A group long absent from any mass medium ? more than 20 years, in fact ? is showing faith in cable advertising.

Based in Nashville, the United Methodist Church this month launched a four-year, $20 million nationwide campaign called ?Igniting Ministry,? the centerpiece of which is the $16 million purchase of commercials across 15 cable networks. Another $4 million will be used for local and regional buys, mostly on broadcast stations.

According to Steve Horswill-Johnston, a minister who is executive director of the campaign, the aims of the advertisements, which use the tagline ?Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors,? are to heighten awareness of the Methodist denomination and to increase first-time attendance at member churches. Once those goals are attained, Horswill-Johnston says, the church can move on to imparting its basic beliefs and missions.

The United Methodist Church is launching the campaign nationally on A&E, Discovery Channel, MSNBC, Univision, USA, the Hallmark Channel, CNN Headline News, CNN, BET, the History Channel, TBS, Lifetime, TNT, the Weather Channel and, presumably to catch the lower end of its target audience (ages 25 to 54), VH1. The only broadcast network airing the United Methodist Church's ads is CBS, which aired about ten ads early in the flight, Horswill-Johnston says.

The campaign will run during the back-to-school period, ending September 30. It will pick up again during two other times of the year that draw many churchgoers ? Christmas and Lent.

To supplement the national campaign ? and to let people know where to go for services ? individual churches are being encouraged to participate in the campaign with local ads on television, radio and billboards. The United Methodist Church for this year has apportioned $1 million to be used to match local spending, up to $50,000 per application.

In some cases, churches are buying ads individually; elsewhere churches within a market ? sometimes hundreds ? are banding together to buy commercial time. For 2001, United Methodist Church received 112 applications for matching funds and approved 34 from groups encompassing about 1,500 individual congregations.

Horswill-Johnston adds that many churches that won't receive matching funds are participating in the campaign. Of the 36,000 Methodist churches in the U.S., he says, probably 15,000 to 20,000 are advertising.

About 85% of the local advertisements are on broadcast stations, says Peggy Owen, a spokesperson for the Buntin Group, a Nashville advertising agency that produced the spots for the church and coordinates much of the local media buying.

In cases where there are few churches in a DMA (designated market area) and there isn't enough money available for broadcast, they'll buy cable, where ads are less expensive.

For $89.95, each local Methodist church gets a ?media planner,? which includes three CDs and two VHS tapes with previews of Igniting Ministry advertisements, as well as door hangers and direct-mail graphics, among other materials.

The ads are customizable for specific areas and regions. The United Methodist Church in Nashville will customize TV spots in-house, at no charge to the local congregation.

For the September campaign, Horswill-Johnston says, the church processed 300 to 400 orders and customized 1,000 different tapes for local markets. So far the church has sold 17,000 kits and expects to sell 10,000 more by year-end.

Horswill-Johnston says that churches may still participate in the campaign even if they don't buy a planning kit.

The church and the Buntin Group have created 14 different advertisements. They're solemn scenes, mostly ? close-ups of a fence in the rain, for example, or a small girl sleeping. In a voice-over someone will talk about how long it's been since he's laughed, or about the heavy responsibility of preparing a child for the world. The spots end by offering ?open hearts, open minds, open doors? at the Methodist church.

According to Horswill-Johnston, this week the United Methodist Church begins measuring the campaign's effectiveness. Prince Market Research, a Nashville testing firm, will do phone surveys to see whether the church's brand awareness has increased and whether the advertising has made the image of the Methodist denomination more favorable to viewers.

Newcomers are also being tracked at 125 churches in order to determine how viewers are responding to the campaign, because ultimately, Horswill-Johnston says, the church wants to know: ?Are they more willing to attend church??

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