As the National Ministry Director of Every Generation Ministry Kenya (EGM), an interdenominational Christian organization that works together with Kenyan churches to develop transformational children’s ministries, one of my responsibilities was to work with the publishing team to create a new magazine, The Model Worker Journal.

EGM provides innovative leadership development training for children’s workers serving in local churches and Bible teaching materials that are innovative, culturally relevant, and thoroughly biblical. The new publication was an extension of that mission whose purpose was to share ministry news, events, and inspiration stories for Sunday school teachers in Kenya. The magazine was also expected to generate income to raise funds for our ministry.

Our goal was to publish the first issue by July 2023. None of the team members had any professional skills in magazine publishing, but we were determined to make this dream come true with our experiences and education. We embarked on a journey of faith and a lot of research, with no idea how the road ahead would look like in magazine publishing. We took a bold step.

Since EGM is funded by ministry partners, we could not afford to fail on this project. Through the entire production process, we were learning through experience, and our skills were not close to steering us to the right direction. The team struggled with a lot of things like design, editing, marketing, and sales, but we made it to the finish line. We had a finished product with a lot of unfinished business. Distribution, retention, and promotion among many others were the challenges that we encountered.

Two months later, in September 2023 our help was sent. I believe God heard our prayers, saw our struggles and He answered us. I was awarded a scholarship from Magazine Training International to train in an online course. The Introduction to Magazine Management course was exactly what we needed at the time to help grow our new magazine. This was a big miracle for the ministry. What a timely blessing!

The course was very informative. I learnt a lot on research, budgeting, promotion, sales, marketing, distribution, and so much more. What stood out for me in the training was brand concept and development. Our magazine did not have a mission statement or a unique value proposition for our readers. We had not put into consideration that we may need to learn more about our readers before producing the content. On completion of the training, I called my team and shared with them what I had learnt. We were excited to go back to the drawing board and press the restart button. But this time, we were equipped with knowledge and skills on how to manage a magazine publication.

We are grateful to Magazine Training International for the opportunity to train in Introduction to Magazine Management course. We have implemented so much in our publishing department and we have seen great results. We look forward to greater success in our ministry publishing department.

by Jane Wairimu Waweru, National Ministry Director of Every Generation Ministry Kenya

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash