Joe Conway/North American Mission Board
ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP) – The North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) flagship publication, On Mission, has undergone a redesign, and something of a re-launch, with the New Year.
“Beginning with the current issue, we have begun to organize the magazine around the themes of gospel, mission and ministry,” said Aaron Coe, NAMB vice president for mobilization and marketing and editor in chief of On Mission. “This makes the magazine a tool for use in our Send North America strategy development process. It also allows for the stories we produce, both print and video, to be used in multiple formats.”
The magazine, delivered to readers in mid-January, aims to help awaken people to the need for authentic expressions of the gospel and church planting in North America. Coe shared how one initial response already met that expectation.
“We heard from one pastor who shared a vulnerable moment with us,” Coe said. “He said that God had impressed on him that his church needed to be involved in church planting in Detroit, but that he had not been able to take the necessary steps to see it happen. He said seeing the photos of Detroit in On Mission sealed his conviction and his church is connecting with Detroit now.”
In addition to a photo essay on the need for church planting in Detroit (one of 32 cities in NAMB’s Send North America church planting strategy), the current issue also has an interview with Russell D. Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and features on human trafficking.
On Mission originally launched in 1998 at the SBC annual meeting in Salt Lake City. It has twice been selected as the Evangelical Press Association’s missions magazine of the year and has frequently won Baptist Communicators Association and EPA awards for writing, reporting, design and photography.
“We hope to strike a balance between mainstream cultural intrigue and missional engagement,” Coe said. “With Detroit such a hot topic right now in the culture, it seemed like the perfect time to do a story about the city.”