Mennonite Weekly Review

Another Mennonite publication, OurFaith Digest, is ending June 30.

The magazine, bringing together writings from other Mennonite periodicals three times a year, had been struggling financially since before July 2007, when Joe Miller became editor.

“It was a badly wounded thing to begin with,” said Miller, of Honey Brook, Pa., who is also a chaplain. “It’s not something that could really survive a hit like the economy has given.”

He likened the end of the publication to the death of a person after a long illness.

“It’s not like someone who passes away suddenly,” he said. “It’s expected.”

OurFaith began as an independent venture in 2001 and was distributed free to congregations in Mennonite Church USA. In January 2008, the publication was suspended because of lack of funding. Then the board of The Mennonite, the official magazine of MC USA, decided to try publishing OurFaith.

The staff had circulated 46,000 copies of the spring 2009 final print issue to Mennonite churches, schools, retirement communities and camps.

In early 2009 they saw dramatic effects of the economic crisis, Miller said. They had lost something like 70 percent of advertising, he said. They decided to switch to Internet-only, with Miller updating the Web site with new articles and then sending a once monthly e-magazine highlighting those articles.

“When we went from print to Internet, I’m sure it dropped 95 percent in church and individual donations,” Miller said. “Advertising went to zero. It dropped 100 percent.”

He received letters from readers who were upset by the switch to online-only.

“We did not want to switch,” he said. “We would have loved to have continued putting out a paper.”

Despite the loss, Miller enjoyed working for OurFaith Digest.

“The Mennonite church is just blessed with some incredible storytellers,” he said.