Baptist & Reflector
Striving for excellence has been a key phrase for the Baptist and Reflector in 2018. The
paper was named by the Baptist Communicators Association as the second best state paper
in the Southern Baptist Convention in terms of content and design. In addition, members
of the Communications Team (which includes the B&R) of the Tennessee Baptist Mission
Board captured several individual awards for material produced related to the paper.
The B&R is mailed to nearly 21,000 homes 26 weeks a year, reaching a potential readership
of about 52,500 readers.
In addition, the B&R website has grown since it was introduced in late 2015. We have had
more than 116,000 user engagements since January with 66,212 visitors and 196,553 page
views.
The goal of the paper is to “tell the story of Tennessee Baptists” through news, feature
stories and photographs. As in the past, the paper this year placed a major emphasis on
what Tennessee Baptists are doing to reach the world for Christ by focusing on stories
related to missions and evangelism. This year the paper has focused on timely topics such
as domestic violence that impact Tennessee Baptists and our churches.
The Baptist and Reflector continued to utilize social media tools in 2018 such as Twitter.
Editor Lonnie Wilkey regularly writes a blog that provides information for Tennessee
Baptists between print issues. The paper also has a Facebook page that has been more
prominent with the addition of David Dawson to the Communications Team.
The staff monitors trends that could affect Tennessee Baptists and prints those stories to
keep readers informed. In addition, opinions, both from the editor and others, are printed
and are intended to make readers think, reflect, and act.
The paper continually seeks to enlist new subscribers and will be offering a simplified
subscription plan in the near future. We need more churches to send the paper to their
leadership such as deacons, Sunday School teachers, etc. We are asking every reader of the
B&R for the next year to consider sending one subscription to someone they know. If just
a small percentage of our readers would do this, our print circulation would significantly
increase. For more information about subscription plans, call the Baptist & Reflector office
at 1-800-558-2090 or (615) 371-2003.
Lonnie Wilkey, Editor