October 21, 2024
News from some of the places where our Southern Baptist missionaries are serving has been alarming lately.
Just in recent days, we were horrified to read about a group of villagers who were rounded up, shot and burned in Myanmar, about a group of Christians who were kidnapped and held for ransom in Haiti, about a deadly cyclone that tore through the Philippines killing more than 200 people.
Such incidents are stark reminders that we as Southern Baptists need to keep abreast of world news so that we can pray in real time for our 3,600 international missionaries and the people they’re attempting to reach.
For me, that brings to mind the huge responsibility of The Christian Index and similar newspapers in keeping people informed so that they can unleash the power of prayer on the world around them. The truth is most newspapers haven’t been shouldering that responsibility very well in recent years.
For a long time now, The Christian Index has been doing a weekly newsletter that’s sent by email to our readers each Thursday afternoon. That newsletter contains links to a few of the articles we publish, and it has proven to be very popular.
I'm thinking our newsletter may be more beneficial if we were to produce it daily. That would allow us to provide you not only with our Baptist news and features but also breaking news from around the world.
For those of you who regularly go to the Index website, christianindex.org, you have already discovered that we’ve been posting significant news stories from around the globe. You have discovered sections specifically for state, national and world news. And you have discovered that the Index is able to tell all those stories very, very well through our partnership with The Associated Press, the world’s largest newsgathering operation.
If we opt to go with a daily newsletter, it would arrive in email inboxes in the wee hours of the morning and be conveniently waiting there with the top news of the day. What I’ve found is that such newsletters quickly become must-reads. It’s one of those things people look forward to getting each morning.
Newspaper expert Tim Franklin, the senior associate dean at Northwestern University’s journalism school, said this of newsletters:
“An email newsletter is like a friend who checks in every day like clockwork. You don’t have to seek it out. It’s as familiar as a morning cup of coffee. Your loyalty to it grows over time. It’s often brief and respects your time. It makes you smarter. It gives you something to talk about.”
I love the imagery of the Index as an old friend, sharing captivating stories. Over its 200 years, the Index has told stories about pioneer America. Stories about modern America. Stories from around the world.
When it was first published on February 2, 1822, the Index was a magazine. Later, it became a weekly newspaper. And now, of course, it’s an online publication. In all those iterations, it has steadfastly remained that dear friend to Georgia Baptists.
You may remember the quote from the late theologian Karl Barth who once advised Christians to keep the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.
Certainly, we understand why Christians should have the Bible in hand. It’s crucial that we hear from God.
But the newspaper?
Well, when we’re reading about the perilous times we’re living in, we can’t help but be driven to prayer by the newspaper.
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Roger Alford is editor of The Christian Index. Reach him at ralford@gabaptist.org.
