On the personal glide path

“There’s a Million Things I haven’t done / But just you wait, just you wait.” Those lines in the great musical Hamilton are ones many of us feel, but at some point in God’s choosing our time runs out, and we get to experience greater things. It’s no contradiction for Christians to look forward to heaven but to be in no hurry to get there: Major league starting pitchers know that these days complete games are rare, but they still want to get through seven or eight innings.

That’s how I feel this October. At our WORLD staff retreat last October I said I’d retire as editor in chief in three years but continue with my column, book reviews, and occasional interviews, God willing. My goal was to give lots of advance notice so we could get the right editors in the right seats on the bus. You’re probably aware of editors who also write regularly in the magazine: Mindy Belz and Jamie Dean. You hear frequently on The World and Everything in It podcast Nick Eicher and Paul Butler, who is now its executive producer. Nick, as chief content officer, also thinks through our long-term strategic direction. But I’d now like to introduce you to eight editors whose names or voices probably aren’t familiar to you.

First, Michael Reneau is the new editor of WORLD Magazine. He’s been deputy editor during the past year and has shown himself to be a tough-minded, warmhearted staff leader. He’s a World Journalism Institute graduate, as is virtually every Worldling under age 45, and learned the trade in Tennessee as editor of The Greeneville Sun. Tim Lamer is now executive editor of WORLD Digital. He joined WORLD in 1999 after directing the Free Market Project at the Media Research Center. He makes sure our reporters emphasize street-level Biblical objectivity rather than suite-level opinionizing. Along with taking responsibility for our online content, he’ll oversee news on the podcast.

I continue to thank God and Joel Belz for calling me into WORLD and mentoring me.

Next come two managing editors. Daniel James Devine worked until 2012 for the family construction business, Devine HomeKrafters: He then began constructing WORLD stories and building magazine issues. Lynde Langdon exerts day-to-day website leadership. She joined WORLD in 2013 with experience at the University of Missouri journalism school, a local newspaper, and a healthcare company.

And two more vital staffers: Leigh Jones, formerly a Galveston Daily News reporter, is The World and Everything in It’s news editor. Rachel Lynn Aldrich joined WORLD from the Discovery Institute and is assistant editor of the website. She is also in charge of our Saturday Series—wng.org/saturday-series—where we run Books of the Year chapters and essays from John “Hank the Cowdog” Erickson and me.

When our pages look good, you should thank David Freeland, who has been WORLD’s art director since 1995. He came our way after designing Tabletalk (among other things) for Ligonier Ministries. If you have either praise or criticism, you can communicate with our writers—their email addresses are at the bottoms of feature articles and columns—or with David and editors by writing to editor@wng.org. We try to respond personally to every letter.

Many of you will receive responses from Mickey McLean, now in charge of Mailbag and other communications with WORLD members. He joined us in 2008 after editing Delta’s inflight magazine, Sky. Mickey will help us roll out more terrific email roundups of a week’s news in areas like science and family issues. Right now you can go to wng.org/newsletters and sign up for our daily news updates along with weekly feeds of news about education, abortion, arts and culture, poverty-fighting, religious liberty, and politics. They’re all free.

After 28 years of editing, I continue to thank God and Joel Belz for calling me into WORLD and mentoring me. I hope to help others. At a time when many Americans read and listen only to news that confirms existing biases or creates new ones, WORLD will continue to be often surprising and sometimes annoying, with allegiance not to human leaders but only to God.