The new ec: devotions

I talked with you a little last week about the reasons why we felt ec had to undergo a complete overhaul. And if you've even peeked inside the October issue, you've probably noticed that while a lot of the stuff you love about ec is still there, there's also a bunch of new things. And one of the most striking differences is going to be the devotions.

If you're a long-time ec reader and fan of the devotional aspect of the magazine, the new ec devotions might set you back a little. But in a good way. Over the past few years, the ec team has talked a lot about the best way to do devotions in ec. Taking them out of the magazine was never really on the table, since devotions are an important, vital part of ec and one of the magazine's founding principles 13 years ago. And while completely ditching devos wasn't an option, pretty much everything else was. Meaning the way the devos were written, how many we included for each month, what we wanted devotions to do in your life.

So we started asking ourselves a lot of questions. Was our current devo writing style really the best? What did we want you to take away from ec devotions, both on a daily level and over the long haul? Did our current style meet your needs?

So we dreamed of new ways to write devotions. We talked to each other. A lot. I took several days away from the office and sat in coffee houses and my desk at home, plotting out my ideas and writing sample devotions. We shopped those around to writers and teens at various focus group meetings and refined, reworked, and refocused. The end result is what you see in the October issue.

The first big difference you'll notice is that the devotions are all grouped by weeks rather than dates. Depending on the month, there will be four or five weeks of devotions in each issue. Each week contains 6 devos (one for the weekend and one each for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday).

An intro page will open each week and explain the over-arching theme for the week—the theme all of the devotions will be dealing with in some way. You'll start the week with the weekend devotions, which follow the familiar "story" devo style you're used to if you've read ec's devotions for awhile. The M-F devos follow a new format designed to teach you how to dig into Scripture and study it for yourself. The last paragraph of each day is designed to help you understand the one big truth we want you to take home for the week. We've also included a "journal" page at the end of each week, which is designed to help you see what it means to put the truths you've studied into practice this week—how to make God's truth "known" to the world. You'll also find suggestions on how to go deeper in Scripture about those topics and guides to help you read through the Bible in a year.

Our goal with this new style of devotions is to help you learn to read Scripture and really study it. We want you to see that God's Word does have something to say about your life today. We want you to know it, read it, love it. We want you to search Scripture and understand more about the God you serve. The new style of devos is our way of helping you along that journey.

So dig into God's Word. It has the power to change lives.

Times they are a-changing

When we said new, we weren’t joking. When we said redesign, we meant it. Or, as we like to say around the ec offices, this ain’t your daddy’s ec.

And if you’ve gotten a peek at the new, improved ec, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The redesigned ec magazine has probably already found its way to your churches and shown up in your mailboxes. And if you’ve looked at it at all, you’ve probably noticed it’s not quite. . . . the same. And that’s a good thing. (Or at least we think so!)

That said, I’d like to spend some time talking to you about the changes you’re going to see. And I want to do more than just tell you that we made changes. I also want to tell you why.

Understand this: we didn’t go into this redesign and just make changes because we thought it might be fun to switch things up. We made changes because over the past year or so, we’ve been taking a good hard look at ec and evaluating the magazine. Does it say what we want it to? Does it achieve what our readers want it to? Is our way the best way to handle devos, stories, and issues teens are facing.

The truth: the resounding answer to that question was no. After conversations with teens all over the place—about devotions, stories, music, and magazines in general—we came the conclusion that our way probably wasn’t the best way. Our magazine wasn’t the magazine you needed it to be.

So change had to come.

And that’s what you’ll see with the new, improved ec magazine. We’re very aware that we don’t have all the answers, but we also know that we know the One who does. We fully recognize that we’re older than you and your high school experience isn’t the same as ours and we’re not afraid to say that you have it tough. We want to walk through all of this with you—disappointments, college decisions, dating, acne, music, depression, school, and dealing with your families. WE don’t know everything, but we want to walk through it all with you and point you to a God who never leaves you, forgets you, or falls asleep.

We hope you recognize that in the redesigned ec. The changes we’ve made don’t just include paper size and colors, but an attitude and voice. You know more than we give you credit for, and we want you to see what it means to really live for Christ in this crazy world. We want to encourage you, to walk beside you, to tell you what we’ve learned along the way. We want to keep you from the mistakes we’ve made and spur you on to a new level in your relationship with Christ.

So check back over the next week or so. We’ll be detailing the specific changes and talking about the reasoning behind those changes. First up (on Monday): devotions.