By Martyn Wendell Jones

Christ & Pop Culture does collaboration like nobody’s business but the Lord’s. Thanks to our editorial team’s constant pitching, debating, refining, researching, writing, and editing, we have shelves full of certified grade-A content week to week for your metered consumption. The following monthly report flows out of the same vein that fuels the CaPC collective brain, and is intended to give you insights into the heart of the site. Here you’ll find comings and goings, chance encounters, and other oddities related to the ongoing production and maintenance of Christ & Pop Culture.

April showers became May showers pretty seamlessly. We’re also sort of at a loss for which showers were ultimately responsible for the month’s flowers, which will likely themselves morph into June’s flowers without clearly demarcating their months of origin. More on this story as it blooms.

The Team

  • May found many on our staff preparing for large moves. Managing editor Alan Noble and his family prepared for an interstate move to Oklahoma for Alan’s new tenure-track university job. Staff writer Nick Rynerson moved to Wheaton, IL to begin work at a Christian publishing house just in time to miss associate editor Martyn Wendell Jones’s move away from Wheaton to Madison, WI to take up a post as a technical writer for a medical records software company.
  • Dawn Cherie Araujo also moved during the month of May. She is now a reporter in Kansas and reports that she has been putting her press hat to very good use indeed.
  • On the first Friday night in May numerous CaPC members participated in a lengthy late-night digital soiree. The comment total came to almost 500. Movies were discussed, television shows and books weighed against one another, opinions were offered. Many reported feeling as though they’d had a pretty decent time, all things considered, and would they do it again? Well probably, they guessed.
  • Seth T. Hahne, CaPC‘s curmudgeonly illustrator, continued to be in pain from the injury incurred during a scooter accident. Recently he had laser beams shot into his funked-up shoulder for reasons we imagine to be related to his healing. Further inquiries regarding Seth’s condition were met with repetitions of the command “open the pod bay doors, Hal.”
  • Associate editor Tyler Glodjo began his PhD program in English and TESOL during the month of May. We pray that he teaches many to speak English in a 1950s idiom because otherwise why is he even doing the program?
  • Associate editor Martyn Wendell Jones went to Waco to visit a yard sale that Alan Noble and his family were hosting. When he arrived, he did not find Alan to be present because that’s what you get for trying to surprise someone in another state. Martyn now lives in Wisconsin and will likely never get to hang out with Alan. How can God be good?
  • Probably by ordaining the goofs and fumbles during podcast recordings that have become the raw materials for a podcast blooper reel that producer Cray Allred is putting together, is how.
  • The largest groups of people with connections to Christ & Pop Culture reside in Louisville, KY, and Lynchburg, VA. In May this continued to be true. There is also a growing Wheaton contingent, for the record.

The Work

  • GODZILLA came out in May. Many rejoiced. Kevin McLenithan’s two pieces on the King of Monsters drew large numbers of appreciative critical minds to the site. Elsewhere Staff Writer Derek Rishmawy wrote about GODZILLA in unmistakably Calvinist terms. He also decorated the top of his head with a painted bullseye, the better for the birds to hit their mark.
  • May also saw its share of tragedy. In the wake of the UC-Santa Barbara shootings managing editor Alan Noble and columnist Luke T. Harrington composed careful, honest pieces of reflection. Editor-in-chief Richard Clark wrote about what was going on behind the scenes as our editorial team did the hard work of weighing possible responses to the event. You can read his piece here.

Sustainability

  • In May we were pleased to observe the growth of Christ and Pop Culture’s membership program. As you know, this is our first step towards making the site financially sustainable, and we’ve got high hopes for it—high enough hopes, in fact, that we’ve mapped them out into successive stages.  You may continue to think of it in Super Mario World terms.
  • Stage One: After Richard and Alan hoist the flag over the conquered castle of Stage One, we’ll be able to start paying our staff writers, podcast producer, illustrator, and associate editors for their work. We’ll also be able to pay a larger amount for magazine features, which will grow the already-high quality of the CaPCMag. As of this writing, we are now over halfway to stage one of funding. High five! Thanks for helping us along in our dogged pursuit of the CaPC dream. 
  • Stage Two: This castle will be more difficult to overcome, but once we overcome it, staff writers will receive a larger amount for their monthly contributions.
  • Stage Three: After this castle has been stomped to rubble, we’ll be able to double the amount our podcast producer and illustrator receive.
  • Stage Four: By dint of sheer heroism Richard and Alan may conquer this castle. In the case of their victory, this stage will permit a bit of cash to cross the palms of our columnists, whose regular work helps to fortify the site’s editorial backbone.
  • Stage Five: Bonus world! This stage is visible in the distance. It holds the promise of full-time employment for a senior editor, which would be a first step towards the bustling, paper-cluttered, coffee-stained office our entire team dreams about.