We have been communicating about our Wycliffe ministry for almost two decades, and during that time we have tried to communicate well in both content and form. Our first newsletter was very plain, with a small picture and lots of text:

By our next newsletter, we had a title, header, tagline, the Wycliffe logo, and those cool marble bars that came standard with Publisher:

Later on, we went minimalist, removing some of the busyness to focus more on verbal and pictorial content, with more white space:

Even later, we used pictures as header backgrounds, allowing more visual appeal, but also another place to put a picture, without crowding the rest of the newsletter:

In all these reworkings of our newsletter, one thing we had not really re-evaluated is the quarterly two page production itself. Since we joined Wycliffe 17 years ago, we have seen blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other media platforms come (and go). Today our friends and family are more connected by social media than by Email. Similarly, people are more connected by phone than by computer.

Given these changes, it seems that we’ve been writing too much and too little. A two page newsletter is longer than most people seem to read in a single sitting. At the same time, hearing from us each quarter means that an eternity (in social networking time) passes between each newsletter. So, with your permission, we are going to try putting out shorter updates more often.  Don’t worry, those of you who fear missing out on my wordiness will find links to longer articles (like this one) here on our blog. 🙂

I say “with your permission” in all seriousness, because we want to help you be a real part of our work. The last thing we want is to spam anyone, or stuff your inbox with more mail than you asked for. This is one of the reasons we now use Mailchimp, because they don’t allow spam, and because they have a simple unsubscribe function in each footer. But we would love to hear from you if you have any questions or concerns about this change —or about just about anything else. :-)

Our Email address is on each of our Emailed newsletters; if you don’t have one handy, you can also send us a message through our Wycliffe ministry page, through the “Finances/Write Us” link above right (or below on mobile devices), which goes here.

We welcome your feedback! Tell us what you think, and we’ll see what we can do.
Our goal, after all, is to communicate well.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always
in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy,
because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
—Philippians 1:3-5 (ESV)