Battle of the Youth Mags
25 05 2006
OK, I confess that I don’t usually read youth ministry magazines. Lately, though, I have ordered subscriptions to two of the top ones. First there is the very academic sounding Journal of Student Ministries (recently Zondervan) and then there is the very publisher oriented sounding Leading Student Ministries (Lifeway). I received my first copy of each this week and had to do a mash-up.
What’s this about?
No matter what they have beyond this, content is what I need. Looking at the titles of articles, I usually decide if I want to read it or not. Article titles from JOSM, Understand that You Don’t, Counting on Them, When the Time Stops, and Now Remember How. From the LSM Essentials of Small Town Youth Ministry, No Longer Little Children, Using Recreation to Draw Students, True Love Waits in Africa and Homosexuality?. I don’t know about you, but I have no idea what the first set of articles are about. I started reading the first part of each article and wasn’t helped much there (more later on that). LSM on the other hand gave me a very clear view of what the article is about. One point for LSM.
The Eyes Have It
I don’t care how good your content is, if you can’t read the article, then it doesn’t matter. This is where I am really scratching my head. I’m not an editor or publisher, but I know what looks good and what looks like what a pre-school class worked on for a crafts project. LSM looks very professional and is very readable. It has a consistent look and good typeface. Thumbs up. JOSM is just a disaster. It looks like they used 12pt font, as many fonts as they could find (one blurb for wanting user submitted articles uses at least 4 fonts in the same box) and pictures behind text that render a lot of text virtually unreadable. I emailed the team at JOSM and they assured me that they knew about it and were working on the problem. Still it just looks really bad and is just a mess for the eye to follow. Hint: Editors are supposed to look at the magazine BEFORE it goes to print.
So after this, can you guess which one I am reading right now? I have to admit I really thought the LSM from Lifeway was going to be an advertisement for their products and the JOSM was going to be more about actual ministry. So far I would pick LSM. It didn’t have a lot of ads about their products and actually gave me some things to think about. I have yet to actually read the JOSM and I probably won’t. I just can’t bring myself to read something that poorly executed (especially after a day with middle schoolers).
If you have never heard of LSM, give it a try. I think you will like it. If you subscribe to JOSM, maybe you might want to reconsider. I will give them another try, but if the look is consistent will drop my subscription.
great review of the zines…i just received my copy of JOSM and you couldn’t have described it better. i really have no idea where one article finishes and the next starts. do you have any better journals to recommend on youth culture or ministry?
Chad, unfortunately there just isn’t very much good stuff out there in youth ministry. I sunscribe to plenty of email newsletters though.
Look for a blog on it soon.
Sir
Disclaimers up front: I have been writing for youth ministry magazines for years. I wrote for Youthworker, I am a contributing editor to Group Magazine, and I have contributed to various ministry magazines both here and in the UK. I also write for The Journal of Student Ministries. Please accept the following with all the bias and personal feelings that go along with that.
To begin, this was the first issue of The Journal. Take a tour of Rolling Stone or Group Magazine offices and you will see first issues enshrined and often laughed at. Ask any longtime staffer and they will tell you horror stories about getting those first issues out. The Journal is comprised of authors and staffers with various amounts of experience, combine this with heinous deadlines, and plagues of production problems and you will get a classic first issue that will be chuckled at twenty years from now.
Secondly, The Journal of Student Ministries does not now nor will it ever look like everybody’s definition of what a youth ministry magazine should look like. I don’t know your extent of involvement with youth ministry but “Same-ness” kills. Nothing is more deadly to a creative youth ministry (be it magazine or in a church) then the idea that it must be done the way its always been done before.
Finally, and this is a question of authenticity, the articles you quoted in your little review of the magazine, did not appear in the magazine. The titles you quoted were from a demo cover that was posted on the website. It was created to give a visual idea of what the magazine will look like to some of the clients and advertisers. This begs the question; did you read a copy of the magazine? Did you have one in your hand when you wrote the review? If so, why did you not get the article titles from the actual magazine instead of the website? If not, why not? I’m sure the editor would have provided you one if you had asked.
Some of your criticisms are certainly valid. No one knows that more than the individuals who spent many sleepless nights putting this magazine together. Subsequent issues will no doubt be better and even more creative, more “out there”, more instructive, more fun, more focused, more professional, and more “new”. They will never be “more of the same.” I was happy to read that you were going to give the Journal a second chance. That way you will have read two whole issues before you make a final judgment.
Peace
Steve Case
Steve, thanks for your comments. My hope in this blog and dialogue is that we can sharpen each other through openness and civility. You are very gentle in your comments, and I really appreciate that.
Having said that, I agree with a lot of what you have said. Yes, first issues are often laughable efforts towards where a magazine is trying to go. Yes, sameness kills. And yes, I actually had a copy and looked through it, though I didn’t have it in my hands at the time of writing. This might have contributed to the titles.
I’m not bothered by the titles as much as the layout and typography. It just wasn’t clear in many cases. Basically, I was just disappointed. To me, it didn’t look like a good first effort from the layout, look, and print of the magazine. I couldn’t get into the content because of its presentation. My hope is that it will get better because I think the content should/could be great.
My personal confession:
I really like print media and would love to work for a magazine and make something that helped people and looked great. I would love to be involved in helping youth workers out there through a magazine that provided helpful advice, suggestions and tools for the leaders of our teens.
[…] OK, a while back I wrote about several youth zines and I was especially discouraged by the first run of the Journal of Student Ministries. Actually this is an old magazine that has just undergone a buyout by Zondervan, so it isn’t really a startup. My big issue with it was it’s look. It was very hard to read and just looked less professional than I thought a publication of this caliber ought to be. […]