A Few Brief Notes and Website Updates!, Christian Blog, Christian Blogs, ChristianBlog.Com

A Few Brief Notes and Website Updates!

Hello Everybody,

Four quick issues I would like to share:

(1) First up is a bit of personal news.

A few months back we began looking for a new place to operate ChristianBlog.Com and all of the other 4CM Network ministry operations from. As I run 4CM Network out of my personal residence I have come to discover that the place I have been living in for the last five years has gotten too small and the "bad part of town" has started to works its way to where I have lived.

Last week we finalized approval for a place that is twice as big, in a part of town that is made up of mostly retired folks, and a place that I think will be a great new staging area for expanding the entire 4CM Network Ministries.

It is going to cost us about 1/3rd more per month but thanks to a handful or two of folks from ChristianBlog.Com and another website I operate, I truly believe that we will be able to afford the new place without any additional financial stress. As some of you know I have been personally covering the costs of ChristianBlog.Com for over three years, so the last three months of you'all stepping up and helping to cover the costs has been a true God-send! (more on that later)

Here is the kicker though... anytime you move there is a transition period for basic services (gas, water, electricity, internet, etc). I am trying to hard to make sure that the new place will have internet BEFORE we move in - but I just cannot say for sure if it will or not. I truly do hope that I will not be without internet for anytime. But if I am I would really hope that all of you would step-up and help keep the website in tip-top shape by reporting anything that comes up that shouldn't be here.

It will be vitally important for us to have some extra set of eyes watching over ChristianBlog.Com between the 2nd and the 16th of this month (July)!!

(2) Donations. Wow all I can say is "THANK YOU!!!"

We had 21 people give of their pocketbook in June! You know, the world wants us to believe that we (here in America) are in the worst economic time since the great depression. Hey you know, I'm just a computer guy blessed of God so what do I know about the economy? Not a whole lot. But what I do know is that God seems to be blessing those who have remained faithful to Him - Christians!

I just wanted to say thank you to every single one of you who helped me out this last month! I know none (most?) of you would like to have me list your names here, so I won't do that. But know that it really does mean a lot to me! I will not go into to great of details but I was very close to having to shut down the entire 4CM Network a few months back. Thanks to the true blessings of folks here at ChristianBlog.Com it seems that is not going to happen! This past Quarter has been one of the best Quarters in the history of 4CM Network since 2001 - and I truly am amazed at the amount all of you have helped in this.

For the last two months there have been folks posting blogs sharing how they have started to donate to ChristianBlog.Com because ChristianBlog.Com has become such a special place in their lives. I will never ever every be able to convey in words what that means to me. Only in heaven do I think people will understand.

Folks have also been sharing with others how they really wanted to encourage others to help out a few dollars here and a few dollars there to help ease the strain of those who have given much larger donations. It has been awesome to see this encouragement take place! We have doubled the amount of people who have donated over the last two months - truly amazing! We still have two folks who have stepped up the last three or four months and given a LOT of money. I would just like to personally encourage everybody out there... please, if you find yourself able to donate to ChristianBlog.Com, I think it would really mean a lot to those few folks who have pledged to help ChristianBlog.Com match its necessary expenses. I am sure it cannot be easy on them, so lets all help them out a bit and see if we cannot once again double the amount of people who are donating from 20 to 30 or even 40 people!

And please... don't think that just because we reach the goal for the month that everybody needs to stop donating! By No Means! I have a lot of things I want to do to ChristianBlog.Com to further expand and enhance it, things which will require a good sum of money. So yeah, if you can help us above and beyond, that would be great!

(3) Denominational Friendly Reminder

Over the last week or so we have seem some folks join the website who are of mainstream denominations begin to become active with the website. Something we all want - right!

Sadly, it seems that some of our members have begun to target these new members because of the church they attend.

Believe me when I say this... nothing (nothing!) gets me madder than when folks begin to target and attack other Christians because of what church they go to! If you want to find out how fast it will take for me to terminate your account, that's a good way to try and find out... and believe me when I say... it WILL be pretty fast.

We have had people attack the Pentecostals...
We have had people attack the Jehovah's Witnesses...
We have had people attack the Jewish and Messianic...
We have had people attack the Latter-day Saints...
We have had people attack the Baptists...

I am 100% sick and tired of all this denominational attacking and it is going to stop here-and-now - even if it means suspending and terminating the accounts of new AND long-time members!

Allow me to remind everybody of a few things:

This is from the ChristianBlog.Com "About Us" page:

Denominationally Friendly! You can rest assured that ChristianBlog.Com is open to people of every walk of the Christian Faith. Our Denominational Abuse policy makes it very clear that we are very strict toward those who join simply to bash others, being rude toward, or condemning those of another religious sects! All of our members have to agree to our "Registration/Faith Policy" - which makes it very clear that no man knows the heart of another man - and therefore no man has the right to be a judge or jury toward another person! We take this very serious as we really do feel ChristianBlog.Com should be available for all those who call themselves a Child of Christ!

This is from the ChristianBlog.Com "Registration/Faith Statement":

ChristianBlog.Com is a website strictly reserved for those who know they are a Child of God (aka: a Christian.)

We do not believe it is possible for us (or for anybody) to define what a "Christian" is or is not, other then to quote Romans 10:9, which says, "if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved".

If you feel that is you and you are being honest with yourself then we stand on the Holy Word of God that you and God have worked out your Salvation and we feel you have the right to become a member of ChristianBlog.Com

A lot of people have questioned us about this... have asked why we do not list certain denominations or other "examples" or "lists", but the simple (yet complicated) fact of the matter is that I Samuel 16:7 (and Luke 16:15) seems to indicate (and people like to put it this way) that "no man knows the heart of another man".

The Lord knows our motives, our thoughts, and our intentions. Peter (Simon son of John), once said, as recorded in John 21:17 that "Lord, you know everything." With this in mind we just do not see where it would be right of us to list a group of religious sects that we feel are "Christian" and not allow anybody else to join. That's just not Biblical, eh!

So, what we do request is that you consider the above and if you feel you are someone who meets what the Holy Text says is a Child of God, than we invite you to continue through and become a member of ChristianBlog.Com!

Please Note: ChristianBlog.Com does not exist to have an atmosphere of arguments, flame-wars, or even "heated discussions". ChristianBlog.Com attempts to be a family-based website -- and our youth and children have no need to be around those type of issues. We closely monitor and take action against members who do not promote an atmosphere of Christ-like living.

This is from the ChristianBlog.Com "Content Policy":

ChristianBlog.Com defines denominational abuse as: "those of one religious sect attacking, being rude toward, threatening, or repeatedly challenging those of another religious sect".

These are the most predominate types, but not an all inclusive list, of Denominational Abuses:

Anti-Christianism - Anti-Christianism is a negative bias against Christians and/or the religion of Christianity.
Anti-Catholicism - Anti-Catholicism is an institutional, ideological or emotional bias against the Roman Catholic Church and its followers.
Anti-Evangelicalism - Anti-Evangelicalism is hostility toward those who usually have a tendency in conservative Christianity.
Anti-Pentecostalism - Anti-Pentecostalism is hostility toward those within Evangelical Christianity that place special emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as shown in the Biblical account of the Day of Pentecost.
Anti-Protestantism - Anti-Protestantism is an institutional or emotional bias against Protestantism.
Anti-Semitism - Anti-Semitism is hostility toward or prejudice against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.

As a website that requires our members to sign a Faith Disclaimer ChristianBlog.Com will provide our Members a health amount of flexibility in defending the Christian beliefs in their course of counter-measuring the beliefs of non-Christian believes. While counter-attacks are a necessary part of defending ones faith, ChristianBlog.Com will take a hard line in the enforcement of hate speech, trolling, and cyber-bulling should counter-measuring cross over from defending the Christian doctrines in a Biblical manner to an outright condemnation of a non-Christian belief. ChristianBlog.Com believes all Christian doctrines can be proven to be true in a civil manner. Public condemnation of non-Christian believes and doctrines are not acceptable.

Last I checked our Registration/Faith Statement does not prohibit people from joining based upon the denomination/type of church that they attend.

In fact, our Content Policy specifically prohibits people of "one religious sect attacking, being rude toward, threatening, or repeatedly challenging those of another religious sect".

I also want to address the issue of Reporting Content. A small handful of people have been attempting to get Published Content removed from the website because of what church the Content Owner belongs to. This needs to stop! Any Report that comes in attempting to have it removed because they believe that the Content Owner is "not a christian just because of the church they attend" will have their Report dismissed. Why? Because my Bible never tells me anywhere that those folks of "XYZ-Church" does not believe in God (the prerequisite for being a member of CB) and that said member is not a believer in Jesus Christ just because of the church they go too. So please everybody, go back and read our Registration/Faith Statement before you begin to attack others because of the church they attend.

I am but a man. I have no right to say that you - male or female - have a right to be a member of the family of God because of what church you attend or are a member of. Only you and the Good Lord above know if you are a Christian. I really want to see an end to these attacks against other ChristianBlog.Com members based on nothing but what church they go too.

(4) A Promise Fulfilled

A few months back I promised a few folks that if we could get enough people to donate enough money to cover the costs of running ChristianBlog.Com I would begin to scale back the whole "free account verse paid account special treatments". Thanks to a few dozen people that has happened so it is now time for me to stand up to my own promises!

So to start with I am going to pull out a big one... a huge hum-dingier of a feature!!

Start right now ALL MEMBERS (free, premier and gold) are getting... .

1,000 Friends/Contacts!!

Yes, you read that right! I have taken a HUGE step here and decided to allow every single member to have ONE-THOUSAND friends/contacts!

That is a change from 25 to 1000 for free members!
That is a change from 50 to 1000 for Premier Members!
That is a change from 200 to 1000 for Gold Members!

When I sat down to think about how I could bless our community in a really big way, this was the best thing that I felt would really truly bless the community for stepping up and helping me out financially with keeping ChristianBlog.Com going! Premier Membership is in place for one reason and one reason only: To help pay the bills! When ChristianBlog.Com is in a place where I no longer have to worry about whether or not I'm going to be able to keep it online, you can rest assured that paid membership will go away! Yes we will always have a membership level for those that support ChristianBlog.Com in really big ways, but I told myself from the beginning, I don't want to segregate for even an instant longer than I have too. I am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel folks! I am not going to discuss numbers publicly, but we are getting close!

Thank you & many blessings!
John B. Abela
Founder/Owner, ChristianBlog.Com

posted: 06/30/2009 11:18pm by abelajohnb View: Backlinks, Permalink Total Views: 385 ShortURL: http://christianblog.com/5467 Category: Ministry	Print This Blog Entry
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Opps, I forgot one point

(5) Personal Contact Information Update

I leaked word about a new feature coming soon. A feature that has gotten a lot of folks excited! So I wanted to update everybody on it :D

The feature is what we are going to call "Personal Contact Information". It will allow (some) of our members to be able to share personal information about themselves with (some) other members!

As (hopefully by now) everybody knows ChristianBlog.Com has a ZERO TOLERANCE policy on the sharing of personal information (emails addresses, phone numbers, etc) and for good reason! The last thing any of us what is for ChristianBlog.Com to end up the lead story on Fox News about how ChristianBlog.Com has been used by people with bad intentions doing bad things! Enough said, eh.

So here is what I have decided to do (and what the blood sucking lawyers are allowing):

We are going to setup this "Personal Contact Information" feature and allow people to share the following information about themselves:

Their real name,
Their email address,
Their phone number,
Their AIM Instant Messenger account,
Their MSN Instant Messenger account,
Their YIM Instant Messenger account,
Their ICQ Instant Messenger account,
Their twitter account,
Their skype account,
Their City & State, (presently only State is displayed on the bio page)
Their website URL.

Now this will be a 100% OPTIONAL feature! If you do not want to share it you do not have to share it - and you can only share whatever of those features you want to share!

There are, of course, going to have to be restrictions placed on this. This whole idea goes way back to February 2009 when we posted a blog talking about major security updates coming to ChristianBlog.Com, specifically this section:

Adult-To-Adult Exchange. One of our long-term goals is to allow those members who can validate their are adults (over the age of 18) to share personal information with other that can validate they too are adults. We are calling this an "Adult Validation" system. A large amount of social websites have attempted to put a adult validation system into place. The large majority of them have failed. We might fail too, but we believe that even if we do fail a time or two, those short-term failures are worth it in order to provide additional features for those who are clearly adults. At the heart of this Adult-To-Adult Exchange is protection of minors. As a social website, our first and greatest priority is protecting of minors. Protecting them from adults and protecting them from each other. Up until now that level of protection has meant that those people who are clearly adults have had to have their accounts, their ability to communicate with other adults, greatly limited. We seek to resolve that! ChristianBlog.Com is not the only website attempting to solve this issue. Websites like myspace, facebook, live, and all the other big-boys in the industry have been trying to solve it for a number of years. We might not find "the" solution or even the best solution, but we feel that attempting to find A solution is the right thing to do for those members who are adults and desire to share more information about themselves. At the end of the day it either comes down to the fact that we find a solution, or we completely disable the ability for minors to join the website.

So here are the necessary requirements that will have to be in place in order to access the "Personal Contact Information" feature:

You will have to be a paying Premier Member. This is the vital key to the entire thing! From this we can validate that xyz-member is indeed an adult. How? Well because it requires somebody send us a check or credit card payment in order to become a premier member. A minor does not have the ability to do so. Yes, we realize parents could be suckered into giving their children access to do so - but that is not something that we are legally required to deal with... we are not a nanny-state after all.

Secondly only those people who are friend of each other can view the "Personal Contact Information" feature. If you are not a friend of somebody, you will not be able to see their information - even if you are a Premier Member.

The idea here is to allow those folks who are obviously adults the ability to share personal information with themselves so they can contact each other off-line. Want to help out somebody with going on a mission trip? This will be the way to be able to let others get access to you to send you some money! Want to call somebody and pray with them? This will give you the ability to do so!

Again, only that information which you would want others to see (if anything at all, it is 100% optional) is shareable.

Now we have also been asked why we are taking the steps to begin to not allow individuals from certain countries the ability to become/remain members of ChristianBlog.Com (see the blog: Embargoed Countries Policy (30 day enforcement notification). The reason for this is because I have decided to use a level of encryption (to secure the "Personal Contact Information" data stored in our database) that is above and beyond what the United States Government allows to be used within Embargoed Countries. As ChristianBlog.Com is operated out of the USA we are under their laws and I try very hard to honor them (and get yelled at when I don't - sigh) I wanted to mention this for two reasons: First because we have been asked why we are not going to allow embargoed countries access, and secondly because I want everybody to know that I am taking truly extreme measures to ensure that the information stored within our databases that contain your personal contact information IS SECURE. Trust me... my best cryptographer helped me with our encryption... it is rock solid.

Anyway, sorry for the follow-up post... but I did want to mention this

Thanks,
John B. Abela
Founder/Owner, ChristianBlog.Com

Posted 06/30/2009 11:47pm
Author: abelajohnb

"Last week we finalized approval for a place that is twice as big"

John, it must be exciting to be able to expand when the world thinks it is going the other way. The Lord is in control. That is faith indeed. Bless His holy name.

"I'm just a computer guy blessed of God "
You are not "just" you are God's blessed and special. Praise the Lord!

"You can rest assured that ChristianBlog.Com is open to people of every walk of the Christian Faith."
I agree with you that only God sees the heart and mere man cannot do so and we need to leave the judgement to Him.

"I have taken a HUGE step here and decided to allow every single member to have ONE-THOUSAND friends/contacts!"
Thanks for your effort John.. that will practically mean that we could be friends with about 10% + of the people on CB. Surely if everyone had so many active friends it will definitely expand the volume of transactions in and out of CB. Good expansion strategy.

In conclusion. may you be encouraged to continue the good work you have started as the people of God are bound together under HIS banner. You have our prayer support and nothing is impossible with that because we serve an awesome God.

Posted 06/30/2009 11:50pm
Author: ptl2008

(5) Personal Contact Information Update - Congratulations John. What an achievement! Thank you.

ptl2008

Posted 06/30/2009 11:56pm
Author: ptl2008

John,
I just want to say a BIG Thank You! for this every improving labour of love. I've been a member here for almost two years now and I can attest that you have never stopped looking for ways to make this already great site better. Excellent stuff with these new updates! We are blessed by your ministry...

YBIC,
Doulos

Posted 07/01/2009 02:10am
Author: doulos

Thank you for all the updates and changes. Truly this past month showed the level of commitment the core of members here have for the continued success and growth of this site. I think it was a great witness to the faith and love of so many that the elevated level on "chip in" was attained! I am praying that this will allow Christian Blog to keep growing and becoming everything you have dreamed it could and would be for three long years!!

Of course many of us are absolutely thrilled with the new contact policy. Any thoughts on when this will be rolled out? It is so important at times to be able to have direct communication with others, especially during a crisis.

Thank you for your frank and direct discussion of "denomination bashing". The minute that would be allowed on this site is the minute this site would lose everything it has attained in three years. The internet is full of sites where all people do is bash each other for the church they attend, the statement of beliefs they hold to be true and their personal convictions regarding what the Bible has to say. What is important is that we, as the Christian community, attempt to stay united in our faith and while striving to bless, inspire and help each other rather than tear each other down.

Congratulations on the move and I am praying the new situation allows you more room to operate and a much better spiritual environment in which to oversee your various ministries. Thank you dear brother for all your labor of love and personal commitment to stick with this vision and bring it into a reality. I am blessed and thrilled to support you and do what I can to help. Thank you.

B2Y

Posted 07/01/2009 04:29am
Author: blessings2you

This site has been a true blessing John, thanks! I know this must take so much time and energy. . . my hubby has put together a few websites for others as a side job, and even though all he does it get up in running order then hand it over. . . it is so time consuming! We have all been truly blessed by you and your work! Thank you!

~Sara

Posted 07/01/2009 06:22am
Author: oneofhisown

John:

You rock!

Shalom,

Art

Posted 07/01/2009 07:04am
Author: aliveintheword

John,
Congrats on the new place!

And I am beyond thrilled at being able to share some info with others on this site who have come to mean a lot to me. I would so love to be able to deepen just a couple relationships here beyond what we can do in chat and through blogs. I know this is a huge step, we all will pray that it does not become a regret.

Gracie

Posted 07/01/2009 08:12am
Author: savedbyegrace

I agree with Gracie. I know there are a few people who have gone through a lot with me and the ability to deepen those friendships even more would mean a great deal to me. May God give you wisdom in all that you do!

Blessings!
K :princess:

Posted 07/01/2009 09:27am
Author: kreynolds

Hello everybody,

Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments!

blessings2you:

Of course many of us are absolutely thrilled with the new contact policy. Any thoughts on when this will be rolled out?

31 days after the Embargoed Countries Policy (30 day enforcement notification) was posted

Blessings,
John b. Abela

Posted 07/01/2009 12:11pm
Author: abelajohnb

whooo Hoo, you are one busy person... have to KEEP you on the prayer list! and thank you so much john for the reminder about the anti-denominational bashing policy!

WE all need to remember that respecting someone is absolutely not the same as agreeing with someone!

Posted 07/01/2009 02:32pm
Author: blackrose65

All I can say about all of this is... Woohoo! Yay! And right on!

Posted 07/02/2009 07:21am
Author: whobelieve

1,000 friends, why does anyone need that many friends.

John you have been one busy busy young man.

Thanks.

KraftyKatz
:coffee:

Posted 07/02/2009 11:07am
Author: kraftykatz

This is a TRUE Christian website and I do appreciate the policies that are put in place...May GOD expand this site tenfold I pray...GOD Bless you

Posted 07/07/2009 08:22pm
Author: coldapplianceman

I just read alight's comment and understand his concerns. What if instead of posting our contact info, we were just permitted to PM each other with it if we chose to do so?

That way (using alight's example) alight could PM goldie to say, I'd like to send money for your missions support and she could decide at that moment whether to allow it or not for him for that one time without everyone else having access to it.

That way too, if alight were to do something that goldie didn't like, she could change her email address and update only those people she wanted to with the new info.

That way, next time I flew into Minneapolis I could PM Kreynolds to say, I'm flying into MSP, if we could meet in person, come to gate such-and-such at whatever time-- and no one else would know.

Posted 07/08/2009 10:19am
Author: savedbyegrace

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