The Church's Use Of Community Television In Community Development Aspects of Its Ministry
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O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice and Israel will be glad. (Psalm 53:6)
What a marvelous word-picture of God pouring life out through his temple in Jerusalem, by means of his gathered worshiping people as they journey back to their distant homes...out into the rural areas of the north countryside devastated by years of corruption, civil war, foreign invasion, and exile.
God's involvement in the development of a healthy world community by means of the people who consider the quality of his life and being worthy of worth-ship, has been a dynamic force in world affairs long before this 2500 year old poem was written, and certainly since that time. How much room he has had in our hearts and lives to live and move and have his being has varied far more. The question always before us is, will the cry of the psalmist, or those of like longing, go unfulfilled because we are just far too busy with other "more important things"?
My own vision of ministry resonates with that of the Psalmist, in that I feel, like him/her, that God does want to pour his life through his people into the world so that communities might develop in the deepest sense of the word.
It is because of my past occupational involvement in the three areas of community television, ministry and community development, that I chose to update my understanding of community television as it functions in Brandon today, as part of my Masters of Rural Development Program. Specifically, I wanted to find out answers to the following questions:
- Given my current level of understanding of Brandon as a context for ministry, what, if any role might community television play in facilitating a Pastor's ministry in this town?
- What, if any, sociological and technological changes have taken place in the industry over the past twenty years which might affect the manner in which local churches and the Cable Company interface?
- If the church is to make use of this community resource, how might it best go about doing so?
- Is the CRTC's mandated "entitlement" of access to community television production by member groups in a community worth preserving? If so, what role should the churches in Westman play in the "entitlement" discourse?
Most of what follows is a response to the first of the four questions, for I most certainly do believe that community television has a role to play in facilitating a Pastor's ministry in Brandon today. I outline five areas of ministry which can be augmented by a community television centered initiative in a local congregation or conducted by several congregations working together.
These five areas are presented in order of the level of organizational complexity required in order to make full use of the medium in that area of ministry. Each module is a stand-alone item, or may be used in any order, but I felt that sequencing them would at least give some initial idea of the level of organizational difficulty involved. It is, after all, a lot easier to prop a camera in front of a pulpit than to set up a long-term mentoring program with community television production as a context.
The five tasks of ministry are linked to a profile of the Brandon context within which people are living, in order to anchor each presentation in the concrete realities of life here. In order to do this, this sub-section of the site may be visualized as two parallel columns - one being this list of five areas of ministry which can be augmented by community television, and the second a twelve item profile of Brandon. These two parallel columns are cross-linked with each other, but may each be read separately. The Brandon profile is kept separate in order to enable the items on it to be multiply referenced, as well as to facilitate its improvement over time.
The issues of technological change and sociological change have been handled separately, but the implications of changes in those two areas have been taken into account in the five ministry modules relating to question number one. In brief, the technological changes in community television, although significant, have not adversely affected a churches' involvement in production. If anything, they have made such involvement easier over the twenty-year period.
The sociological changes which have affected a church's involvement in community television are also substantial, and, although they have resulted in considerable change in the amount and type of support available from the Cable Company for church-based programming, I believe that the changes are warranted under the circumstances. They simply place responsibility for programming initiatives squarely on the shoulders of the participating group, which is where I believe they should be anyway. If community development initiatives are to be undertaken, they will arise from the interests of the church or community group, rather than from the Cable Company as such. The Cable Company has had to cut back to providing technical and training support.
The answer to question three, as to how the church might best go about making use of community television resources is developed in the course of the five modules, and varies with the complexity of the initiative undertaken.
The five areas of ministry which I believe can be augmented by community television are:
In each case, an aspect of ministry is considered in light of how community television can augment that area of the work. Changes in communication have in large part been responsible for many of the changes in our community life on the prairies and around the world. What is being considered here is, how those same forces can be harnessed in order to address some of the changes wrought. Of course, changes in other areas of life, such as transportation and education have had their effects on our society as well, but it is communication which is being addressed here.
It will be apparent after reading the five modules that in my opinion the CRTC mandated entitlement to community television is an entitlement worth retaining. I further believe that papers such as this one will not go as far in retaining this entitlement as the actual use of community television by the churches in our community. As the old saying goes, "use it or loose it". However, even well functioning and well-utilized community television can be brought to a halt, as happened in Winnipeg when the Cable Companies were bought out and the community programming changed to a C-PAC type operation at best. I believe that the initial vision of a Co-op ownership structure which we, as a region, thought was the best option for retaining a say in changes to the communication structure in our community through this era of rapid change was a good one. We do have a voice, and if community television is seen to be of value to the churches in the city, then they must also be alert to the task of making that known when such issues are reviewed by the company from time to time.
Historically, the church has been one of the first institutions to be formed in our prairie settlements, and it is often now one of the last to close. As institutions, we have a place in the hearts and lives of these communities, which are under great strain in this era of social restructuring. I believe that many today, echo the longing sigh of Psalmist quoted above, "O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion! When God restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice and Israel will be glad." Perhaps our use of community television can augment our work in that direction.