It is the task of the church to communicate Christ. From the earliest days of the church, the gospel was spread by missionaries and travellers, hymns and sermons, creeds and confessions, parchment scrolls, codices and books. Gutenberg's Bible was the first printed book. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus says, "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven" (Mt 5.16), while Paul, arguing against glossolalic excess, says "If in a tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is being said? For you will be speaking into the air" (1 Cor 14.9). Communicating Christ is not a new task, even though in every generation it needs to be done in new ways.
Communication is essential to the Alliance. We cannot be a Reformed family if we do not speak to each other. We cannot fulfil the purposes set down in our constitution or the aims stated in our leaflet if we do not communicate. Our member churches - more than 200 of them - cannot strengthen the fellowship into which we call them if they do not share with each other their insights, their fears and doubts, their hopes and dreams. Our search for Reformed mission in unity, our struggle to break the chains of human injustice, are inspired and sustained by communicating what is being said and done across the boundaries which have historically separated and sometimes divided us from each other. Communication needs to run through everything we do, from start to finish.
Communication in this sense is a large and varied enterprise. It may take the form of action (which "speaks louder than words"), or worship (and not just preaching, for we also "communicate" when we share bread and wine at the Lord's table), or fostering relationships between people. Within that larger understanding, however, there is a more specific sense of communication in the Alliance: publicity and publications. The focus of this policy statement is communication in its more particular meaning; but in focusing more narrowly we should not forget the wider context.
The purpose of the communications committee is to create greater awareness and understanding of the life and work of the Alliance, and a greater sense of communion among member churches, through publications and publicity, both printed and electronic. To fulfil this purpose, it calls upon the services of a communications office.

Principles and practice

The aims and objectives of Alliance communications policy are:
1. To present a credible image of the Alliance worldwide;
2. To inform member churches and others of the activities of the Alliance and its member churches;
3. To generate solidarity among member churches;
4. To provide an "archival memory" for the Alliance.
If communication needs to run through everything we do, it needs to be thought through everything we do, from start to finish. This has practical implications.
1. Communications staff must be involved from the outset in the planning and implementation of the work of the Alliance office, to ensure that communication is an integral element in the programming (and budgeting) of the work.
2. The whole executive staff, under the leadership of the general secretary, should regularly review the publicity and publications aspects of the Alliance communications work as a whole; and, in particular, should periodically evaluate whether there is a proper balance between publicity and publications, printed and electronic communication, and the competing communications demands of different departments and programmes.
3. The communications committee should annually review the work of the Alliance from a communications perspective and report to the executive committee.

Publicity

Update is our principal instrument of publicity in print. Update should be a kind of "family portrait" of the Alliance, focusing on WARC and its constituency, covering the whole range of WARC activities and allowing the general secretary to speak directly and regularly to the member churches.
Press releases and press conferences offer an opportunity to publicize significant moments in the life and work of the Alliance as they happen. Press conferences should be called whenever appropriate and press releases should be regularly distributed by all the electronic means of communication at our disposal.
Ecumenical News International (ENI) is an ecumenical news service jointly sponsored by the Alliance and other partners. Full use should be made of the opportunities ENI offers to communicate the work of the Alliance to a wide audience within our churches and beyond them.
Publicity also means producing leaflets, brochures and other materials to publicize the work of the Alliance in its different aspects and to help in fund-raising. The communications office may produce such materials itself and may also be asked to assist other parts of the Alliance in producing them.

A communications network

A network of communicators in our member churches can play a vital role in communicating the Alliance to and within these churches and in reaching parts of our constituency that the Alliance by itself cannot reach. Working with these communicators to develop this network is a key task for our communications staff.

A level electronic playing field

The growing importance of electronic means of communication in the work of the Alliance creates a new division in our membership: between those who do and those who do not have access to these technologies. In the interests of equality and efficient communication, those member churches that do not have email, fax and web facilities should be helped, where necessary, to acquire them.

Publications

Reformed World is our flagship publication, with an unbroken history that goes back to 1886. It is the publication of choice for reporting on work in progress in the Alliance.
The series of Studies from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches is complementary to Reformed World. It is the place to publish the results of completed dialogues, programmes or other pieces of work.
Themes for Reformed World and candidates for inclusion in the Studies series should be decided by the general secretary together with the executive staff at their regular monthly meetings. Editorial policy in relation to both should be regularly reviewed by the communications committee at the meetings of the executive committee.

WARC and the web

The WARC website will continue to be developed, both in English and in other language versions; and this work will be done in collaboration with suitable partners. The website will be informative and interactive and linked with member church and other websites and provide a forum for chat, especially for our youth constituency.

Priorities for the communications office

The Alliance will seek a balance and proportion in its communications work, so that news and information and publicity are given the same careful attention that we have afforded to our publications.
This means establishing clear priorities for the work of the office. Work that can more easily be outsourced should be, allowing the office to concentrate on those functions that it alone can do. Cooperation with new and existing partners in the fields of publications, web work, etc., should disburden the office of tasks that can be shared with others.
Chief among the priorities of the communications office are:
1. Publicity and news work;
2. Development of the communications network.