{"id":87,"date":"2008-12-08T11:19:47","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T11:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html"},"modified":"2008-12-08T11:19:47","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T11:19:47","slug":"again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html","title":{"rendered":"Again: Why is Focus on the Family cutting jobs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gazette.com\/articles\/focus_44548___article.html\/layoffs_williams.html\">The Colorado Springs Gazette revisits the issue<\/a>. They quote yours truly to the effect that Focus&#8217; influence among younger evangelicals appears to be waning. The balance of the article suggests that my guess-timation is misguided, and that Focus&#8217; decline has more to do with an overall economic decline, changes in technology that require fewer employees, etc. Could be, and it&#8217;s definitely true that Focus has never been the darling of the young adult set in any event.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What&#8217;s most interesting and curious about the article, though, is this comment from Focus&#8217; COO, Glenn Williams: &#8220;<span class=\"Apple-style-span\">The reach is more expansive and the demand has intensified.&#8221; Seriously? 400 jobs cut since 2003 while demand for Focus products is <span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\">growing<\/span>?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">The article doesn&#8217;t explore whether that&#8217;s a toss-off PR line or if there&#8217;s some substance to back it up. It does mention that Focus&#8217; budget was higher than ever until October, but doesn&#8217;t ask whether the budget matched revenue.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">I&#8217;d be interested to know what the Christians who read this blog think of Focus on the Family. Do you like their materials on parenting? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitsend.org\/\">Adventures in Odyssey<\/a>? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pluggedinonline.com\/\">Plugged In<\/a>? But not the political action wing? Or do you appreciate their political voice, and forget that they are, in fact, mostly a family helps ministry? Do you embrace\/reject Focus wholeheartedly? Or are they not on your radar at all?<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Colorado Springs Gazette revisits the issue. They quote yours truly to the effect that Focus&#8217; influence among younger evangelicals appears to be waning. The balance of the article suggests that my guess-timation is misguided, and that Focus&#8217; decline has more to do with an overall economic decline, changes in technology that require fewer employees,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Again: Why is Focus on the Family cutting jobs? - Text Messages<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Again: Why is Focus on the Family cutting jobs? - Text Messages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Colorado Springs Gazette revisits the issue. They quote yours truly to the effect that Focus&#8217; influence among younger evangelicals appears to be waning. The balance of the article suggests that my guess-timation is misguided, and that Focus&#8217; decline has more to do with an overall economic decline, changes in technology that require fewer employees,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Text Messages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-08T11:19:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patton Dodd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Again: Why is Focus on the Family cutting jobs? - Text Messages","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Again: Why is Focus on the Family cutting jobs? - Text Messages","og_description":"The Colorado Springs Gazette revisits the issue. They quote yours truly to the effect that Focus&#8217; influence among younger evangelicals appears to be waning. The balance of the article suggests that my guess-timation is misguided, and that Focus&#8217; decline has more to do with an overall economic decline, changes in technology that require fewer employees,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html","og_site_name":"Text Messages","article_published_time":"2008-12-08T11:19:47+00:00","author":"Patton Dodd","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html","name":"Again: Why is Focus on the Family cutting jobs? - Text Messages","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-08T11:19:47+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-08T11:19:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/#\/schema\/person\/186e2b80f15c2a749e18f6781b9e4dbe"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/12\/again-why-is-focus-on-the-fami.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Again: Why is Focus on the Family cutting jobs?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/","name":"Text Messages","description":"Christianity and culture with Patton Dodd","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/#\/schema\/person\/186e2b80f15c2a749e18f6781b9e4dbe","name":"Patton Dodd","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ea6\/ea67ccdc30915dc0263069ec4253344bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ea6\/ea67ccdc30915dc0263069ec4253344bx96.jpg","caption":"Patton Dodd"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/author\/pdodd"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}