For the past three years, our ministry has published the MissionStrategy.org magazine quarterly, a resource that provided articles of interest in the areas of compassionate, socio-ethnic, and urban ministry. These contributions were garnered from authors and writers who were experts and general practitioners in their respective fields. The readership has grown to more than 3,000, and requests for the expansion of publication continue unabated.

While we would like to honor these requests and expectations of our constituents, the changing economic and stewardship realities suggest that the adoption of new delivery systems be considered. We have decided to cease paper production, and this on-line edition of Cultural Expressions represents the inaugural launch of the new format. The changes became necessary for various reasons:

• There are myriad ways in which church leaders access and use materials, such as cutting and pasting from sources, including the Internet.

• Paper production has become incredibly expensive and uneconomical, and electronic media lends itself to a more environmentally friendly presentation.

• In our progressively more global community, digital communication has become more practical.

• The time-sensitive electronic format allows us to respond more readily to up-to-date news and developing stories, such as we witnessed in the events in Haiti and elsewhere in our world.

• The magazine would be more portable and usable through iPods, PDAs, and an ever-increasing proliferation of new gadgets.

• This new edition offers our constituents richer media content that will include “hot links” to relevant sites, books, CMCs, churches, on-line lectures, and blogs.

In the midst of these changes, we remain committed to provide articles and material that are relevant, provocative, unique, liberatory, sensitive, missional, biblical, and practical to the end user.

Oliver R. Phillips, director, Mission Support USA/Canada