Click here for past issues of the Baptist Communicators newsletter. 

BCA E-Newsletter 
April 18, 2000

Welcome to the newest BCA E-Letter!

It's the end of the world as we know it… and we'd better keep up with the changes if we want to remain a viable religious voice in the next century. At least, that's the consensus of religious communicators across the faith spectrum who gathered for RCC in Chicago a few weeks ago.

We're in the e-World now - a postmodern whirlwind of shifting sands and instability. It's a duck-and-dodge time, where our ability to communicate quickly and effectively will be put to the test.

Who would have thought that as Baptist Communicators we'd be riding the curve with our electronic newsletter? 

In this issue, we finish up the list of helpful websites, take a "listen" back at some highlights of RCC, and meet the new BCA officers. (Well, that and the usual fun stuff like Tech Tips and Grapevine.) As an added bonus, check out these two articles by BCA President Mark Wingfield that recap two special RCC events: the trip to Willow Creek and the address by Martin Marty. 

http://www.baptiststandard.com/standard/pages/willowcreek.html

http://www.baptiststandard.com/standard/pages/whining.html

Also, don't forget to send your Tech Tips suggestions and your Word Games responses to staylor@namb.net.

So, dig in and enjoy the new BCA E-Letter!
Sean Taylor
BCA Newsletter Editor

The Quick Look:

1. RCC - overheard…
2. New BCA officers 
3. Make the Web work for you! (Part two)
4. BCA website update
5. Positions available
6. Grapevine
7. Tech Tips - Screen Shots
8. Word Games - What's your trouble spot? 

1. RCC - overheard…

If you missed RCC, you missed out on hearing some fascinating speakers. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, Martin Marty (Director of the Public Religion Project at the University of Chicago), Patrick Anthony (Editor of Theology in the Caribbean Today), and others for the RCC sessions -- and Dr. Jimmy Draper (president of LifeWay Christian Resources) at our BCA breakfast. In case you missed the whole conference or just some of the speakers, here are a few tidbits:

• "No one ever changes because someone is whining. You rule yourself out and become unimaginative [by whining]." - Martin Marty

• "God created everything through communication. Part of the image of God in us is the ability to speak, the ability to communicate." - Jimmy Draper

• "To put a cross on one's back, with the threat of life-threatening injury, is different from the cross around one's neck." - Jesse Jackson

• "They were not good old days - they were different old days." - Martin Marty

• "I must resist being media-centric. Do not fall into the temptation of making people into images. [Jesus] did not die for images. He died for persons." - Patrick Anthony

• "To the extent that our communication simply mirrors that of the world, we fail." - Jimmy Draper

•  "We cannot do our work with clean hands." - Jesse Jackson

• "[Pluralism] is the context in which we work, and it is not going to change." - Martin Marty

• "It is a difficult thing to pass your values on to your children. It's almost impossible to pass the on to your grandchildren." - Jimmy Draper

• "Do not be mesmerized by the images. There are deeper realities taking place." - Patrick Anthony

• "Spirituality - religion with all the things people don't like about religion taken out." - Martin Marty

Do you have RCC stories you want to share? What affected you most during the conference? What did YOU learn? Email your stories to staylor@namb.net, and I'll post them in an upcoming special edition of the BCA E-Letter. 

2. New BCA officers

PRESIDENT: Scott Collins, Director of Communications, Buckner Baptist Benevolences

MISSIONS VICE PRESIDENT: Teresa Dickens, Communications Specialist, Woman's Missionary Union, SBC

MEMBERSHIP VICE PRESIDENT: Kim Burke, Communications Specialist, Tennessee Baptist Children's Homes

PROGRAM VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: Denise Withers, Communications Specialist, Kentucky Baptist Convention

AWARDS CHAIRMAN: Miller Murphy, Director of Communications, Connie Maxwell Children's Home

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR: Marty Croll, Manager, Web-based Publishing, International Mission Board, SBC

NEWSLETTER EDITOR: Stacey Hamby, News Writer, Word &Way

Current officers serving multi-year terms (who were elected in prior years) include: Scott Vaughan, Program Vice President; Tim Norton, Treasurer; and Roy Jennings, Historian

3. Make the Web work for you! (Part two)

Ready for more helpful, practical websites? Try these:

http://www.infopls.com
The Information Please almanac is packed with handy reference guides.

http://www.encyberpedia.com/ency.html
The Encyberpedia is a portal that links you to a treasure trove of online encyclopedias and resources.

http://www.shu.ac.uk/web-admin/phrases
Looking for info about a certain phrase? Thanks to the work of Sheffield Hallam University in England, you can find help with more than 5,000 common phrases, from meanings to origins.

http://www.loc.gov
The Library of Congress online. 'Nuff said.

http://humanities.uchicago.edu/forms_unrest/ROGET
If your copy of Roget's Thesaurus isn't handy, just look it up online.

http://www.pollingreport.com
The Polling Report is a great place to find recent opinion poll stats.

http://www.timezoneconverter.com
What time is it in Korean or in Seattle, Washington? Find out here.

http://www.usps.gov/ncsc
Better verify those addresses before you go to print. The U.S. Postal Service makes it easy with this ZIP Code resource.

http://www.pulitzer.org/navigation/index.html
Look up Pulitzer Prize winners here.

http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/nobel.html
Look up Nobel Prize winners here.

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/strunk
Can't find your copy of The Elements of Style? Don't worry. It's now online.

http://www.imdb.com
Need an interesting tidbit of movie trivia for an article? Don't stay up all night hoping to catch it on AMC. Just surf to the Internet Movie Database.

http://www.bls.census.gov/cps/cpsmain.htm
This site gives you info and stats about the labor force characteristics of the U.S. population.

Enjoy! And happy surfing!

4. BCA website update

The BCA website is looking great! The site was unveiled in beta form during the awards luncheon at BCA, and response was positive. Want to see it for yourself? Check out http://www.baptistcommunicators.com or http://www.baptcommunicators.org to see the site in its ready-to-go form.

5. Positions available

Graphic Designer

The Christian Index, official weekly tabloid newspaper of the Georgia Baptist Convention, seeks a graphic designer (design editor) for immediate employment. Responsibilities include pre-press, design, and website maintenance. The design editor must be proficient in a Macintosh environment and in several design and pre-press programs such as Quark Express, PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator, and Microsoft Word. This position also requires a command of other technological applications that work with the

Internet and World Wide Web. The design editor must be self-motivated and able to complete tasks without direct supervision. For more information, contact: William Neal, Editor, The Christian Index, 1585 South Ponce de Leon Avenue NE, Atlanta, GA 30307, phone (770) 261-0606  fax (770) 261-0610, email neal@christianindex.org, http://www.christianindex.org

6. Grapevine

Craig Bird has resigned as Coordinator of Communications and editor of Charity & Children at Baptist Children's Homes of North Carolina. He and his wife, Melissa, transferred to BCH's maternity home in Asheville.

7. Tech Tips - Screen Shots

Need to take some screen shots to use on your company's website? Not sure which format would be better for them?

There are two basic formats on the Web: JPG and GIF. If the screen shot has many colors (or photos), it will probably be smaller in JPG. If it has a few colors then it will probably be smaller (and look better) in GIF. 

If you're not sure which format would be better, take a few extra seconds to save it in both formats. Then you can see which one has the best balance between size and quality.

For more info, check out http://www.efuse.com/Design/screenshots.html.

8. Word Games - What's your trouble spot?

There's still time to send your responses to the current "Word Games" question. 

What's the grammar nit-pick that gives you the most trouble? Who and whom? That and which? Some other grammar nit-pick? Email your trouble spots to staylor@namb.net and we'll post them so our peers can tell us how they keep it straight.