Anvil News & Appeal

As Anvil celebrates its 25th anniversary, we've just published a special edition guest edited by the journal's first editor, Peter Williams, containing four wonderful articles by David Bebbington, Michael Nazir-Ali, Peter Williams and George Carey. Information about this is available here

Along with that edition we have written an urgent letter to both current and recently lapsed subscribers with news of the journal because as we celebrate 25 years of Anvil we are faced with a challenge that threatens its future survival as a print journal. What follows explains the situation for those who have not received the letter.

We have been planning a move to provide more material online for some time. Earlier this year we decided that, to allow time for the Management Team (all of whom provide their services out of their own time and unpaid) to work on that transition and to save printing costs, we would reduce the number of issues in 2010 from four to three. The Trustees agreed this proposal at their meeting in May.

At our June Management Team meeting, however, it became clear that our subscription renewal this last year is significantly lower than expected: from our records, around 200 of our regular readers have not re-subscribed to the journal this year. This has major financial implications as it represents a fall in projected income of £4,000 in a year in which we were already budgeting to draw on reserves to cover high printing costs. This makes it look as if the print journal is not going to be sustainable for as long as we had hoped. Given current subscription levels and the difficulty of reversing the downward trend over several recent years (which has been experienced by other theology print journals and booklets and is not peculiar to Anvil), we currently will not be able to produce even 3 issues next year without spending all our reserves. We are also planning to combine the last two issues of this year into one bumper issue.

We are very grateful to the many subscribers who kindly responded to our questionnaire last year which has helped us as a Management Team and at our recent Trustees meeting. We were delighted with such a high response rate and thankful for so many who have supported the print journal over so many years. The results showed that many current subscribers greatly value the print journal and would regret the journal becoming a purely online journal. That is why we had hoped to continue with the print journal even as we sought to build our support base by reaching new markets and a wider and younger readership to secure Anvil’s future through the web. This plan now looks like it is not viable.

We are currently exploring two possibilities:

  1. Whether the print journal can continue through a formal partnership of some form with another body or bodies who share Anvil's vision and passion for resourcing the church with mission theology.
  2. To move more rapidly to online resources, providing an archive of past articles for readers on the web so that younger leaders can benefit from this great resource, and producing a journal online but not in print. This will have some costs - both to produce an online archive and to continue providing good quality new material - but much less than those of producing a print journal. It is, however, unlikely to provide much income.

The Management Team will make decisions relating to the future at a meeting in early September when the subscription and financial situation will hopefully be clearer.

We are asking all those who support Anvil to express this support in at least one of the following four ways:

  1. PRAY – We believe that God has a future for Anvil building on his work through the journal in the last 25 years. Please pray that the Management Team and the Trustees will discern what that future is and have the wisdom, time and energy to develop the journal and continue its vision.

  2. ADVISE – Please do feel free to write to me with ideas and comments at editor@anviljournal.co.uk and I will circulate emails to the Management Team.

  3. SUBSCRIBE - If you have not already done so, please (re-)subscribe to Anvil in 2009 and think if you can recommend the journal to others. Subscribe online at www.anviljournal.co.uk, or post your payment of £20 to Anvil Journal, Ridley Hall Road, Cambridge, CB3 9HU. Please make cheques payable to "Anvil Trust".

  4. GIVE - After the initial gifts to launch the journal, we have largely survived on the basis of subscription income and it is the reduction of this base over recent years that has created the current difficulties. If you would like to give to help secure the future of Anvil and help us provide an online archive from the last twenty-five years then please send your donation to

Anvil Journal, "25 Year Appeal", Ridley Hall Road, Cambridge, CB3 9HU.

(Please make cheques payable to "Anvil Trust".)

Thank you again for all your support of the journal.

Yours in Christ,

Andrew Goddard
Editor, on behalf of the Anvil Management Team

June 2009