodist Communications.
In its second full year of operation, the foundation has made "modest progress" in identifying donors for major individual gifts, reported the Rev. F. Thomas Trotter, president. The foundation's approach is to identify specific communication projects and seek major financial support from individuals. Trotter said he expects at least one major gift by the time of the foundation's October meeting.
Two new advisory members, both commission members, were added to the foundation, bringing membership to a total of 19. New advisers are Joe Stroud, retiring editor of the Detroit Free Press, and Felix Gutierrez, West Coast director of the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center.
Guest speaker for the foundation meeting was Stewart M. Hoover, director of the Center for Mass Media Research at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
For the church or religion to exist in today's public culture, it is necessary to exist in the media, Hoover said. "To withdraw entirely in the face of an omnipresent media sphere is to choose marginalization and loss of voice."
He urged the communicators to abandon efforts to set up separate spheres where religion or the church is seen as authentic and sacred on the one hand and media are seen as inauthentic and secular or even profane on the other. "That is simply not the way people think about or use media today" he said.
The recent erosion of the church's position in the public media might be seen as an opportunity to think about a new theology of culture, Hoover suggested.
"It no longer serves us to focus on the church and the media as separate, autonomous entities locked in conflict over the hearts, minds and souls of defenseless eyes and ears in the public square," he said. "We need to begin to understand that most meanings are, in one way or another, modulated by, constrained by, but -- most importantly - enabled by the instruments of the media sphere."
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