c. 2006 Religion News Service
LOS ANGELES _ A new documentary film on the strategies behind one evangelical Christian missionary group shows the power of mass media and marketing to reach even the world’s most remote outposts.
“The Tailenders,” which debuts July 25 on PBS, is a portrait of Global Recordings Network (GRN), an organization committed to recording Bible stories in every one of the world’s 8,000-plus languages and dialects and to evangelizing with those recordings around the world.
“I think the film is about media and how powerful of a tool it can be in changing whole belief systems,” the film’s director, Adele Horne, said in an interview.
GRN, which was founded in Los Angeles in 1939 by Joy Ridderhoff, has a vault of recordings with Bible stories in more than 5,400 languages and dialects, including some that are seldom spoken or nearly extinct. The missionary group reaches out to “tailenders” _ people yet to be visited by Christian missionaries and whose languages are fading as globalization continues to extend its reach.
Alex Shaw, a GRN missionary, is seen in the film training others to follow “the five steps of selling,” in preparing a program: getting attention, holding interest, creating conviction, developing desire, and helping decide.
“One of the things I learned in making the film was the extent to which GRN uses the principles of advertising and marketing,” Horne said. “They do market research of the audiences, trying to get the message that is best suited for a particular group _ their hopes and fears and desires _ much like advertisers do.”
GRN missionaries also learn to build trust, using language as a common link to make the “tailender” comfortable. According to the documentary, GRN can bring a taste of home to migrant workers who are far from their native land and no longer have the opportunity to speak or hear their language.
The documentary also highlights the GRN missionaries’ use of low-tech means, such as cheap, durable hand-powered radios, because they often travel to areas with little or no electricity.
DSB/RB END BHATTACHARYA
Editors: To obtain photos of Adele Horne, director of “The Tailenders,” and and a archival photos from GRN, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.
