Kingdom Journalism

Introduction

The purpose of the Kingdom Journalism blog is to challenge and encourage Christian mission communicators around the world as they "describe God's mighty works" (Acts 2:11). Want to know more about "Kingdom Journalism"? Read this.

Wanna Give a Report? Or Tell a Story?

Posted by Steve K. on May 16th, 2008 filed in Writing, Presentations
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Abraham Piper, the Web Content Editor for Desiring God Ministries, has a brilliant little blog, and by “little” I mean, literally—every post is 22 words in length or shorter. (OK sometimes he fudges and posts a list of 22 things, but those are rare.) One of his recent posts asked the question, “What is the difference between giving a report and telling a story?” His answer:

Reports comprise indiscriminate detail without any purposeful meaning.

Whereas stories are select details that intentionally influence how you respond.

He then shared this cartoon—from one of my favorite online comics “Garfield Minus Garfield”—as an example of a report …

I wanted to pass this along here with a reminder: Next time you’re asked by a church or small group to give a report on your ministry work, remember ol’ Jon Arbuckle tying his shoes and standing up … and choose to tell a compelling story instead!

America.gov - “Telling America’s Story”?

I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but apparently America (i.e., the United States of America) now has its own website, and the tagline is "Telling America's Story." Well, I have no comment on that, but one of the resources that this site points to is a publication ...

God Wants I.T. Missionaries

YWAM's Create International ministry has posted (on CalCast - the Gospel Gadget Podcast) a video message from YWAM founder Loren Cunningham on the subject of "IT Missionaries and the Internet." Cunningham shares "how he believes that God is raising up a new type of 'I.T.' missionary that will use the ...

Be Aware, Be Very Aware!

Apparently today, May 1, is "RSS Awareness Day." Since I was just speaking yesterday to a group of SIM leaders about communication and mission (and urging them all to get an RSS reader), this seems like a particularly appropriate time to re-link the "RSS in Plain English" video and to ...

Be The Message

For a while now, I've been promising a blog series on Shane Hipps' book The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. I feel the time for that is drawing nearer and nearer ... (Does that sound non-commital enough for you?) Anyway, Shane was in New York this week speaking at the ...

The Rule of Thirds

Here's a nifty illustration to explain the photography/videography "rule of thirds," which "gives you eight elements to work with — four lines and four intersections. Placing points of interest along the lines or at the intersections tends to create a more interesting composition": (HT: Kung Fu Grippe via The Life of ...

Online Video Is Just Expected Nowadays

I've been saying essentially this same thing about online video, but it's always encouraging to hear someone else say it so I now have someone reputable to quote: “We’re talking about a generation that doesn’t just like seeing the video in addition to the story—they expect it. And they’ll find it ...

Ready to Step Things Up?

"The [technological] advances have been so breathtaking and the platforms of distribution that are available to us today far exceed the wildest imagination of any Christian broadcaster from a generation ago. The challenge, of course, is that since consumers of electronic media can get their content so many different ways, ...