Making prayerful plans

WORLD’s editorial council held its second annual meeting this past week. Or maybe more accurately: The council held its first annual follow-­­up to its inaugural meeting, which took place in December 2021.

Some reminders about what our editorial ­council is and how it works: We announced the council back in July 2021 as we prepared for the coming retirement of our editor in chief. We empowered the council as a leadership group to help coordinate among our print, online, and digital broadcast platforms, and to discuss questions that emerge in our quest for Biblical objectivity.

We envisioned that the group of leaders that make up the council essentially would replace the editor in chief, even while the editors of our ­platforms would have a lot of autonomy week by week. During the meeting last week, we reminded ourselves of the miracles of God’s providential care in the form of accomplishments of our editorial team under the leadership of the editorial council. It was a breathtaking and humbling time of reflection on God’s strength in our weakness. It also was a time of rejoicing and praise for the good gifts God gave us in the past year.

The council also made plans for the year—and years—ahead. I’ll share more about that here in future columns. I coordinated the council long enough to facilitate the many organizational transitions that took place in 2022. By this month’s one-year anniversary meeting, the council felt ready to name a chair. We asked Nick Eicher to serve, and he said yes.

If you’ve been with WORLD for a while, and especially if you’ve been with WORLD for a very long while, you’ll recognize Nick’s name. He was the editor of WORLD Magazine when I came to the organization in 2003, and it seems like he has filled nearly every editorial role at some point in his 32 years here.

From 2005, when Joel stepped down as CEO, until 2008, Nick even had a stint on the “business” side of WORLD, serving as CEO himself. But Nick is a journalist at heart, and he longed to return to an editorial role, which he did in 2008 when I took on my current role. From 2008 through 2014 Nick led WORLD’s digital expansion and its foray into radio (and podcasting). In 2014, his editorial leadership was formalized in his promotion to chief content officer, to whom the editor in chief and ­individual platform editors reported.

Those reporting relationships went away with the introduction of the editorial council, but Nick’s leadership and vision will help the council and the entire WORLD editorial team thrive in 2023, as the Lord allows.