As we start a new year, The Jackson Post has been in existence for less than two months, but hopefully those who’ve read it online, in print or both have seen that we’re a local news organization based on highlighting people from Madison County and things going on in and around Jackson.
That goes for every section of the paper – news, government/politics, entertainment, sports, etc.
Religion falls in with that as well.
As we said in November, while the large majority of the population of Madison County identified as Christian, this is not the Christian page.
And while a lot of those Christians may identify within a certain group of denominations or other groups, this isn’t meant to be a page solely for those denominations.
When you look back at print editions or do a search online through our religion pieces at the end of 2023, the aim is to find an appropriate representation of everyone in Madison County.
How is that planned to work?
First off, if any pastors, ministers, priests, rabbis or any other spiritual group leaders decide to send a guest column in to be published, everyone has that opportunity.
I’ll even open that up to the atheist/agnostic community of Jackson. If you have a religious point you want to make on a public platform, as long as that point stays within the realm of religion, then we’ll run it on the religion page. (And if it doesn’t stay within the realm of religion, that doesn’t mean we won’t publish it. We’ll just move it to the opinion/editorial page.)
But in addition to that, we want to know about the happenings and people within the religious gatherings of Madison County.
Who is someone doing a lot of work for their church that deserves some recognition, whether they want it or not?
What big event is coming up at your church that the public needs to know about because they might want to be a part of?
What program is going on at a church that’s having a visible impact within the congregation?
Here’s maybe my biggest desire for the page but may be the most difficult one to get participation with – how is God working in your congregation that we can write about that?
Providing answers to those four questions for different churches throughout the county is a goal of this page.
So put the e-mail address at the end of this column to good use.
Send me a message letting me know about your church. Madison County and Jackson just celebrated their bicentennial anniversaries in the past year or so. Will your church be celebrating a milestone anniversary in 2023? Let me know.
Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for helping The Jackson Post give proper coverage to the religious community of Jackson and Madison County.
Brandon Shields is the managing editor of The Jackson Post. Contact him at brandon@jacksonpost.news. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or Instagram @Editorbrandon.
