The Wesley Report Vision (and How You Can Help)

Wesley Report is still very new. I've been getting recent e-mail messages from people who remember me from Wesley Blog, but had no idea I was writing again and happened to stumble upon the new site. After premiering with little fanfare and no publicity budget, Wesley Report is up to several thousand hits a week, not where Wesley Blog was when I shut it down in 2006, but at the rate things are going, it won't be long before it is. In this article I'm going to share with you some goals... some visioning... some dreams... even some brainstorming for this site (and for the small company I've set up to publish it.) I'm also going to share how I need for you, my readers to help.

I've been devoting 8+ hours a day to setting up this site, laying groundwork for things to come, contacting people, researching, writing, and promoting. Wesley Report is only a few weeks old, and you may have noticed some differences between this site and Wesley Blog. WR is published in a magazine format with compiled news and blog headlines on the front page. These links are not chosen by a computer, and do not post from an automatic consolidation feed. I manually track hundreds of blogs and news sources daily and I choose what I think are the best, most cutting edge, well written pieces to feature on the front page, and I update it several times each day. I frequently post links to people with whom I disagree on various issues. When choosing links for the front page of Wesley Report, quality and tone of writing are my primary considerations; ideology and theology are secondary. Some writers are so good, almost everything they write ends up on the front page (except for their shopping lists and tweets about being stuck in traffic, of course.) I'm very partial to bridge-builders and writers who don't demonize people who have opposing viewpoints. Even though I haven't always lived up to this in the past myself (I'm working on it), I prefer writing that avoids pejorative terms. I'm not saying tough issues aren't fair game and that we can't take stands on them, I just want to do it in a decent, respectful way. So that's where I'm going with WR. Much of my own writing is topical, with one main subject per article. At any moment I'm juggling a combination of Bible study, investigative, analytical and theological pieces. I've also been posting quips, quotes and short passages from early Methodists, like John Wesley and John William Fletcher. I want to continue that, as well as think of some new, creative ways to expose this generation to the thoughts and theology of these great Christians from the past.

Here are some of the hopes I have for Wesley Report and Faith Experience Media:

1. I want Faith Experience Media to become a digital publishing and media company that will complement (and supplement) existing United Methodist media outlets (official and unofficial), not try to compete with them or "reinvent the wheel". I want to be supportive of other outlets whenever possible.
2. I want to help develop new and fresh writing talent by promoting and featuring United Methodist and other Wesleyan writers from around the world.
3. I want to get "pew Methodists" into the mix. There are 11 million United Methodists worldwide and many more Methodists of other denominations. I'm convinced that most of them are rarely exposed to any current forms of church media. Most media now seems to cater more to clergy and the most active church members. I want to change that. With a combination of accessibility and a practical approach, I hope to pull it off.
4. I want to be a positive voice for Methodism in the Christian community at large. Most of our media within United Methodism is inwardly focused. I want to engage writers and thinkers from other traditions with Wesleyan/Arminian thought. That means every project or site I publish may not be explicitly United Methodist. But the UMC is at a perfectly positioned crossroads of mainline, evangelical, liturgical and free-form and I think we need to take full advantage of that.
5. I want to seriously take up the cause of helping the poor and ending poverty. Organizations like ONE, UMCOR, and World Vision will be actively promoted at WR and other sites that may be created by FE Media in the future.
6. I'm dreaming of growing a company that is a business and a ministry. I want to eventually set up other specialty web sites and maybe even hire staff writers (or independent writers on a pay per article basis). I have this environmentally friendly vision of a company made up of people who work from home offices... no office space rent and no gas guzzling commutes. :-) But that's a dream and it's still down the road. How far, I don't know.

I can't do this alone, so I've come up with a list of ways you can help.

• Make a contribution. Eventually I want this venture to be funded by a combination of advertising and selling/licensing premium content. It's not there yet, and it won't be until our reader/subscriber base grows to a certain level. I've used savings to fund things so far, but as traffic grows, expenses will rise and my time commitment will increase. Working in a home office saves a lot of money, but I still have expenses. Faith Experience Media isn't a 501 (c)3, so you can't deduct a contribution on your income tax return, but rest assured that money you provide will help cover my basic expenses, help me promote content to a wider range of readers, and hopefully grow Faith Experience Media into a potent force for expanding God's kingdom. You can contribute securely here using PayPal or any major credit or debit card. Contributions of any size are appreciated.
• Advertise. If you're a Christian publisher, or you belong to some other organization that might benefit by advertising to our growing reader/subscriber base please contact me about advertising on Wesley Report. Rates are very low right now, and if you'll commit to a month or longer, I'll even help with ad design. Currently I use an outside agency to sell ads, but eventually I want to do more of this in-house. If there's a Christian publisher or other company out there that wants to lock in a skyscraper ad in the top right sidebar (where the text ad-strip is now) for six months or longer, I can offer a contract with a set rate (regardless of how much WR traffic grows during that time period), a weekly ad change and free ad design, plus first shot at renewal with a negotiated rate at the end of the contract (based on reader levels at that time). E-mail me if you're interested. 
• Help me promote Wesley Report. Place WR Headlines in the sidebar of your church web site or blog. If you read an article you like, click the Share This link at the bottom of the article (this link isn't available in the feed so you have to actually visit the site) and you can e-mail it to people you know who may want to read it. You can also help by just providing a prominent text link to Wesley Report on your blog or chuch web site. I can provide a display ad for church newsletters if you're willing to donate a little block of space. Just e-mail me with specs and I'll get it to you.
• Pray. We all know this is the most important thing, so I shouldn't have placed it so far down the list. Pray for me, other writers and bloggers, contributors and readers. And pray that God will provide finances to grow this into a viable worldwide ministry.

I've disabled comments for this post because on the issues I've covered here, at least for now, I want any interaction to be directly with me. So if you have any thoughts or suggestions, e-mail me. If you feel like God is pulling you into the vision I've laid out, or maybe even given you another piece of the puzzle, I definitely want to hear from you!