It was almost a year ago when I sent my friend Rocky Supinger a text message that read: “I want to start a magazine with you.”

Because of your generosity through subscribing, writing for us, and spreading the word, that desire has become a reality. PLGRM Magazine has published two of it’s first four planned issues by featuring some incredible book excepts, interviews, essays and art helping us to explore the ideas behind what Diana Butler Bass calls the “New Spiritual Awakening.” It’s an exciting project. Indeed, as one subscriber has said, “There’s just nothing like it.”

One of the key ideas fueling the New Spiritual Awakening is that relationships are assuming a place of primacy. Our friends are become the center of our spiritual life. People are, once again, becoming the most important thing about the Christian Faith, as they should be.

PLGRM Magazine has already proven itself to be a capable and exciting forum for exploring the ideas of the New Spiritual Awakening. Now, we’d like to begin exploring the people behind it.

When I first meet other church folk I am certainly interested in hearing what they think about our faith, but I’m just as interested when I meet a pastor from Pittsburgh who geeks out on home brewing and wants to tell me all about it. I’m as inclined to listen to someone wax on about Process Theology as I am to listen to them share about their love of science-fiction. As deeply as they can go into the nooks and crannies of our shared life together, I know that there is a multitude of awesome in there that I know nothing about, but that informs everything they say, do, and believe.

I so badly want to discover those pieces of awesome.

PLGRM Magazine is evolving, and it will no longer simply be a place to think and write about the church. We want it to be a place where we focus on people who love the church and everything that appeals to them. Sort of a lifestyle mag for church geeks. You know, geeks like us?

Beginning February 15 we are going to begin publishing a regular digital edition, called The Narthex. The Narthex will publish four articles, twice a month, straight to your email inbox.

      Writing for The Narthex

The Christian blogosphere has a lot of great writing, and The Narthex does not seek to replace it. Rather, we want to supplement it as another creative outlet. Our writers will retain full rights to their work, and are free to publish their pieces to their own blogs and networks a month after they appear in this collection.

If you think this is the kind of place for you to stretch your wings as a writer, please send us a piece. We’re looking for 1000-1500 word long articles on whatever is of interest to you. No lie. If it matters to you, then it matters to us.

And we’re paying. Not much at first, but we’re paying.

      How’s It Gonna Work?

We’re beginning with a simple email newsletter, but we might evolve the format into something else. We’re not sure. We want to see if this thing flies.

We’re not doing another Kickstarter. We’re not going to raise any more money. We’re going to build this piece from the ground up by asking for subscriptions of $2 per month. Trust me, with the pieces we’ve got coming in, it’ll be worth it.

Our only cost is paying writers, and I’m committing enough to make sure we can publish 6 issues, three months of writing goodness. If we haven’t been able to cover the costs by then, we’ll shut it down. No harm, no foul.

PLGRM will still publish the final two issues we’ve promised. In fact, we’d love to treat PLGRM, in part, as an archive of The Narthex’s best pieces, and we’d love to include you in figuring out which of those qualify. But “going digital” in this way will allow us to make PLGRM an even more substantial publication, committing our energies to interviews, finding brand new long-form writing, and beautiful and inspiring art.

      Please Join Us

If you think this is the kind of thing you would love, head over to our subscription page and sign up. We’d love to have you.