Good News Holdings (GNH) announced a partnership yesterday with The Parable Group to handle online distribution for all product sales for Lights Together-touted as a MySpace-style online community for local churches.

The Lights Together platform allows for the formation of "Webchurches," which will create virtual congregations and enable local church members to connect with one another on the Internet, GNH officials said during the announcement at the International Christian Retail Show.

Parable CEO Steve Potratz said Lights Together "is the tool to get the church engaged (in Christian products)."

"It's the first real way of getting products to churchgoers every Sunday," Potratz said. "Lights Together offers a new paradigm for presenting resources to people in the context of relationships. There is an incredible opportunity to partner with product providers to effectively reach out to our target market. More importantly, this is a chance to put life-changing products into the hands of people who need it most and resoundingly impact the kingdom of God."

GNH officials were meeting with major publishers at ICRS to get them involved as ministry partners of Lights Together, which will provide ads for their products on custom Web sites for each congregation, said Good News co-founder Thom Black.

A multimedia company based in Los Angeles, GNH introduced Lights Together at CBA Advance in January with Send The Light (STL). However, Good News Holdings decided to partner with Parable because of personnel changes at STL and because Parable had the fulfillment capability for Lights Together, Black said.

"Parable will provide us with the functionality of (having) an online bookstore at home," Black told Christian Retailing. "It's been proven that you can increase sales in a store if you can increase sales online."

Potratz said the partnership is an opportunity to grow the Parable brand, expand its online offerings and connect with new customers.

Nelson Saba, who created Lights Together and the best-selling iLumina Bible software for Tyndale House Publishers, said there are currently 1,300 people representing 150 churches nationwide who are using the online platform, www.lightstogether.com.

Black said three denominations, including the Nazarene church with 6,000 congregations nationwide, have signed up for Lights Together. "Our goal is to have 15 denominations by the middle of fall," he said.

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