Doug Ross, president emeritus of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA), has suggested that a group called the International Association of Christian Communicators (IACC) be launched to bring together existing organizations.

Writing in the March issue of the U.K.'s Christian Marketplace, Ross said that the new body could combine CBA, ECPA, the National Religious Broadcasters, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Evangelical Press Association, the Christian Management Association and others, including church leaders.

"The benefit would be a sharing of ideas, so that the clergy knows what publishing is doing, and Christian retail would have a channel of communication to other ministries," he wrote in his regular column in the magazine.

President of the ECPA from 1988 to 2004, Ross said that changes in industry practices, including ordering and trade shows, meant that the place of associations was changing. While individual organizations still played an important role, when the likes of the Gospel Music Association were so financially challenged that its president resigned and it became a volunteer-led group, "you must stop and wonder about a better approach."

A new umbrella body would take time, hard work and humility, he said. "We might all have to give up some territory. We would have to work together." But the result could be "a truly worldwide, international association where we all can learn and sell and work together to advance the cause of Jesus Christ."