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Throughout 2003, Kingdom Ventures experienced problems executing its business plan of both running a newspaper and tapping the Christian market with specialized products and services.

For example:

• Kingdom Ventures and Keener Communications, publisher of Christian Times before it sold that name to Kingdom, had a complex contract allowing both parties to publish newspapers. But that agreement fell apart within months. After the deal was signed in June, owner Lamar Keener said Kingdom misrepresented their arrangement. "They made it look a lot more significant; that they bought more than they really did." Keener, whose newspaper has been renamed Christian Examiner, said Kingdom's actions have confused Keener's readers and clients.

• Last year, shortly after going public, Kingdom bought XtremeNotebooks, which manufactures notebook computers. But Kingdom sold the company back to its former owners less than a year later.

• Last August, Kingdom agreed to buy a company that mails advertising card decks to churches and ministries. By the beginning of December, Kingdom returned Ministry Values for Growing Churches to its previous owner.

• Last September, Kingdom announced plans to buy the American Association of Christian Counselors, the largest Christian counseling organization in the country. The AACC hosts conferences and provides training and literature. Kingdom claimed the alliance would add $10 million in revenues. But by December 15, the deal was dead.

• In January 2004, Kingdom's Nevada landlord sued the company in a tenancy dispute, according to court officials. The case is still unresolved.

On behalf of Kingdom Ventures, Gene Jackson denies any wrongdoing in connection with these soured business deals.

The relationship between Christian Times Today and its publisher, Kingdom Ventures, Inc., reveals the potential hazards of mixing business and ministry.

To investors, Kingdom sells itself as a fast-growing company with high profit potential. But to Christian readers, Christian Times Today sells itself as a vehicle for church unity and a tool for potent outreach to "our world culture." Previous attempts by a national newspaper to balance business with evangelical ministry have not fared well. Campbell University's Smith says, "I can't think of anything more difficult than starting a Christian newspaper." In 2000, Smith and two other scholars published their research on the failed national Christian newspaper, the National Courier (1975-77), in the book Media and Religion in American History.

That biweekly, owned by book publisher Logos International, labeled itself "America's Christian Newspaper," and Bob Slosser, a veteran journalist from The New York Times, was editor. "Many of the National Courier's complications can be traced to its failure to discover a balance between being a business and a ministry," the scholars observed.

Niles Logue, an economics professor at Gordon College, looked at the quarterly financial statement Kingdom filed last May with the SEC, the only statement independently audited. The statement reported that Kingdom had a net income of $688,000. However, the same statement showed a negative cash flow from operations of $2.8 million. "It doesn't appear that they've generated any positive cash flow from their operation," Logue says. But media startups often lose money for years. For example, Gannett's USA Today was unprofitable for 15 years or more after its 1982 launch.

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June 2004, Vol. 48, No. 6