By Rajmund Dabrowski

Stories are all around us, claims Dustin Comm, whose eBook, The Media Story: Why Your Church Needs Media to Engage Your Local Community, was released on October 9. It aims to engage local congregations in telling stories of their faith communities in order to inspire and to witness.

There are perhaps billions of stories being told on earth today alone. These stories encompass our lives. In fact, all of us are part of the overarching human story, which has been going on for a long, long time. But sometimes, perhaps because stories are so much a part of our existence and pervade everything in our consciousness, we don’t even notice them. And yet stories are the most powerful vehicles to influence our communities. Is your church harnessing their power? Are you truly telling your story the way you want it to be received?

Engaged in many and varied mission endeavors, Seventh-day Adventists have been using a variety of media to proclaim the Good News. As a church, we take it for granted that media—the print, radio, TV, and the Internet with its numerous products—is an ally in Adventist evangelism. Observers of the church’s media interest and engagement as part of our mission efforts have also recognized us in these endeavors.

However, on a congregational level such interest is often generally considered to be the job of the corporate levels of the church. That media production is expensive and requires the engagement of experts is one reason often cited by those skeptical of local media efforts.

Dustin, who lives in Castle Rock, Colorado, and attends LifeSource Fellowship of Seventh-day Adventists, grew up in Sacramento, CA, and graduated from Pacific Union College with degrees in theology and television and film production. He has served in Calimesa, CA, as a pastor for media and youth ministry, producing creative media content for the congregation and local community.

“Knowing that church media folks may never get media experience outside the church, I decided that I need to gain real-world media experience and took an opportunity in broadcast radio at Mile High Sports Radio (AM 1510/FM 93.7) in Denver, CO as a producer/host,” he says.

Early in 2015, after a year of prayer and soul-searching regarding where God wanted him next, Dustin recognized that God was calling him to combine his passions for ministry and media. “In my research and study, it became clear that the church was missing a huge opportunity to engage its local communities at a deeper level by infusing media into their long-term outreach campaigns,” he says. “My passion is to help churches understand why and how to integrate media into their outreach,” he adds.

The Media Story is a community of churches who are innovating, experimenting, failing, and learning how to in- fuse media into their physical evangelism efforts. Dustin ex- plains that studies show churches engage their communities best when creating media in step with their outreach.

Your church is telling a story whether it realizes it or not, Dustin maintains. Consider these questions, “What is the story received by the community? Do you understand what your church is known for in the community? Do you feel pressure to use media in your church, but don’t know where to begin? Does your evangelism feel unnatural or forced?”

The Media Story teaches churches how to tell their story (the way they want it received) by creating media in conjunction with their community outreach.

The eBook is being released on Amazon for its Kindle platform, and in the iBooks store. On his blog, the author offers additional expert advice on a variety of aspects covered in his eBook.

As with any approach that involves the church in media, often the initial reaction may be to consider The Media Story as a “how-to for media ministries.” Dustin says, “This is not accurate, in my mind. To me a how-to means that it just covers the technical side of buying equipment, shooting church services, editing, streaming, broadcasting, etc. The Media Story is a philosophy for reaching the community outside the church walls by infusing media into the church’s outreach.” “The eBook is not a technical guide,” he adds. “That would be a misconception.”

The Media Story: Why Your Church Needs Media to En- gage Your Local Community, received pre-release praise from several media professionals, including Phil Cooke, filmmaker and media consultant. The author of Unique: Telling Your Story in the Age of Brands and Social

Media, Cooke said “it’s time [that] churches and ministry organizations got serious about using media to reach their local communities. It’s the language our culture speaks, and the vast majority of your congregation and surrounding community are already telling their story through media.

If you don’t know where to start, I recommend Dustin Comm’s new book.”

Engaging in its presentation, Dustin Comm’s eBook can provide hope for many ministers and Christian communicators ready to be involved in presenting an Adventist story through media out of their local church. For more information, see http://www.dustincomm.com/themediastory/

–Rajmund Dabrowski is RMC communication director and editor of Mountain Views.