© Mark W. Pettigrew
If you've read some of the articles in this blog, you know that the Artistic Rescue Project exists partly out of my desire to raise funds for existing reputable organizations and charities .
Such organizations do a lot of good in the world. But there is also a need, it seems to me, for people to have a means of directly communicating their needs with people (and especially with Christians) who might be willing and able to help to meet those needs.
Relying solely on big organizations and big projects is a pretty easy way to insure that some people will always fall through the cracks. One size rarely if ever fits all.
Therefore, I have long had a dream of creating a classified ad publication specifically for the purpose of enabling Christians to directly communicate their needs, projects, ideas and more with other Christians.
The concept itself, in its most basic form, has been rattling around in my brain for 20 years, or even longer. But the vision has undergone significant modifications over the years, thanks in large part to improvements in technology.
The option of publishing documents in the form of downloadable PDF files and eBook files did not yet exist. In the early years, I could not see how I could create my publication without getting substantial funding for printing and distribution purposes. It would have been extraordinarily expensive to print physical copies and distribute them via all of the churches in any given region. Worldwide distribution wasn't even conceivable to me.
But the Internet changed the paradigm. These days, worldwide distribution should be no more difficult or expensive than distribution to a church located right down the block.
Tonight, I just registered two new domain names, specifically ChapelNetwork.com and ChapelNetwork.info. I intend to use those web addresses in order to take people to web pages, or a dedicated web site, where they will be able to download the Chapel Network News in the form of PDF documents. I hope that Chapel Network News will develop into such a popular resource for various believers that new editions will be issued frequently, possibly even in regional editions which focus on different areas of the nation. But the nice thing about PDF publications is that they can be revised as often, or as seldom, as circumstances and needs require.
Hmmm. It occurs to me that I may need to call my project Chapel Network News International (CNNI), in order to distinguish between my project and CNN (Cable Network News). Or maybe I'll just use the web address, ChapelNetwork.com, as the name of the company itself.
In any event, inasmuch as I am currently attending Hillcrest Chapel (an Assemblies of God church in Bellingham, WA), I have decided to call the publication Chapel Network News.
However, I've left off the word "Hillcrest", partially because I don't want to expose myself to legal liability (since this project is not an official project of Hillcrest Chapel (although I am hoping that Hillcrest Chapel will both endorse and use this classified ads publication), but also because I don't want to limit the applicability of this project to my own church. I really see it as being applicable to the needs of all Christian churches and their members. I want people to see Chapel Network News as a transdenominational means of communicating with other Christians in town, or in the region, or even clear across the world.
Even if most individual churches offered the means of easily communicating with individual Christians within those congregations (and it's a demonstrable fact that many of them do not do so), the fact would remain that it is often needlessly difficult to publicize various needs and projects in an efficient manner which reaches really large numbers of believers, without regard for geographical barriers or denominational barriers.
I figure that Chapel Network News is a perfect match with the Artistic Rescue Project. In addition to offering a means of publicizing a wide variety of Christ-centered opportunities to meet the needs of others, the Chapel Network News will also enable me to more effectively publicize the Artistic Rescue Project and various other related projects and needs.
Conversely, sales made in connection with the Artistic Rescue will help to raise funds for my basic living expenses, and that will somewhat reduce the need to monetize Chapel Network News in other ways.
Eventually, I'll have separate websites and subsites focusing on each project, but in the short term, the two are so closely related that I'm going to use this blog site in order to furnish information pertaining to both projects.
Stay tuned.
