LA TIMES COMMENTARY, a new section and why

For many of you working in church communication, much of your work is tedious. Though you know (as I remind you often in my seminars and various publications) that the most seemingly mundane publications you create can alter the eternal direction of a life, it is still often tedious to create the weekly bulletin, to update the website, to do up one more small group schedule.

But I also know that working with words can be captivating and sometimes for the sake of ministry or whimsy, dreams of glory or authority, you come up to me and ask about “writing.” It’s that kind of writing that this series of blog entries is about. Writing that isn’t tedious, writing that you do because you have a message or a dream to share. To inspire that sort of writing, I find it helpful to read writers who don’t necessarily write for church communications. Writers whose topics I would probably never write about, whose worlds I will never inhabit. This is not to say their worlds are evil or vile or anything I would not read on the patio at church between services, but many of the reviewers and authors would probably not be joining me in the church service.

One of my favorite sources for these writers is the LA TIMES, Sunday edition of their editorial section and book reviews. The designer in me loves the form. It is a tabloid tucked into the paper. A pullout section that opened one way says OPINION, turned upside down and opened from the back side, it says BOOK REVIEW. I savor reading it on Sunday afternoon; marking quotes will yellow markers and filing them under “Useful quotes” in my writing files.

It’s the quotes I love and the thoughts they prompt. I realized in my recent project of organizing materials for some books in process that lots of quotes don’t necessarily fit books about church bulletins and designing church websites. Yet they are quotes that the people who create church bulletins and websites might find useful because it seems to me that if every task you undertake in communication is infused with a bit of the glory of what it means to be a communicator, what it means to take words and use them to make people stop, think, ponder, or pray, perhaps the quotes that stir my heart, might stir yours also.

So I’ll be sharing. Here is the pattern: These blogs will be titled LA TIMES, the date, and then perhaps a key topic or two. From there I will pull out quotes and then add a few comments. The label will be clear, and the wonderful self-cataloging nature of this blog will make it easy for those reading the blog who consider the LA TIMES evil and any discussion of it a waste or for those who might also enjoy this sort of mental ramble, for both to either find or avoid whatever suits their particular provisions needed as a writer.