Top-Selling Pastor Rick Warren Goes Quarterly

To be sold as part of a bundle of multimedia products, its backers hope will connect Christians to each other and God. A subscription includes access to a Facebook-like Christian social-media Web site and DVD guides for leading a prayer group.

In some respects, the venture represents a sweet spot for publishers, who often think of their brands not as magazines but as tools to unite a community around a shared interest. The new publication has a headliner with legions of loyal disciples linked by their devotion to a subject far more profound than home furnishings or celebrity gossip.

Yet Mr. Warren and Reader's Digest, partners in the project, would be hard-pressed to choose a tougher time to launch a magazine. The economic downturn has accelerated advertising declines and is forcing publishers to slash jobs, curtail circulation and frequency and close titles.

"I think most advertisers will take a wait-and-see approach" to Purpose Driven Connection, says George Janson, managing partner and director of print for Mediaedge:cia, a media buying firm owned by WPP.

The religious zeal that has made Mr. Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life," such a popular figure in the real world can be problematic in magazine publishing. Consumer advertisers can be loath to associate their brands with products that appear to champion one religion, for fear of alienating customers of other faiths, says Mr. Janson.

Hearst reportedly planned to give O, the Oprah Magazine another name, Oprah's Spirit, but co-founder Oprah Winfrey worried about a perception that she was attempting to influence readers' religious views. An O spokeswoman said Oprah's Spirit was among several titles the magazine's founders considered but she declined to comment on why it was scrapped.

The religious category's dominant player, Guideposts, which has a monthly circulation of two million, is studiously nondenominational. Its mission is to help people maximize their "personal and spiritual potential." Cover stories often focus on secular topics like cooking and weight loss.

Still, Mr. Warren, whose message emphasizes deeds over doctrine, says his book's success shows there is a huge audience of people with some connection to Christianity, or at least a willingness to embrace it. "There's a flat-out segment of Americans who are unashamed followers of Jesus Christ," Mr. Warren said. "We're not trying to make this a magazine for everybody."

With an estimated 100 million evangelical Christians in the U.S. alone, according to studies, the venture doesn't need to have broader appeal to be successful, says Alyce Alston, president of Reader's Digest's Health & Wellness and Home & Garden segments. "My focus and goal has been on creating products that have huge demand among a Christian audience," Ms. Alston says. "If I can do that well, it will monetize itself."

One of advantages of the new venture might be that its founders consider it a consumer product first and an advertising vehicle second, and they say they don't have to rely on advertising for success.

Reader's Digest will charge $30 for a subscription to its bundle of Purpose Driven Connection-related products that includes a Christian social-networking site to be launched in February. The idea is to envelop subscribers in a multimedia web of Mr. Warren's message.

The strategy for the new venture follows a broader transformation of Reader's Digest, which came under new ownership and management in early 2007. Since then, President and Chief Executive Mary Berner and her team of fellow Condé Nast alumni have shaken up a sleepy company that for years revolved around its namesake publication. Under Ms. Berner, the Pleasantville, N.Y., company has reorganized its 92 magazines and 65 Web sites according to "consumer affinities" like Food & Entertaining.