I’ve recently written here about how Christians, and pastors in particular, and evangelical pastors in particular particular, complain about how the media treat them and their faith and then sabotage reporters’ attempts to set the record straight by not talking to reporters when the reporters actually call!
After this article was published, I heard immediately from several experienced Christian communication professionals who echoed my concerns. One of them testified that in his long experience in a different medium (radio), Christians would moan about how the media were biased, ignorant, etc., etc., and yet he found it almost impossible to get evangelical pastors to come on his show. And these pastors are the “professional talkers” of their churches–and who are supposed to equip the saints for conversing with their neighbours about the gospel!
What’s to be done? Well, for one thing, my colleagues and I at Regent College need to think about offering some media training to our students, and perhaps also to area pastors. Do you know of any seminary or graduate school that does offer such training and offers it well?
Someone is going to tell our story in the media: Why shouldn’t we want it to be us?
