﻿The Editorial and Art/Graphics Department produces the Church's flagship magazine,
The Real Truth. This involves frequent postings of news items and articles on
rcg.org and social media, as well as a bimonthly print edition.
This unique outlet reports and analyzes the news from God's perspective. It restores plain
understanding of the "why" behind the bad effects reflected in today’s headlines—and
points to the good news of the only possible solution, now just over the horizon.
Interested readers are encouraged to visit rcg.org to learn more by accessing free literature.
The Church also publishes two other magazines: the Pillar, a Christian
living resource for members—and Ambassador Youth, which teaches young people the right way to live.
One of the most important things on my mind as a news outlet and managing that news outlet is
staying relevant. We have many audiences out there. We have our internal audience, which is
the church. We call it our captive audience. Those are people who like us, and they want to know
what we have to say, but we also have a greater audience, which is the public. And we have to
make sure as a department that we are serving both of those audiences. And a lot of that is a matter
of remaining relevant, making sure people want exactly the things that we're trying to give them.
The sad part is that so many outlets out there are doing it at the expense of actually reporting the
news. It's focusing on entertainment, titillating people, and they do that at the expense of
actually reporting the facts, actually getting the things out there that really matter. Well,
we have a freedom in that regard because we don't raise money through advertising. The way
we're funded is through the tithes and offerings and generosity of the brethren. So we're not
shackled in that way. We don't have to be beholden to any advertiser. We're able to report the facts
and to focus on the news and ultimately explain all of the news through a biblical lens.
This analysis side of things really gets me going because it's what we do best and it's what we do
uniquely. Our analysis is based on the mind of God. No other news outlet can bring that in the
same way that we do. It's really what makes us unique. They have huge staffs, huge resources,
things that we frankly don't have. But what we have that they don't have is we
have God's mind. We have that analysis and we make sure that, that continues to be our focus.
Everything that we do really comes down to content and how do we bring those words,
how do we bring those pictures to our particular audience? It comes down to finding or identifying
the right stories and taking the stories that most effectively help us as an organization communicate
our purpose. That things will not always be bad, that they will eventually be good
and ultimately get them to the church's website, where they can find literature,
articles to help explain the why or the how behind whatever drew their attention in the first place.
Creative artwork and graphic design are key for capturing and holding
the interest of readers of The Real Truth. Art/Graphics personnel constantly hone their
skills to produce high-quality imagery. A very important concept for a Christian
is understanding that we are in the world, but we're not of the world.
So that implies a certain balance that we have to make sure that we maintain. The goal is to grab
a person's attention, we want to do it to a good end. So how do we make sure that we stand out and
a big part of it is our graphic design and working with our artists. The graphic design element has
expanded greatly. In fact, I get very excited talking about this part of what we do, because
it's fun. Who doesn't like pictures? Everyone likes pictures, everyone likes illustrations. One
of the most important things we do is identifying the pictures that will bring the attention that
we want. It could be something that's drawn. It could also be a mix where you select elements of
a photograph or elements of another illustration and then we put our own ideas on top of that.
But the goal is to make sure that image enhances the story, grabs the attention,
getting them to, "You know, what that picture looks interesting. I want to read that story."
That's one very important skill that we focus on in the department.
For so many years, we've tried to be, I'll use the word cautious in how we present ourselves
to the public and one of the approaches that we've taken is we would be very what I'll call moderate
when it comes to our design. A great example of something that we do now that we may not have
done before is the September, October Real Truth issue cover that was all red. An all red cover
from the Real Truth. If you go to the website, you'll see how much we've grown. The next time
you're reading a magazine, slow down, look at the fonts, look at how they interact with each other.
Look at their size. All of those things come together to communicate a certain message
and we've been able to improve in that way, by focusing on those things and making sure all
of those things sing together. And for us, it's edgy, but it's been working.
To learn more about the congregations of the Restored Church of God, contact us.