‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity,’ said P.T. Barnum. Someone added: ‘Except your own obituary.’ Tongue-in-cheek that comment may have been but the point is one that must weigh with Christians who are itching to see the Gospel faith making its mark amidst all the wizardry that pushes insurance, tooth-paste and spectacles with wit, dachshunds or heavy repetition as weapons in its armoury.
My sketchy acquaintance with Christian efforts in this field and in the next-door field of free speech over the years has taught me that a softly softly approach is not necessarily the best way of going about things. I call to mind the spectacular website of St Mary’s, Reigate, a flourishing parish church with 500 people in church on a Sunday morning. It is a knock-out that confronts the visitor and says: ‘How about that?’
And, of course, there are remnants of the vast enterprise that was the parish magazine. At one time it was a staple of church life, with serials, household hints, well-intentioned pieces by the vicar and a circulation that gave it and its fellows a national reputation. Noticeable examples of this genre, often greatly helped by Anne Coomes’s Parish Pump output, are to be found today. In the youthful parish of Dibden Purlieu over the water from Southampton is a go-getting 50p monthly ‘News Extra’. Another bustling parish, Knowle, publishes a stylish magazine at £1 per issue while the developing rural parish of St George’s, Pontesbury, Shropshire has a hard-working editor putting together 50 pages with the ease of somebody who has spent a life-time in journalism.
Happy is the parish that has a good website builder. Happy, too, is the parish that, like Terrington St Clement or Walpole St Peter, has a majestic parish church and can lay on a mammoth flower festival that draws people from all over merry England. Happy, again, is the parish that has a hard-earned reputation for caring for those hard-hit by the lockdown. There are more ways to kill a cat than by choking it with cream, as Northcliffe discovered when he brought about a newspaper revolution.
The present emergency has opened the digital door. There is a whole new territory that awaits our exploration. We do well to nurture an appetite for publicity, whether or not it includes our obituary.
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