How the interconnected age is redefining “local”
I work at home by myself. Sometimes I turn on the TV for company.
I was half listening to dramas — most of which I’d seen before. At noon, the news came on. I first noticed that I didn’t recognize any of the neighborhoods mentioned. Where were these terrible things happening?
The “local” news was coming from Chicago. I live in Philadelphia.
In recent weeks, I noticed that the anchor team is now making a point of welcoming viewers from all over the United States. They are still telling Chicago’s story. It’s refreshing to hear about someone else’s crime and corruption, peppered with an occasional disaster and good deeds.
I suspect Chicago’s journalistic venture is somewhat experimental. I’ve noticed little competition. No local broadcasts from Phoenix or San Francisco. There are some news broadcasts from Britain and Asia, etc., but they tend to be national ventures, not local.
Some questions:
- If local TV stations are starting to realize that their audience is national, if not global, what does that mean for our local neighborhood churches? The same ability to reach broad audiences is available to everyone at negligible cost.
- How will having a wider audience shape the total broadcasting content of the Chicago station? How will having a worldwide audience shape local ministry?
- Can the local church compete with the 700 Club? Is it a competition? Or a joint venture?
2×2 is the project of a small, urban, neighborhood church, Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls, Philadelphia. We broadcast the Good News all over the world. We are using modern tools to tell the old, old story. We don’t have all the answers. We are largely ignored by our denomination and larger churches—but we are growing. We are finding that having readers all over the world, shapes our local ministry.
It will be interesting to watch how the Chicago news station adapts their message as their viewership grows.
It is always interesting to see where our ministry is going!
Chart below shows our monthly growth since October 2011. We should surpass the 7500 mark this month.
