Today, the Arkansas Baptist News is launching the first edition of a new eMagazine. The ABN eMagazine will be published bi-weekly through email to its subscribers for free. This email publication will compile feature stories from around Arkansas, giving deeper insight into the people and churches that make up Arkansas Baptists. While the ABN website and social media platforms will be active on a daily basis, this new magazine will allow us to share deeper stories and insights into Arkansas Baptist life.
The ABN eMagazine will present several categories of feature stories on people and ministries from around the state. There will be in-depth looks into all types of ministries that are having a unique Gospel impact. Other stories will profile Arkansas Baptists from the ranks of both ABSC pastors and lay people from ABSC churches. The feature style and format of the ABN eMagazine creates a platform which lends itself to exploring these stories.
The motto of the ABN is to “inform, inspire, involve.” Arkansas Baptists are incredible people doing incredible things. Arkansas Baptists will be inspired the more they are informed about these people and their ministries. You will be inspired in this issue with insight into the servant hearts of men like KAIT Chief Meteorologist Ryan Vaughan and ABSC Disaster Relief volunteer Jay Paul Woods and their different ways of serving during and after the tornado in Jonesboro.
In addition, ABN eMagazine will also provide information from the agencies and institutions of the ABSC. There is a sense of partnership and family among these entities unparalleled at any time in ABSC life. These ministries are each a key element of the strategy for joining Arkansas Baptists together to reach our state with the Gospel, and we are working on new ways to share how God is working through these vital ministries. Each edition will have stories as well as columns from agency and institution leaders. For example, this edition highlights ministry efforts by Bobby Thomas of the Arkansas Baptist Foundation, Derek Brown of the Arkansas Baptist Children’s Homes and Family Ministries, and Jason Wilkie from Camp Siloam during the coronavirus pandemic.
Information about the ABSC Executive Board ministries and columns from ABSC leaders will be included in every issue as well. Our experiences during the coronavirus epidemic, natural disasters such as the Jonesboro and Harrisburg tornadoes, and straight-line winds damaging much of South Arkansas have reaffirmed the importance of providing timely information as a ministry. Arkansas Baptists need to know how to pray, give, and serve. When they are informed, they get involved! Even though our churches are not gathering physically together, Arkansas Baptists are inspired when we see our family engaged in myriads of ways serving our communities and showing the hands and feet of Jesus through ministry.
In between issues of the ABN eMagazine, the ABN website is active every day telling fresh stories from Arkansas Baptist life and aggregating content from around the Southern Baptist Convention. The ABN eMagazine will highlight content you might have missed from the previous weeks. Please join us at arkansasbaptist.org to follow the news as it occurs. We are also active on Twitter and Facebook, highlighting breaking information and links to key stories. Please engage with us, hit “like,” and retweet what you read. Forward stories and information to other Arkansas Baptists so they too can be informed, inspired, and involved.