iBelieve.com Partners With United Methodist Reporter

Posted on June 6, 2000

Christian lifestyle site iBelieve.com has announced it has signed a partnership agreement with the United Methodist Reporter, a weekly newspaper serving the Methodist denomination and the third largest religious newspaper in North America.

Grand Rapids, Mich.-based iBelieve.com said the alliance represents a joint content and marketing agreement between the two organizations. Articles from the United Methodist Reporter, a 250,000-circulation weekly newspaper of UMR Communications, will be featured in the content sections at iBelieve.com. In turn, iBelieve.com will be featured on the UMR Communications' Reporter Interactive website a companion site and in their print publication.

``We are very pleased to be aligned with United Methodist Reporter,'' said Jef Fite, president of iBelieve.com. ``As a leading voice of The United Methodist Church, it is a well respected and widely read publication. We look forward to working with them to accomplish our shared mission -- to provide information and resources for Christians worldwide.

United Methodist Reporter is a weekly newspaper published by UMR Communications, a Dallas-based nonprofit religious communications network. Since 1996, UMR Communications has been active on the Internet with its Website, Reporter Interactive. The organization made a major commitment to electronic publishing during the recent United Methodist General Conference when, for the first time, its news stories were published daily on Reporter Interactive and then transferred into print for the weekly United Methodist Reporter. In addition, UMR published Webcast news reports for the first time in May.

``The Internet offers a fast, powerful medium for disseminating our messages to people around the world,'' said the Rev. Ronald P. Patterson, publisher and CEO of UMR Communications. ``A partnership with a leading site like iBelieve.com allows us to communicate the message of Christ to a whole new audience that we might not otherwise have reached.''