Life hack videos are super-popular on the internet. A life hack is like a shortcut to life—discovering a fresh use or purpose of an object to make life easier. With cheerful, upbeat music, the video’s subject, often just a pair of hands, will show you how to boil an egg properly, how to make your child’s costume, how to decorate a cake or even how to use peanut butter to create a crystal.
My wife discovered a video about how to fold clothes for travel (rolling them) and it “revolutionised” the way she packed for trips.
There is a reason these videos are so popular. They transcend language barriers, reach millions of viewers, hold the promise that anyone could achieve these new skills and are often quite short. Some of the tips you will attempt at home, and maybe they will save you time or even just provide some novelty factor.
Yet, more often than not, we will never try the ideas we see. We are content just to know and understand an object’s use without having to do anything about it.
The value of these videos is that they help us to understand and repurpose objects in the world around us. But the value is only realised if we put these insights into practice.
In this age of life hacks, we’ve had to grapple with what Adventist Record is and does. No, we are not moving into making life hacks or “church hacks”. . . (although leave it with me, there may be something useful in that thought).
Yet in some ways, the past few years have seen us adjust, relearn and look at ways to optimise Adventist Record in both delivery and content.
We’ve followed DIY tips from the pages of magazines into the digital realms of social media and video.
You may not know that Record produces at least two pieces of video content a week—Record Wrap, our weekly Adventist news clip, and #RecordLive, an in-depth, interactive conversation about faith, church life and what’s happening, both of which appear weekly on our Facebook page. We produce or share other videos as well, such as the writing tips series, produced with the help of AMN West. [pullquote]
Every day we have stories go up on our website and social media. There’s a weekly email newsletter with all the highlights of the week, a link to the Record PDF and any video content, delivered right to your inbox.
While some of us may fondly remember the days of receiving Record weekly, the fortnightly edition gives us more value, with more pages than the weekly magazine in full colour and some gap weeks to highlight conference newsletters and Adventist World.
Digital has certainly helped with submissions as well. Most of the submissions I receive are now via email, making communication with our correspondents across the South Pacific instant and convenient. Anyone with internet access can now submit stories, photos, notices and letters at the click of a button.
Using the same resources and team at our disposal, we’ve tried to optimise your opportunity for engagement and enjoyment, catering to new audiences and demographics, all while our core remains the same.
Adventist Record is part of the family. We still have the same purpose of telling our stories, building our community and sharing our hope. Personally, my passion has always been communicating faith in a simple, authentic and practical way. We want to inspire action not just increase a passive audience. Adventist Record exists for all of us—for you and our Adventist community.
Like the life hack videos, hopefully we can encourage you to try something useful, in living out or sharing your faith. It may just revolutionise your life.
But Adventist Record wouldn’t exist without you. Without you reading, writing and submitting, there is no way we could do what we do. And this Sabbath, your Adventist Record offering will help us to continue to deliver content that is relevant and timely through as many platforms as we can.
Adventist Record is more than just a magazine.
