Speaking in love

The apostle Paul writes in I Corin- thians 14 about how we speak to one another. He compares speaking in tongues, a secret language, with prophesy, a public speaking: "Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy. For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, those who prophesy speak to other people for their build- ing up and encouragement and consolation. Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church" (verses 1-4).

Paul asks those in Corinth to think of three measuring tools when deciding when and how to speak: Do we demonstrate love for one another? Axe we strengthening, encouraging and consoling one another? Does our speech build up the church?

I've been reflecting on Paul's lessons on how to communicate because I think they also shed light on how I see Canadian Mennonite working. Not that the magazine is just for prophetic words (although prophetic voices among us are certainly published here) but that all our speaking together through these pages be guided by our desire to love one another and build up each other and the church.

Canadian Mennonite includes the voices of many people. A total of 1,606 of you had your words and pictures published in 1,308 submissions last year. We continue to be the Mennonite magazine in North America that publishes more issues and more pages per issue than any other. With our church's Germanlanguage magazine, Der Bote, now closed, Canadian Mennonite becomes an even more precious resource for the building up and strengthening of the church.

Letters: I am often asked about Letters to the Editor as I travel to various parts of the country to visit churches and talk to readers. People ask how we choose the ones we print. The common conception is that we select just a few letters out of a big mailbag. In fact, our policy is to be as inclusive as possible in this section, and we publish virtually every letter we receive. Last year, we published 116 letters out of the 126 we received, or 92 percent.

Occasionally, if the same topic has been dominating the Letters section for a few months, I'll decide that's enough on that subject for a while and I also have a rule of thumb that any person can write on any subject they like, but not more than once a year on the same subject. This decision is a reflection of our church practice of having open mikes at delegate sessions, but also expecting speakers to have their say and then make way for the next person to speak.

You might be interested in what was most written about in the Letters section last year: First Nations concerns (especially in response to our report on a talk Sakioeta' Widrick gave), climate change and the environment, and church and state relationships were the top three topics, in that order. (This, and many other editorial, operational and financial details are all available in our 2007 annual report, which is posted on our website).

Design Feedback: I also wanted to thank you for your continuing feedback on our new design. We have been working hard at responding to your comments, ironing out the remaining rough edges and making sure it is readable for everyone.

The biggest issue was readability with coloured backgrounds. We have changed our palette of background colours to use only pale colours and have lightened the colours twice when printing black type onto colour (for example, the light blue we are using in this issue is at 5 percent inking). We now only use a solid black background inside when printing with white type and have increased the font size in Milestones and in our author credits.

I've been testing these changes with some of you who wrote in and they seem to be working. One reader wrote, "We would like to thank you for the new format in the [Canadian] Mennonite, especially the print size. It improved considerably." Another responded, "I was asked to look at the April 28 issue of Canadian Mennonite to assess readability of print on the current use of colour. The colouring has been toned down sufficiendy for good readability. The darker browns were particularly difficult to read in previous issues. The more recent paler tones of various colours have made reading much simpler. I appreciate your effort. Thank you again."

Please let me know if there are other things we can still do to make sure the magazine is the love-demonstrating, covenantal-strengthening communication tool we want it to be.

[Author Affiliation]

TIM MILLER DYCK

EDITOR/PUBLISHER