Media Ministries

Advances in broadcast, recording, and digital technologies have transformed the ways in which many evangelical and Pentecostal churches deliver their messages. Media ministries run the gamut from support ministries for reaching congregants who otherwise could not go to church to outlets for widening a church's outreach or standalone ministries that reach out solely through the media. The incorporation of media into more traditional approaches to religious proselytization and education helps meet the expectations of a growing segment of the population and enables ministries to show that they understand and are relevant to younger adults. In addition, the vast audiences gathered by some media ministries allow them not only to spread a strictly religious message but also to effect social and political change. However, this can detract from the main, religious message of the ministry and weaken the very relevance that it is trying to demonstrate.

Keywords Blog; Church; Congregation; Denomination; Evangelism; Fundamentalism; Media; Megachurch; Ministry; Podcast; Secularization; Televangelism; Unchurched

Sociology of Religion > Media Ministries

Overview

Advances in broadcast, recording, and digital technologies have in many ways transformed the ways in which religious messages can be delivered. Formerly traditional churches often incorporate a media component into their ministries in order to better minister to their congregations, widen their sphere of influence, or reach the unchurched. In addition, ministries that are only available through the media have also sprung up, reacting to the expectations of many individuals in the late 20th and early 21st centuries that religions incorporate technology and demonstrate their relevance to real life. The various media used in ministry allow churches and religious groups to reach a wider audience and effect social and political change.

Although media ministries may seem like a new phenomenon enabled by the rise of technology over the past few decades, in truth, they have been around for quite some time. In the mid-twentieth century, many people listened avidly to the preacher on the radio offering to send listeners a free handkerchief that had been blessed in return for a donation, to the children's stories that supplemented Sunday school in reinforcing moral messages, or to the adult programming on religious stations that offered hymns or stories of inspiration and challenge. Such broadcast capabilities opened a whole new venue for getting out a religious message, not only to congregation members who, for various reasons, were not physically able to come to church, but also to the unchurched. As technology improved and became more affordable and television sets became a fixture in an increasing number of homes, the opportunities for using various media to expand ministry increased. Local churches began purchasing air time on both radio and television stations in order to broadcast sermons or even entire services to the homebound or the unchurched. Soon, many of these media ministries offered audio or video tapes of their programs to their audiences. Many of the churches and ministries that decided not to broadcast their message joined this trend, making available audio or video tapes (later CDs or DVDs) to interested congregants, shut-ins, visitors, friends, or anyone interested in learning more about the church or its message.

Methods of Media Delivery

With the advent of the Internet and other, more recent technological innovations, the venues for media ministries increased even more. Virtual churches promise to pull a service together "just for you" (through random generation of components) or allow one to design an interactive avatar to attend online church services. However, media ministries are not limited to such services and uses. Many churches today have websites that allow one to download the pastor's latest sermon, view the pastor's blog, or download material from a podcast or through an RSS feed. E-mail distribution lists are used to quickly disseminate prayer chains to members or publish daily or weekly devotional thoughts. As technology continues to advance and its uses multiply, churches and other religious organizations attempt to reach technologically savvy individuals whether they regularly attend church or not. Some churches are even designed as a series of linked locations or campuses so that each venue can conduct worship in ways most fitting to its individual sub-congregation (e.g., traditional, contemporary) but receive the same sermon broadcast from a main or central location. The use of media to reach such satellite congregations helps churches meet the needs of people in multiple generations while still bringing the same message.

Media ministries are often thought of disparagingly, however. Abuses such as the sexual scandal of Jim Bakker and the financial scandals of Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, and others are one reason for this attitude. In addition, the use of media ministries as bully pulpits to further intolerance and prejudice has increased the ridicule that many of these ministries receive. However, not every media ministry is of this ilk. Many are legitimate, honestly trying to bring their message to a wider audience through application of modern technology. The use of media to teach and evangelize is only a tool and can be used to spread messages both good and bad, by people of good or ill intent.

Further Insights

Early Delivery of Religion

In the past, not only religion but every sector of society relied on print media and in-person communication to disseminate its message. Painstaking copying of letters and books was done by cloistered monks, and the resultant manuscripts were read only by the very few, in part because only the very few could read. With the invention of the printing press and movable type, all that changed. Although media communication could only be done through print for years, literacy rates increased, and error-free copies of documents could be widely read and disseminated. Further, there was little choice in where one could go to find professional spiritual teaching and comfort. Most areas were limited to a very few churches or religious institutions. Travel was difficult and slow, and people did not expect a wide variety of options for religious services, save for occasional visits from traveling revivalists.

In the 20th century, this all changed. The automobile made people more mobile, and the availability of radio technology in the early part of the century (and television technology a few decades later) gave religious organizations larger target markets and greater audiences for proselytization and evangelism. Many evangelicals were quick to see the potential in the use of media to spread the good news. Churches found that they could often broadcast their message through the use of free air time offered as part of general programming. However, some churches, in particular more fundamentalist evangelical and Pentecostal churches, decided to expand this role and purchase broadcast time. On the one hand, this allowed them greater opportunity for outreach. On the other hand, it brought with it a greater opportunity for abuse, as the churches or ministries needed to earn sufficient income to be able to pay for the broadcast time.

Most early media ministry broadcasts were modeled after the churches' Sunday morning worship services or the revivalist meetings held in campgrounds or stadiums. Such broadcasts can still be seen today in the form of television crusades or televised worship services or sermons. However, the escalation of the cost of broadcast time and the diminishing attention span of younger generations combined to mean that most media ministry broadcasts are increasingly restricted to 30 minutes or an hour. Since the preponderance of worship services requires at least an hour, with many evangelical sermons alone lasting over 30 minutes, this paradigm needed to be revised. By broadcasting recorded rather than live services, producers were able to edit the recordings in order to reduce or remove slack time and make the broadcast more interesting to the listener or viewer. Once it was realized that it was no longer necessary, or perhaps even desirable, to emulate a live worship service, many televangelists began to design their own formats, often based on templates designed for secular programming. For example, religious broadcasting can be seen in the format of a news program, talk show, or musical concert. At various times over the years, media ministries have also included the production of movies with biblical or religious themes, such as the large budget biblical epics of the mid-20th century or the resurgence of movies with a religious message following the success of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004).

Benefits for Churches

Typically, there are two primary impetuses behind the implementation of the media ministry. The first of these is that the use of media in general, and broadcast and digital media specifically, enables churches and other religious organizations to reach a wider audience. Through the use of media, churches and ministries are no longer restricted by geographical constraints but can easily reach large numbers of people across the nation and the world. For evangelicals who believe that their mission is to reach the world for Christ, media can be an invaluable means to this end. The second impetus behind most media ministries is the need to show the relevance of the church or religious organization to the audience. For many evangelicals, this means a particular emphasis on reaching young adults. Because of their postmodern ideas and their generational differences from their parents' culture, attracting youth to a traditional set church service can be a difficult task. However, young people are not only very familiar with technology and media but are often dependent upon it. Therefore, increasingly, the use of broadcast and digital media is essential to meet the expectations of this group.

Social Side Effects

Fame & Recognition

With the exception of denominational leaders and the pastors of mega churches, for the most part clergy and other religious leaders do not have a great following in the grand scheme of things. However, this is not true for the leaders of media ministries. The very nature of media that allows them to reach thousands or even millions of people with their message has the potential to give them the same fame (or notoriety) and name recognition of other well-known leaders in the information age. In addition, the fact that most broadcast services have relatively little live action means that a large percentage of video shots are close-ups of the pastor, priest, or other leader. This is a further boost to their fame and recognition, which can be either a positive or a negative thing. The fame arising from a popular media ministry can open doors for the ministry and its leaders to do good in the world that would otherwise not have been opened. However, that same fame might seduce the leader away from the message of the ministry, as it is sometimes an irresistible temptation to turn one's attention from the mission and onto oneself. This unfortunate end can be seen in the various sexual and financial scandals and the politicizing of the gospel that arise from time to time.

Irrelevance

Another problem arises when media ministries, whether they are merely a branch of a larger, more traditional ministry or the ministry's sole education or outreach tool, focus on the trappings rather than the message. It is always imperative that a media ministry be careful to avoid the slide from relevance into secularization. If too much emphasis is placed on the use of media to the detriment of the message the media are intended to send, the ministry runs the risk of being seen as irrelevant or not being differentiated from other cultural institutions. Because of this, an increasing number of churches are finding that they need greater emphasis on follow-up and traditional discipleship activities in order to maintain their distinctiveness against the culture of the world.

Political Influence

Another interesting social side effect of media ministries is their increasingly observed influence in the political arena. As media congregations grow, the ministry leaders gain a power base through which they can effect change in the world. Often, such change efforts are targeted toward issues of social justice: reducing world hunger, relief for natural disasters, building infrastructures in underdeveloped countries, education, and medical relief for AIDS. In other cases, however, the leaders of media ministries attempt to use this power to leverage political rather than social change, such as influencing elections or even running for high political office themselves. Although an argument can be made that such political action is, indeed, putting one's faith into action, not everyone inside or outside the church agrees, and such activities are less obviously related to the evangelical message. In particular, the leaders of fundamentalist-leaning media ministries often attempt to mobilize the Christian right as a voting bloc to effect change. In the United States, with its emphasis on the separation of church and state, this can become problematic. Issues such as abortion, school prayer, the teaching of evolution, and abstinence-only sex education are frequent targets.

New Fundamentalism

According to Hadden (2001), the contemporary phenomenon of the so-called new Christian right movement is a direct outgrowth of religious broadcasting. The rise of media ministries in general and religious broadcasting in particular promoted the concomitant rise of charismatic leaders, not just of the media ministries but of a growing social movement. For the most part, these leaders and ministries are of fundamentalist-leaning evangelical and Pentecostal traditions that view the United States as having a mission from God and a special place in world history. These ministries typically employ the charismatic techniques and rhetoric of 19th-century revivalism and are applied to spurring a social movement. Far from being backwater and anti-intellectual, however, this movement is complex, diversified, and strong. The growth of media ministries and religious broadcasting and the morphing of religious audiences into power bases for social and political action enabled these evangelical leaders to influence and shape the culture of the United States through political and social action.

Discourse

Questions to Consider

Although some media ministries still follow the template of earlier televangelism ministries, either for traditional evangelism or for the dissemination of more sectarian messages, media ministries today are increasingly used to employ the media and communication techniques used by increasing numbers of people to better reach a wider audience and to be perceived as being relevant in the world today. However, within some religious organizations, there is fear that the use of media will water down the message that they are trying to send and result in secularization of the ministry. Questions to consider when exploring the sociological impacts of media ministries might include:

• Whether the use of media in ministries enhances or detracts from their intended purpose, and what underlying factors determine when this is so.
• In what ways media and technology are best used to enhance a ministry.
• What the characteristics are of people who are likely to be consumers of media ministries, how these individuals can best be reached, and whether they are in fact better reached through media than through traditional ministries.
• Whether or not the availability of media ministries has a positive or negative impact on the traditional church or religious organizational structure, whether such ministries strengthen the belief systems of the individuals who use them, and how such ministries affect the religious community in general and society at large.

Conclusion

By the very nature of the fact that they are designed to reach large audiences, media ministries have the potential to do both great good and great harm. In the end, however, it is the message itself and not the medium that is important. Media ministries have the potential to reach otherwise unreachable audiences, particularly of the unchurched, and to help the church or religious organization demonstrate its continuing relevance to the current generation. Further, the large audiences gathered by media ministries give them a power base that allows them to enact great good and justice in the world. Sometimes, however, this is carried further, turning the power base into a voting bloc to change the political arena. This very political activism, intended to promote the message of the televangelists (if not necessarily the message of the gospel itself), may actually be watering down the religious message the media ministry was originally intended to promote. When this happens, the ministry can begin to slide down the slippery slope of secularization.

Terms & Concepts

Blog: A personal journal that is publicly accessible on the Internet. Blogs include personal thoughts of the author in chronological order, just as in a hard copy journal. The term blog is short for web log.

Congregation: A group of people who meet regularly for religious services.

Denomination: A large group of congregations united under a common statement of faith and organized under a single legal and administrative hierarchy. Most individual congregations include the name of their denomination in the title of their church (e.g., First Baptist Church, St. Luke's Lutheran Church).

Evangelism: The dissemination of the Christian gospel through preaching, missionary work, and personal witness; the Christian process of proselytization in an attempt to win new converts to the religion. From the Greek word euangelion, meaning "good news."

Fundamentalism: A theological movement within a particular religion that attempts to reject the tenets and influences of contemporary secular culture and return to the basics (i.e., the fundamentals) of the faith, typically through the literal interpretation of scripture.

Media: Any means of mass communication, including recording media (tape recordings, video recordings), digital media (CDs, DVDs, mp3 files), print media (newspapers, periodicals), broadcast media (radio, television), and electronic media (websites, e-mail, blogs).

Mega Church: A large church that averages 2,000 or more in attendance at weekly services. Most mega churches are evangelical or Pentecostal in nature and are often independent or semi-independent of major Christian denominations.

Ministry: The profession, duties, and services of a minister or church. Ministry can also be viewed as the activities involved in carrying out the mission of the church (i.e., its calling or purpose).

Podcast: A digital media file that is distributed over the Internet and can be played back on portable media players, personal computers, or smartphones. The term podcast is short for iPod broadcast.

RSS Feed: Short for "really simple syndication," a family of web formats used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blogs, podcasts, and news headlines. RSS feeds enable subscribers to automatically download current content from associated websites.

Secularization: The process of transforming a religion into a philosophy and worldview based primarily on reason and science rather than on faith or supernatural concepts. Through the process of secularization, religious groups and activities lose their religious significance.

Televangelist: An evangelist, typically a Protestant Christian minister, who preaches or otherwise ministers via a broadcast television program. Typically, a televangelist devotes the majority of his or her professional time and activities to the broadcast ministry.

Unchurched: Formally, individuals over the age of 18 who have not attended a Christian church service within the past six months; more generally, individuals who do not regularly attend or participate in church activities, particularly those related to worship or religious education.

Bibliography

Campbell, H. (2010). When religion meets new media. New York: Routledge. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database eBook Collection. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=316464&site=ehost-live

Gutwirth, J. (1999). From the word to the televisual image: The televangelists and Pope John Paul II. Diogenes, 47 , 122-133. Retrieved May 6, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=3697827&site=ehost-live

Hadden, J. K. (1987). Religious broadcasting and the mobilization of the new Christian right. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 26 , 1-24. Retrieved May 6, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=4897503&site=ehost-live.

Hirschkind, C. (2011). Media, mediation, religion. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 19, 90–97. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=57541682&site=ehost-live

Hughey, M. W. (1990). Internal contradictions of televangelism: Ethical quandaries of that old time religion in a brave new world. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 4 , 3147. Retrieved May 6, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=10722718&site=ehost-live

Korpi, M. F. & Kim, K. L. (1986, Dec). The uses and effects of televangelism: A factorial model of support and contribution. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 25 , 410-423. Retrieved May 6, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=4895721&site=ehost-live

Litman, B. R. & Bamn, E. (1989, Jun). The viewership of religious television programming: A multidisciplinary analysis of televangelism. Review of Religious Research, 30 , 329-343. Retrieved May 6, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=11057457&site=ehost-live

Lundby, K. (2011). Patterns of belonging in online/offline interfaces of religion. Information, Communication & Society, 14, 1219–1235. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=67327416&site=ehost-live

Rinnawi, K. (2012). "Instant nationalism" and the "cyber mufti": The Arab diaspora in Europe and the transnational media. Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, 38, 1451–1467. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=78448922&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

De Witte, M. (2003). Altar Media's living word: Televised charismatic Christianity in Ghana. Journal of Religion in Africa, 33 , 172-202. Retrieved May 6, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Complete http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=11135347&site=ehost-live

Diekema, D. A. (1991). Televangelism and the mediated charismatic relationship. Social Science Journal, 28 , 143-162. Retrieved May 6, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=9608296779&site=ehost-live

Hadden, J. K. & Frankl, R. (1987). Star wars of a different kind: Reflections on the politics of the religion and television research project. Review of Religious Research, 29 , 101-110. Retrieved May 6, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=11062578&site=ehost-live

Swanson, D. J. (2012). The beginning of the end of Robert H. Schuller's Crystal Cathedral Ministry: A towering failure in crisis management as reflected through media narratives of financial crisis, family conflict, and follower dissent. Social Science Journal, 49, 485–493. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=84154876&site=ehost-live