Charisma Media is a Christian multimedia company known for the last 30 years as Strang Communications. The name change was a part of a company-wide rebranding that went into effect Feb. 1, 2011.
The name change correlates with a series of recent corporate shifts, including relaunching the company’s flagship magazine and renaming its book division. Founder and CEO Steve Strang says the moves not only position Charisma Media for growth in the digital age, but also undergird the organization’s purpose of inspiring people to radically change their world through the diversified resources the company produces.
Charisma Media is best known for its magazines such as Charisma, Ministry Today and Christian Retailing. But its book group, now called Charisma House, has grown rapidly in recent years with 10 books on the New York Times best-sellers list and has become the largest part of the company. The Spanish group, called Casa Creación, was the fastest-growing part of the organization in 2009. And the company is moving boldly into digital products that include a free Charisma News app, electronic books, many e-newsletters, a robust website and digital editions of its magazines that have readership in the top tier of digital magazines nationally.
Long recognized as an innovator, the company has become known as the leading charismatic/Pentecostal publisher in the world. Multiple industry leaders and distributors have acknowledged it as the premier publisher of charismatic titles and health books from a Christian perspective.
Many of the company’s staff have been recognized for excellence in various ways, mostly through the Evangelical Press Association and the Florida Magazine Association. The Spanish Evangelical Products Association named Casa Creación Publisher of the Year four years in a row. The company also recently had five books sell more than 1 million copies—most recently 23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Weise and Heaven Is So Real by Choo Thomas. The company staff also reflects the ethnic diversity of the church market it serves, with 43 percent of the staff being considered “minority.”
Steve Strang, as a 24-year-old newspaper reporter, persuaded the leaders of megachurch Calvary Assembly in Winter Park, Fla., to start a small magazine called Charisma in 1975. After rapid growth the magazine spun off on its own within six years into the company now called Charisma Media. Since that time, Strang’s wife, Joy, has helped him as co-owner to build the company, serving not only as Chief Financial Officer but also in other strategic roles, such as heading up the current rebranding process.
In 1986 the company took over the publishing of Christian Life Inc, founded by Robert Walker, whose Christian Life magazine stretches back to 1939.
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