Lausanne World Pulse – A Call to Kingdom Journalism: Rediscovering the Integral Role of Communication in Mission

June 2007

By Steve Knight

The ultimate goal of communication is God’s glory, and the ultimate subject of our communication is the magnalia Dei, God’s mighty acts.

Everyone Is a Communicator
If we accept these premises about the goal and subject of communication, then it is not difficult to see that the work of communication should not be relegated to only the “chosen few” who are professionally trained. No, communication is a responsibility that we all share, and our globalized, hyper-connected world is facilitating this “everyone is a communicator” philosophy like never before.

In his book The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman writes, “It is now possible for more people than ever to collaborate and compete in real time with more other people on more different kinds of work from more different corners of the planet and on a more equal footing than at any previous time in the history of the world—using computers, email, networks, teleconferencing and dynamic new software.”⁶

Friedman describes how this “flat” world is impacting nearly every sector of culture and society, including his own field of journalism. A new breed of “citizen journalist”⁷ (or “networked journalist”⁸) has arisen, armed with an arsenal of electronic tools such as the Internet, blogs⁹, and streaming web video.

This revolution in media is fundamentally subverting the “gatekeeper” role of the mainstream media and ultimately changing the editorial and business models for newspapers and magazines, as well as television networks and movie studios. Just one example is Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and ninety other daily newspapers in the US, who rechristened all of its newsrooms as “information centers” in November 2006 and reorganized its staff from traditional metro, state and sports departments into seven desks with names like “data,” “digital” and “community conversation.”¹⁰

Introducing Kingdom Journalism
What are the implications of this “flat” world for the communication of the Church? I would argue that, just as in the mainstream media world, there will always be an important role and an ongoing need for professional communicators. But there are simply more stories of God’s redemptive work in the world than the professionals alone will be able to tell.

May God be glorified as we describe his mighty acts in our lives, in our communities and around the world.

That is why it is exciting to see more and more men and women in ministry using new technology to “describe God’s mighty acts” in words and images. As citizen journalists and citizens of the Kingdom of God (Luke 17:20), these new pioneers of communication and mission are really “kingdom journalists.”

Missionary blogger Jim Cottrill tracks over 320 missionary blogs on his site Missionary-Blogs.com. I am personally tracking more than seventy-five RSS¹¹ feeds of SIM missionaries’ blogs and online photo albums. A number of organizations, such as HCJB Global and Compassion International—and individuals, such as world missions advocate George Verwer—have started uploading digital video to hosting sites like YouTube.com. These new media tools have opened up exciting new opportunities for communication—for more stories to be told and more perspectives to be heard.

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Steve Knight is international communication coordinator for SIM (Serving In Mission). He writes about communication on his Kingdom Journalism blog. He and his wife Becky have three children.