Good News (magazine)
| Good news
|
|
|---|---|
| description | Evangelical monthly newspaper |
| language | German |
| Frequency of publication | per month |
| ISSN |
1615-4037 |
| ZDB | 2213120-6 |
The Good News is an evangelical monthly newspaper. It was first published in Berlin in 1897 as a distribution sheet for the “Sunday-less” - people who could not or did not want to go to church on Sunday . The monthly newspaper has almost 30,000 subscribers nationwide. This makes it one of the oldest and highest-circulation church magazines in Germany. The core areas of the readership are the Erzgebirge , Vogtland , Brandenburg , Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , but they are also found in Baden , Bavaria , Württemberg and the Rhineland . Even today, the magazine wants to use the means of a magazine to “spread the joyous message of Jesus Christ, which is to be offered to all people”. The title says it all and determines the content.
Contents are the interpretation of the current sermon texts , a picture meditation on the verse of the month, testimonies of faith , biblical impulses, pastoral topics, reports on missionary opportunities, a sick note, a page for children.
The good news arrives in the mail. It appears monthly with 16 pages in A4 format and contains four interlaced weekly parts.
Employees
The publisher is Wichern-Verlag GmbH, based in Berlin. The managing editor is Sibylle Sterzik. The contributions to the Good News are written by a large group of volunteer authors from all over Germany.
history
The eventful history of the publication began in 1897 as a supplement to the "Evangelische Berliner Sonntagsblatt" published by Christian Zeitschriftenverlag (CZV). Citizens who were distant from the church, then referred to as “Sunday-less”, should be addressed by a missionary paper in an increasingly secular society and won over to the Christian faith.
Theodor Wenzel, then director of the Provincial Committee for Inner Mission in Brandenburg, later made the Good News independent as the “Evangelization Journal” of the Märkische Volksmission.
In 1941 the "Good News" was banned by the Nazi authorities .
When the font was allowed to appear again in 1946 , something unprecedented in German-German history happened for decades: Despite the division of Germany , the editorial team continued to include authors from East Germany and West Germany . B. the "Eastern Bishops" Werner Leich and Gottfried Forck and "Western Bishops" such as Otto Dibelius and Martin Kruse .
The sheet was printed in what was then West Berlin , but delivered to East Berlin , from where it was officially distributed throughout the GDR with the postal newspaper distributor "PZV" at the time . Economic survival was made possible in the post-war decades by western Diakonische Werke through regular support, in particular partners from Westphalia, Baden and the Rhineland.
During the GDR era, the "Happy Message" had a circulation of around 180,000 subscribers. After the fall of the Wall came the big slump. The balance in December 2009: around 30,000 subscribers. The "Happy Message" awards grants for missionary and diaconal tasks from its special-purpose funds and the cooperation with the "Friends of the Good News".
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Source: Wichern-Verlag