John Suk

Originally a monthly, The Banner became a biweekly publication in the early years of the 20th century, and a weekly soon thereafter. In 1997 The Banner went back to biweekly publication. This August, just a few years later, if the Christian Reformed Church’s Board of Trustees and synod agree, The Banner will return to an expanded version of its original monthly format. I’m both looking forward to the change and a bit sad about it. But making the move to an expanded monthly publication is the right one. Here’s why:

1. Culture: Like it or not, the truth is that within the church the demand for a magazine like The Banner has declined. Compared to 50 or even 25 years ago, the number of avid readers in our society is declining. People are busier than ever. In general, fewer people are interested in the theological and denominational topics that The Banner is especially well suited to cover as a binational magazine. While these trends are, in many respects, regrettable, The Banner has to make it in today’s culture, not the culture that we sometimes wish existed.

2. Ministry: The Banner’s ministry of informing, teaching, and critiquing will not be significantly affected by less frequent publication. A monthly Banner will still devote at least eight to 10 pages per issue to church news. And because the number of pages in each issue will increase, the total space given to feature articles over the course of a year will decline only marginally.

On the other hand, The Banner has long nurtured a Christian Reformed identity. The magazine has tied the denomination together by being a place to share stories, share faith, and sometimes share controversy and disagreement. Won’t a monthly mean less shared identity?

Perhaps. But going monthly also offers The Banner editorial opportunities to increase its relevance and diversify its content. Should The Banner go monthly, as planned, I envision a regular feature for office bearers as well as a regular feature on family issues. A larger monthly publication will allow The Banner to increase the number of pages it devotes both to practical articles about living as Christians in our secular culture and to in-depth contributing-editor pieces.

The Banner needs a diverse group of subscribers to do well financially. Some readers are academicians, and others are plumbers. Some readers have a heart for overseas relief work, while others have a heart for doctrinal truth. Some readers are raising a family of young children, and others are thinking about estate planning. Some readers are Zuni, some are African American, and others are new Chinese immigrants. A monthly magazine allows us to stay in touch with many more of these different kinds of subscribers in every issue. That should pay dividends in subscriber loyalty.

3. Finances: The Banner ’s economics work better as a monthly magazine for three reasons. First, monthly publication cuts the number of mailings in half. Given the rate increases anticipated this year alone, postage costs need to be brought under tighter control. Second, monthly publication will result in a small but significant reduction in the total number of pages published in the course of the year. This reduction will reduce magazine costs as well.
Third, the option of raising prices to sustain biweekly publication does not seem wise given the ongoing decline in subscriptions. In fact, by going to the monthly plan, we can afford not to raise prices by nearly 15 percent, an increase we had originally planned to put in place in January 2002.

4. An Every Family Plan? From time to time readers and church leaders suggest a denominational every-family (or household) plan as the way to go. For example, The Church Herald magazine of the Reformed Church in America gets sent to every household. This plan is paid for via ministry share. At introduction, however, the high cost of such a plan creates quite a bit of dissension—because the cost is very high. Keep in mind that any plan that would use ministry share to put The Banner in every home would not only cost a large amount of money on the expense side (say, something in the order of $1.5 million to $2 million), but it would mean giving up the subscription revenue we presently receive (approximately $750,000 annually). In contrast to that net swing of 2.5 - 3 million dollars in revenue, publishing The Banner monthly would not require any denominational subsidies.

The bottom line? All faithful readers of The Banner would love to recreate the era in which you could find The Banner on every church member’s coffee table. I’m sad that era is past. Rather than bemoan the cultural changes, however, The Banner needs to reposition itself to remain viable. Only then will its ministry—a valuable ministry done well—be able to thrive.

Over the next few months we’ll inform you about the details of the proposed changes, including subscription information. In the meantime, the editorial staff invites your input and insight about our plans. We’d like to know what new features you’d like to see added, what writers you’d like to see published—especially for the family and office-bearer articles, and what ideas you have to make sure that plenty of people are reading a great magazine.