Mega Media Missionaries
In a bygone age, people went to church in their town or village for many reasons -- not all of them related to worship.
People went to church to hear the latest news from the wider world. They went to church to hear the latest opinions, to have the news interpreted for them.
People went to church because it was the centre of social interraction in the community, and the shaper and defender of the moral values and ehtical standards of a community. The church, in most of the western world, can no longer claim to occupy such a central role in shaping people's thinking.
In the minds of many people, the church has become another form of "service industry". If people want groceries they go to the supermarket. If they need petrol, they head for the gas station. If they need religion they go to church.
For these people, the church has become a marginalized group living at the periphery of everyday life. That, however, is not what Jesus intended for us! The church is a dangerous place; a place where the impossible and unthinkable happens. A place where Jesus is present -- in all his commanding presence, disarming compassion and surprising power.
The church will become more influential only through the strength of its spiritual dynamic and its involvement in the community. Is there a place for the mass media in lifting the profile of the church and helping us spread the message of Christ? Can the mass media, which has been the scene of some spectacular Christian failures, be a good ally for Christian mission?
Despite the negative uses to which mass media are often put, Christians should never be afraid of them. The word "media" simply means "tools" -- tools for communication.
Communication itself is ultimately rooted in the nature of God. He is revealed to us as a Trinity -- three Persons in one divine Essence, all of whom are in constant, loving, respectful communication. God is the great communicator.
What's more, God's greatest act on our history was one of communication. He incarnated himself in human form, revealing himself to us in a way we can understand. And Jesus' last command to us was an instruction to communicate -- with all the world!
God wants to speak where people are listening -- and he wants to be seen where people least expect him to be. There is a place for us in the mass media. How can we use it effectively?
There are some keys to good use of the media by Christians. Here are four of them:
Listen
The first major principle of all great communication is listening. It is true that you cannot communicate with someone until you commune with them. Both words come from the same root word and speak of sharing at a deeper than surface level.
All good communication is receptor-oriented. It does not focus on the giver, but seeks to meet the need of the receiver.
Empathic listening is the skill through which a good counsellor will try to discover the underlying feelings and values of a person in need. They take in the information they are hearing, then feed it back in their own words. This process shows that the counsellor cares about the other's experience and that they are really trying to see the world from the other person's Reeboks.
The process also allows people to crystallize their thinking and express their feelings in a succinct way.
Whilst communication through the mass media is hardly the same as one-on-one counselling encounters, the principle of active listening is still applicable.
People can tell if you've been listening to the culture you're living in both by the style you use to speak with them and the substance of what you're saying. That's why research is a vital first step in the development of any media project.
Careful research has many benefits. It helps us define the mission, the objective of the project we are undertaking. It helps us describe the audience. Unless we know the needs of our listeners or readers, we can't hope to minister to those needs.
Research is the media person's "counselling room"; it gives us the chance to identify and empathize with our listeners, viewers or readers. And of course the best kind of research is still mixing with real people.
Research, like good counselling technique, can also help us learn the difference between a person or group's felt needs and their real needs. Often, we Christian communicators have tried to meet the real need -- which is often spiritual in nature -- without first addressing the felt need. We start with the need of the people as we see it, rather than the need as they themselves see it. As a result, people tune out before we've had a chance to deposit anything meaningful.
In John 4 Jesus graphically demonstrates how the real need can be addressed after the perceived need. In the space of one conversation with a woman at a well, he not only changes her life, but the lives of half the people in her village.
How does he start this whole life-changing exchange? He opens with a line that could hardly be called deeply spiritual. He kicks off with a very mundane request: "Give me a drink". Why did he say that? Because God woke him at 3am that morning and said, "You'll meet a lady today and you must say to her, 'Give me a drink'"!?
No, nothing so hyper-spiritual. He was confronted by a woman standing at a well, presumably carrying a jar with which to draw water. What is her felt need? Water -- that's what she's come for, that's what she thinks she's after.
Then Jesus turns the conversation around to speak about what he calls "living water", spiritual life, which he says only he can give her. He starts with the felt need of the woman and brings things around to the real need - spiritual sustenance and life.
Many Christian media people would have blundered straight in with the spiritual message, without bothering to show first that they had the woman's interests and needs at heart -- or that they understood something of her longing.
Planning
Research helps us describe our resources. Jesus pointed out that a man who is about to construct a great building will always sit down and work out in advance whether he has the resources to complete it. That's good stewardship.
Many good media ideas fail not for lack of talent, or desire, but for lack of forethought.
The basic resources we will have are people, organization, facilities and funds. We must ask: which resources are available for the particular project at hand? If the project is too big for our one organization to handle, where can we find other, like-minded people and groups who can assist us?
Careful research also helps us analyze media and methods. Different media are received differently by different people. Teenagers, for example, love to listen to FM radio, MTV and now, MP3 via the net. To reach that audience we need to invest in these types of media -- without simply aping what the secular scene is doing. After all, we are called to be prophetic people, who challenge the status quo and point the way to something better!
We need to identify which types of media and programming will attract which types of listener.
Finally, research will help a Christian media organization evaluate just how well its resources are being utilized. Good stewardship of God-given resources is all about continually asking the question: Did we reach our objectives? And then, did we do it right (and what can we learn for next time)?
For a Christian media communicator or organization is important but it will never, of course, replace the direct guidance of God's Holy Spirit. Far from it -- without the agency of Christ's love and power we can do nothing of any real worth. Research can actually show us where we need God's guidance. It can remove distractions from our path and help us slim down the available options so that we are praying on and working toward a much more focussed objective.
Passion
The third key to great communication -- including media communication -- is passion. It has been said that, "A speaker's feelings on a subject often form the dominant message." People often get as much or more out of our feelings and convictions on the subject than they do from the substance of what we say.
When people first tune in to us, they will weigh up in the first few minutes -- or seconds -- whether we have something they need to hear. There are thousands of message coming at people from all directions every day. They're constantly sifting through this bombardment, to close out messages they don't think will help them.
We have to earn the right to be heard. it's a shame more Christian media leaders, and preachers, don't seem to understand that fact. We can't simply assume that because we believe our message is from God, people will drop everything to hear it!
An important part of earning people's trust is a passionate presentation. People will not listen to me if they think I am asking them to invest their lives in something I'm not even excited about myself! How can I ask someone else to get passioante about my message if, through poor delivery, lack of preparation or slow pace of presentation, I am saying, "This is not worth getting excited about"?
Of course, I'm not advocating that every TV or radio presenter should stand up banging a pulpit and shouting into the camera lens! In fact, TV is not so much a pulpit as a forum. It is about people inviting you into their living room for a chat -- and you don't carry a pulpit into a living room conversation (not if you want to make friends and influence people!)
Malcolm Muggeridge, a pioneer of TV communication with the BBC, said that the three cardinal rules of TV presentation are: "talk quietly, never shout, and look at the camera." Many preachers need to do a lot of work before they can transfer their message from the pulpit and stage to the TV lens.
On stage, you can be animated and act larger than life -- in fact that is often necessary to keep your audience with you. On TV, all of your audience's attention is focussed down to one little box, in the corner of their room. You need to communicate with smaller movements, and softer tones!
Passion is much more than histrionic presentation. Being passionate means being able to express tangible excitement, or anger, or humour, without resorting to hysteria!
Passion means you place your feelings about the subject on show at the same time as your words. All this without using your media platform as a kind of personal therapy or an outlet for your frustrations or hurt. Sometimes passion is communicated without words - music and pictures can often suggest a mood whch words alone cannot.
Honesty
If there's one thing I am constanty learning in preaching and media work it is this: honesty is our greatest ally. In our age, media consultancy is a huge industry. Professional media trainers are helping policians and other leaders to eliminate certain types of body language when speaking in public. Sometimes, the aim is to cover up the speaker's lack of expertise or integrity -- to make the speaker look more capable or truthful than they really are.
In this cynical age, where people are half-expecting to be lied to, there is great power in the simple truth. It breaks down barriers, often just because it takes people by surprise!
Billy Joel sang about honesty, which he said was "Such a lonely word....everyone is so untrue." In the electronic media, there is a chronic need for people who know how to put aside slickness and artifice and simply "get real".
Friendship is about being willing to remove layers of your personality to let another human being interract with you. In another way, reaching people through TV, radio and the like is also about revealing yourself to others.
The best media communicators - actors, newsreaders, anchors - are people audiences feel they know. When viewers or listeners think of a presenter or actor as a personal friend, there is a bridge of trust which is not easily destroyed. Of course, the "friendship" is an artifical one - it is one way, and from a distance. But the trust is real and should be respected.
Honesty is about being yourself -- as much as that is possible in the media. In a public setting, we all tend to have a "public face" and a personal one. We do tend to sound a little different when faced with a camera than we do when talking to our best friend. We put on our best face.
There's nothing wrong with that -- nobody necessarily wants to see our worst side! But we must keep trying to avoid hiding our own humanity behind some pre-cooked image. It's OK to show your best side, provided it's your best side, and not one you've borrowed from someone else!
If Christians can keep their eye on the goal - which must always be honouring God's name, making him "famous"; if we can avoid being infatuated with or converted to the media; if we can learn that the ultimate in communication is the meeting of needs, then we will have much to offer the world of the media, and God will open doors for us.
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