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Impact Media
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November 1998, No. 3
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What's
in a Name? IMM and IMM2
On May 20, 1996, our name Impact Media Ministries
was chosen by vote of the Board of Directors. The
name had previously been submitted by co-founder
Gary Peterson of Wycliffe Bible Translators. It
was chosen over twenty-one other names. Since
then, the name has commonly been abbreviated as
IMM.
In 1998, thanks to the wonders of the Internet
and e-mail, we discovered the existence of
another IMM. This turned out to be International
Media Ministries, based in Brussels, Belgium and
with key contacts in the USA. They are recognized
for their creation of a powerful evangelistic
film called "Sabina's Encounter". This
feature-length movie was produced in French and
is used extensively in Africa. While this IMM in
Brussels has existed since the beginning of the
decade, our IMM was incorporated only in 1996.
Can two IMMs occupy the same planet? Since both
organizations participate in things such as the
Brigada e-mail forum, we felt it would be wise to
make a distinction between the two. To avoid the
legal rigors of making any change to our name, we
have simply added a superscript "2" to
the abbreviation. And just like most accent marks
found in the French language, the "2"
is not pronounced. Voilą... IMM2.
Thus, IMM2 refers to our growing work located in
Portland, and IMM is the group in Brussels. From
here on, all instances of our abbreviated name
will be printed as IMM2. What hasn't changed is
that it still stands for Impact Media Ministries.
But with the minor addition, we can now say that
IMM2 represents: Missions vision to the power of
two.
Progress Report: The Reorganization
It began quietly on November 1, 1998. Starting on
that day, all media production services at IMM2
were suspended. What followed was a flurry of
activity related to finding new board members,
raising up new partners for prayer and financial
support, surveying potential working
relationships and projects, and rewriting the
core mission and purpose statements to reflect
our renewed vision for ministry and identity as
IMM2. All of these activities are still in
process, but new developments have already
resulted.
Since January, a number of people have committed
anew to support IMM2 financially and through
prayer. Also, several individuals have expressed
willingness and eagerness to serve on the Board
of Directors, which will be activated later this
year. A few more board members are yet required
by charter, so additional contacts are being
sought out. Pray that this directors search will
be blessed by the Lord and that the right men and
women be found.
Perhaps the most important development this
spring involved our mission and purpose
statements. Recently, board member Richard Reves
indicated his desire to help restate the vision
and goals of IMM2. As the director of Servants
Synergists, a division of Servants, Inc., one of
his own goals is helping ministry organizations
to better understand their purpose and operation,
and to formulate those clearly on paper. He has
already assisted a number of organizations
through this clarification process. His help to
IMM2 in this area is proving to be invaluable.
So what exactly can be expected in the new IMM2?
In the past three years, IMM2 produced over
thirty-five projects for churches and mission
organizations. In the future, there will be less
effort going directly into media production for
others, and more effort spent enabling others to
form and visually project their own missions
vision. This may involve direct training and
possibly the release of a training resource on
CDROM or video. The goal of this initiative is
not merely enabling others in media production
capability, but more specifically building and
sharpening their actual missions vision, strategy
and implementation. As put forth in our
conceptual model "A Media Strategy for
Missions", a media presentation can only
enhance an already good, effective world missions
strategy.
Previously, about ten percent of all effort was
invested in touching young people. In the future,
youth will become a major concern comparable to
the effort previously given to churches and
mission agencies. The main focus will be on
shaping their life values and molding their
global worldview. This will complement our
existing plan of creating and distributing media
products to challenge youth for missions. For
further developments in this area, stay tuned.
Targeting Unreached Peoples with Issachar
Our new mission and purpose statements reflect a
set of core values and beliefs which drive all
that we do. One of those values is a high
priority placed on the evangelization of peoples
who are generally beyond the reach of the Gospel,
or "unreached peoples". This is now
seen in a relationship that has formed between
IMM2 and Issachar of Seattle, Washington.
In the 1980s, Issachar successfully developed a
model for extending the Gospel into some of the
less accessible and harder-to-reach peoples of
Asia.
Now they are designing a leadership development
seminar with the goal of empowering churches to
effectively engage in missions to these various
unreached peoples. IMM2 will produce the dynamic
audiovisual presentation for Issachar and assist
with the initial delivery.
Dream to Reality: IMM2's Beginnings
(Snapshot 3) Just how does one go about taking a
vision of changing the world for Christ via
multimedia from dream to reality? This question
wasn't exactly something that IMM2 founders Jim
Au, Scott Powell or Gary Peterson had prepared to
deal with.
In the beginning, IMM2 was about dreaming up
ideas and experimenting with them. The very first
ideas
were sparked in 1993 by Scott Powell's visionary
mindset and Jim's talent in wrangling computers
and other machines to do whatever he wanted them
to do. (If you read the first issue of this
newsletter, then you recall that this took place
in the kitchen of IMM2 board member Carl Townsend).
These ideas bubbled in their minds until two
years later when Jim and Trudy returned from
their first missions trip to India.
The decisive moment came one day when Gary
approached Jim in Sunday School with a sheet of
paper. For several weeks prior, he had mentioned
that he was going to bring the paper in, but it
just didn't happen, not until that one Sunday
early in 1995. From that one sheet of paper
listing some of Gary's best ideas for integrating
audiovisual media into the effort of challenging
people for world missions, the seed was planted
that would soon become IMM2.
A Tribute to Dr. Kitman Au
On April 9, 1999, Dr. Kitman Au of Burbank,
California went to be home with the Lord. As the
father of IMM2 president Jim Au, he was an avid
moral supporter and advisor to us. His gift
grants enabled us to acquire much of the
equipment we now have. He loved flowers and
maintained a splendid orchid garden in his home
which people the world over have toured. He was
known for his generosity, for buying shoes for
missionaries, for his beautiful penmanship with
which he wrote dozens of letters of encouragement
and witness, and for his kind and gentle spirit.
We recently received a number of gifts in his
memory. These gifts will be used for a special
purpose that is yet to be announced. My father
was a wonderful man who followed Christ. He is
greatly missed. ---Jim Au
Recorded Feedback: Letters
"In the last week we have had nine showings
of the WorldView video that you helped... to
produce. We were so proud to show it. It was so
well done. The video made this place real to them.
Thank you very much for making this possible."
---Faye Smith, administrator
WorldView Centre/Western Seminary
Portland, Oregon
"Thank you much for inviting me over and
showing some of your productions. I am quite
inspired by your work and am impressed. That is
some of the best work I have ever seen done on
Premiere!"
---Adriel Henderson, director
Positive Focus Multimedia
Beaverton, Oregon |
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