As part of the relaunch this week of Southern Cross, Anglican Media is providing clergy better tools to assist them in promoting the newspaper.

The highlight is a professionally designed Power Point slide.

In a recent survey of lay leaders, distribution was found to be the major reason people don't read Southern Cross.

Half the laity who did not read the paper regularly listed distribution rather than content as the problem.

"Two thirds of these people said they would read Southern Cross more often if they were handed it at church," says Jeremy Halcrow, head of Anglican Media's print publications division.

"In truth, the problem with distribution should not be a surprise. More than 1 in 3 churches do nothing more to promote Southern Cross than leave it on the back table. Of the churches that hand out Southern Cross, most indicated this doesn't happen at every congregation, especially evening congregations."

However Mr Halcrow says he understands how busy clergy are, and that they have much more important things to think about on a Sunday than handing out Southern Cross.

"This is why we want to provide churches with ready-to-use promotional tools," he says.

To assist those rectors who use printed newsletter as their main communications tool, the SC team will also provide them with a story than can be easily cut and paste from an email.

All promotional resources highlight four of the main articles in the new Southern Cross.

These include the cover story on both the trials and the hopes of the 60 million Christians living in the Muslim-majority world.

The next issue of Southern Cross also includes a feature on the copyright traps for those in ministry titled "Are you a law-breaker?"

Click on the links in the fact-box above to down-load the SC promotional PowerPoint images.