Birth pangs and new incarnations

Advent is a communicator’s favorite season.  All those messengers with good news, that is, angels all around.  (That’s what angel means, literally, messenger.)  And this Christmas miracle: the word becomes flesh.  A writer’s hope-will my words take on flesh?

My pastor Dan Paul, of First Christian Church Disciples of Christ, Pacific Grove, has been preaching recently about birth pangs.  All those apocalyptic texts about end times; he reminded us that they are really about beginning times.  Those birth pangs signal something new.  (Love that word "pang!"  My old Webster’s Second says it’s derived from medieval words for pain, press, or pinch.  Webster defines pang as "a paroxysm of extreme pain or anguish, a sudden and transitory feeling or emotion, a keen, intense and piecing pain."

That could define the challenges of moving the Pacific from a printed and mailed edition to an on line edition.  Oh the pangs!

Bear with us, please, as we, like many organizations, move into a new incarnation of communicating, a new incarnation of the fleshy word.

We’ll be sending these simple Pacifics by email, monthly for the near future, to our largest list, over 1000 NCNC folks.  (Just contact <office@ncncucc.org> to add other addresses of church members.)

We’re asking church secretaries or others to print out this email and mail it to church folks who prefer paper incarnations.  And we are beginning to consult with experts about our whole communications ministry: website, mailings, reports, public relations, evangelism.  It’s a time of pregnant pondering…stay tuned for those birth pangs!

The Pacific has been through previous rebirths.  In 1985, when the Pacific first appeared as a wraparound to the national UC News, then Conference Minister David Jamieson wrote "Welcome to a new incarnation of an old friend."  Ten years later, in 1995, when David was named Conference Minister Emeritus at Annual Meeting at Asilomar, I had that phrase printed on a T-shirt we presented him, since he was now retired into a new incarnation, but was still an old friend. 

And here we go again - this Constant Contact incarnation of our 108 year old friend. 

Blessed Advent!