A deep change coming to JustinLong.org

As the headline suggests, there is a deep change coming to JustinLong.org. This change has already been hinted at in some of our moves to this point.

The Causes of the Change

1. My long standing vision has been the unevangelized peoples in the world. I believe the number one challenge to reaching those peoples with the Good News of Jesus is the lack of long-term workers. On the order of 150,000 new workers are needed (about half for the hard-core least-access or no-access peoples). Mobilizing 150,000 workers is a major effort that will in my opinion require a multiregional swarmish effort.

2. Doing the research, advocacy, mobilization and training to see the kind of momentum required to achieve this goal is a major, long-term effort. In order to be fruitful it must be able to “go the distance.” This is a marathon, not a sprint. Endurance and persistence are required.

3. Sustaining an effort over a long distance requires persistence, planning and resources. Persistence I have in great measures (as most anyone will attest). Planning I can do fairly well. Resources are an area where I have not done so well in the past. (Exhibit A: we are consistently raise less in funds than what is needed.)

4. God provides for our needs–but he can use different ways to do so. Paul was obviously a tentmaker at times.

The Deep Change I Am Preparing To Make

The donor model does not completely cover us, and will not sustain us in the long run. We have generous friends, and we deeply appreciate their generosity–they have gotten us “this far.” But what we have done to get us here will not get us where we need to go. Therefore, a change is required.

Getting to this point in any ministry is often painful and has been for us. But it is a point that we must honestly reach. Which is more important: finishing the marathon, or the way in which we run?

So, what model will we use? There are several ways in which information-centric ministries can be sustained.

a) Donors can provide for it. This is the standard by-faith ministry model, used with great success all over the world (and with less success by us).

b) An organization can sponsor it. This is the ministry model of, for example, the Southern Baptists and many large NGOs. If you have a central agency that is very good at raising funds, they can sponsor a lot of work. But we aren’t with a large agency, and so far God has not led us that way.

c) We can get a secular job that pays for it as a hobby. This helps sustain the resources required to live, but greatly restricts the time allotted for the task.

d) We could sell advertising on the web. I have been experimenting with this on JustinLong.org and although we have received some finances this way, the amount of traffic that would be required to make this successful does not seem to me to be achievable for a site with our particular focus. I do not desire to turn controversy into advertising dollars. Nor do I desire to manage a huge “stable” of writers.

e) We can charge subscriptions for access. This is a model that we have used with less success in the past due to the costs of sending printed newsletters (when we did that) as well as due to the tendency of information to flow to the “free.”

Of all of these models, the one that seems the most likely to achieve sustainability, high time availability, and enough independence to permit objectivity and the possibility of critique is a subscription-based or member-only model.

 

THEREFORE, (portions of) JustinLong.org will be moving (soon) into a (fairly inexpensive) member-only model.

 

 

 

The Arguments

1. Some argue a “paywall” can’t work. Yet in fact it does work for some: the New York Times is an example. Yes, their readership went down but their revenues went up, and this gives them a shot at survival.

2. Some have argued information wants to be free. I agree. We will be using a model in which portions of JustinLong.org remain free and portions are member-only. The shared links, twitter feed, Facebook feed, and the shorter journal pieces will remain freely available and open, and frequently updated. The value that we bring to this resource is not the information as much as it is the curation–the collection and tagging of the information.

3. Others argue that some information wants to be sold. Here, the key is the value that we bring to the table. This value is created by aggregating content – as we do with journals, shared links, twitter, Facebook – and then analyzing the content and explaining why it is important. We will provide you with the aggregated content for free–but as a value-added service, we will tell you why we think the content is important, and what it means for missions. This is a time-saver and mind-broadener for you, providing you with connections to what is significant: and that, we feel, is a service to the Body of Christ which, because of the time it requires us to create, must be paid for.

So, the analysis content of our website–in effect, the left 2 columns plus all media (not including the School of Missions) will move into a member-only model.

A benefit of this: behind the paywall, we can be perhaps a little more open with some information, because we’ll know precisely who is reading it.

 

Your Thoughts and Feedback

The new subscription-based model will be launched August 1. At the moment I am envisioning a monthly subscription done through Paypal that will be about the equivalent of 1 Amazon Kindle book per month–which I feel is very reasonable. (In the West, it equates to what–about 3 Starbucks coffees?) In the meantime, I welcome your thoughts, feedback, arguments and critiques.