By Bill Webb
Word&Way Editor
Word&Way continues to seek and find ways to be even more useful to our constituents. In some issues, you will note our 
emphasis pages and columns on family life, young people and wellness. These columns and pages — and others — are ways that we reach out with practical information for life from a Christian perspective.
For a few years now, we have run a Bible crossword puzzle in every issue. Many of our older readers use this feature to test and increase their Bible knowledge. We are glad we can provide helps from the cradle through senior adulthood. In fact, many readers have told us they have had Word&Way in their homes for as long as they can remember.
We are proud of some special partnerships we have long enjoyed. One of those, of course, is our ongoing relationship with subscribers, many of them individual subscribers, even more who subscribe through one of our economical church group plans. Subscribers have been with us from our humble start in 1896 (though we're pretty sure we no longer have any charter subscribers on our mailing list!).
For nearly 20 congregations, an association and another Christian group, we team up to provide a personalized back page — a church newsletter page — to add value to the newspaper and save time, money and headaches for the churches. It remains one of our best services.
We also team with entities like The Baptist Home, Baptist General Convention of Missouri and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Missouri to print special newsletter pages that go to all of our readers. Anyone with a relationship to any of these entities should be reading Word&Way.
We are attempting to involve our readers in some new activities, like our "Best of Baptist Life Awards" competition. You can read about it in our newspaper or here on the Web site. It should be a fun way to affirm people, churches and services across Missouri.
But if you were to distill Word&Way down to its reason for being, you would fine our mission and vision statements. Our mission: "We exist to provide Baptists with accurate, timely, relevant information with balanced reporting." Our vision: "We will inspire and challenge our readers to grow in Christ-likeness and to a deeper involvement in Baptist life."
We have a reputation for reliability and trustworthiness, and that's what attracts our readers and friends who donate special gifts to help us continue to be an indispensable ministry for all Missouri Baptists.