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Posted By: abelajohnb
Greetings To All.
The past few months have been an interesting experience for many of us here at ChristianBlog.Com - from myself as the owner of the website, to some new experiences for our Moderator Team, to a huge surge in overall new members (welcome to all the new folks out there), to some interesting challenges to our policies behind the scenes, to some interesting challenges to our policies by our members, to loved ones lost, and new loved ones added to our families (congratz baim), to a restructure of some of the overall design of the website, a huge change in our website navigation system, and much more I could talk about.
A Look To The Recent Past:
In the last part of December of 2007 I posted two blogs in which I felt lead to share with the ChristianBlog.Com Community a number of issues that had really been on my heart, a number of changes that were coming to ChristianBlog.Com, and even some personal changes that were going to be taking place in my own life that would affect the future of ChristianBlog.Com in ways that were simply unpredictable at the time.
I felt it would be good if I expanded on these two blog entries just a bit, as they tended to cause some misunderstandings by some of what I wrote.
The "Ouch" Blog:
I will start with the second of the two, first...
The second of these two blogs, one I entitled "ChristianBlog.Com - What Are We Really Here For?" caused me a bit of hard-ache, both from writing what I had to say, and the huge amount of feedback it generated. (even though it was closed to public comments)
This Blog Entry was, and still is, a clear message to our Community that ChristianBlog.Com is alive, well, and thriving because of some very specific reasons that not everybody is going to agree with, but is just how things are, and probably will be for a long time.
Yes, ChristianBlog.Com is open to all those who proclaim they believe in the Triune Godhead;
Yes, ChristianBlog.Com is open to those outside the "mainstream denominations" that many people consider "evangelical Christianity";
Yes, ChristianBlog.Com has no plans to change this fact anytime soon, if at all;
Yes, ChristianBlog.Com will stand firm on making sure those outside the "mainstream evangelical Christianity" are not pushing their believes on others;
Yes, ChristianBlog.Com will stand firm to make sure that those within the "evangelical Christianity" community do not push their believes on others as well;
Yes, ChristianBlog.Com will continue to go to great extents to monitor and enforce our policies to protect itself and it's members;
Yes, ChristianBlog.Com does give leniency to Policy Violations for Premier Members, after all, they help keep the website operational in a budgetary basis;
Yes, ChristianBlog.Com takes Electronic Identification Fraud very seriously;
Yes, ChristianBlog.Com takes Advertisement/Spamming very seriously, perhaps to the extreme;
I ended this rather heated blog by discussing the fact that ChristianBlog.Com is, oddly enough, a Christian website and will remain a website only to those who are a part of the Family of Christ by remaining Christian-only.
The "Ahhhh" Blog:
My first blog about the ChristianBlog.Com Community, entitled ChristianBlog.Com - A Look Forward Into 2008, was a bit less aggressive (as some labeled my other blog entry). It initially caused some confusion (for which I apologize) because the way I wrote it made it sound more like one thing, than what it was I was actually trying to say. In it I addressed a number of issues, including:
First I talked about website growth. At the time I did not have solid numbers for 2007, but now I do. For the whole year of 2007 ChristianBlog.Com served out 41,004,230 unique website page hits! (That is a daily average of 112,340). I also predicted 10-million unique website page hits for the first quarter of 2008 and we are on-par to hit this number, as we are presently at 8,800,279 as of the time of this writing.
Secondly I talked about some scale-back of new features being developed. As I stated, "This is due to a few factors, some personal, some ministry related, and some website related." I will talk more about this later in this blog.
Thirdly I talked about the need for the ChristianBlog.Com community to "step it up" in regards to monitoring the website on a community level, rather then simply depending up myself and the other people involved behind-the-scenes of ChristianBlog.Com to "police" the website. It went something like this: "I will personally be cutting back on the time I invest into ChristianBlog.Com on a daily basis by 50-75% over the next few weeks and 80-90% by the end of January. As I typically invest three to five hours a day into ChristianBlog.Com this is going to be a massive amount of work that simply isn't going to be anymore. Probably ninety percent of my work is in keeping the website "clean and family save" - something we have all come to expect from ChristianBlog.Com - however, as I will no longer be able to put in such a great amount of time, one of two things is going to happen: Either our members will step-up for the first time since the website went online and begin to use our power ‘report' system, or the website will begin to suffer from content that many may not feel is acceptable (and typically never see because it is usually removed within seconds or minutes of it being posted)." Interesting, the result of this was beneficial, but not as beneficial as I had thought it would be. Since I posted this message we have only had about three or four people using the reporting system, but less then what I had really hoped for from a Community the size of ChristianBlog.Com, but such as it is, our faithful Moderator Team held in there and continued to provide the protection we've all come to expect!
The "Now" Blog:
So moving from the past and looking toward the next quarter of 2008 and where ChristianBlog.Com will be moving, is the big question here in my office.
Perhaps the biggest news to share with everybody is that after a lot of soul searching I decided to walk away from my (secondary) employment with the non-profit organization I shared with everybody in the blog ChristianBlog.Com - A Look Forward Into 2008. Though it was an amazing opportunity to minister outside of my normal ministry parameters, it became clear to me in mid-February that this was just not the calling God had for me, and I could either continue to walk in a ministry that was not my calling, or graciously step aside and go back to the ministry God has had me doing for the last 10-odd years. So, at the end of February I made the announcement that I would be leaving in a few weeks and go back to do what it was I knew was God's calling for my life. I stayed long enough to train a new staff member, and made a graceful and proud exist. It was perhaps the best "leaving of a job" I have ever had - a tribute to a great Christian non-profit organization!
So, what does that hold in store for me? What new adventures will I be taken on? These are questions I am presently working on.
I must always try to understand that the ministry the Lord has me in is not "singular focus" - meaning I am involved in multiple types of ministry at once. While ChristianBlog.Com is a huge ministry, it is not my only ministry. I must not forget those other ministries that have been around long-before ChristianBlog.Com. I must also not forget that in order to continue to thrive, one must always be looking forward for new avenues to pursue.
The "Next" Blog:
So, I have been asking myself the following three questions the last week:
(1) What is in store for my life outside of work?
I have decided it is time to get serious about health. I am going to try my best to get into a routine of walking at least 10-miles a week, with an eventual goal of 30-miles a week. I have decided to eat healthier. More fresh produce, more water less soda, more tea less coffee, eat more then once a day. Start taking vitamin's again (I take a power mix of B-12, C, Centrum, etc) on a daily basis. Plant more live plants in my house (I already have a dozen or so, but would like at least a half-dozen in each room). Take more 'away days' from the office. Visit my family more.
(2) What other ministry/business venues do I want to purse?
I think first up I am going to develop something for pastors... taking the pastor-centered website to a whole new level. Something that will allow them to have a sort of alumni/friends list, an article system, a blog system, a discussion forum, open churches/resumes, sermon posting, and such. Really thinking of trying to combine a lot of what I've done in the past into one centralized website.
I am also working on an alternative SMS System for the cellular/mobile phone sector. It is getting close to being finished but still working out some bugs. I'm rather tired of paying the high costs of sending sms messages, and being the brilliant software engineer I am *cough* I figured I had better come up with something to put the hurt to the cellular companies charging me two arms and a foot, just to send stupid sms messages. (ok, rant over, lol)
I also run a number of personal blog websites where I blog at. One is for outdoor/camping product reviews, one is for pastors hurting from getting burned while in ministry, another is to the native American native community, and such. I am going to be deciding which of these is not worth the time/effort and shut them down, and then focus on which ones are producing some results on focus on them.
In essence, the last few months of ministering outside of my own ministry have revived me to focus on what GOD's ministry is!
(3) What is in store for ChristianBlog.Com?
Well, as I said in my blog, 'ChristianBlog.Com - A Look Forward Into 2008', ChristianBlog.Com would be on what we call a "development freeze" for awhile. It looks like the "awhile" will only be about one-quarter. Start in April I am going to be back to developing some stuff here at ChristianBlog.Com again.
Here is a list of 25 items that I plan on doing, for the good or the bad, next quarter. I have no idea which of them will get finished (or even started for that fact), but this is the list I will be using to determine what the future hold for ChristianBlog.Com:
1. Creation of a "Groups" feature.
2. Bulletins Improvements (ignore list, open discussion) (04-18-2008 - finished everything but the "ignore" feature)
3. Bio/Profile Speed Improvement (03-24-2008 - also revamped the layout of the profile page)
4. Friends Improvement (03-24-2008 - completely new my.friends system!)
5. Manage Account Revamp (completely new management system)
6. Manage Blog Entries Revamp (completely new management system)
7. Chatroom Chatter - to be removed (03-24-2008)
8. My Surveys - either revamped or removed. To be determined (03-24-2008 - decided to completely remove this feature)
9. Friends (Closest Friends) -- list your 12 closest friends in your bio/profile (03-24-2008)
10. Premier Membership Payment History
11. Premier Membership Pricing Structure
12. Make the process of having Blog Entries be "Private/deleted" easier to do.
13. Revamp of the Blog Entries "Linkbacks" system.
14. Revamp of the Blog Entries "Archive" system.
15. Termination of the "remote.ChristianBlog.Com" third-party service. (sorry everybody) (03-24-2008)
16. Termination of the "Top 100 Blogs" third-party service (sorry everybody) (03-24-2008)
17. Chatroom Upgrade
18. Improvement of the Badword Censor System.
19. Revamp of the Report Content System. (04-22-2008 - our new system is about 80% in place... and it rocks!)
20. Reinstate Email Notifications of Blog Entry activity (Premier/Gold Members only)
21. Faster Search Engine listing of new Blog Entries.
22. Revamp of the My.Videos System. (04-23-2008 - decided to completely remove this feature)
23. Gallery Report Feature (04-20-2008 - got this working now folks!)
24. Email Address Update
25. Improved Search System
That's all for now!
Ok everybody, it has been awesome being able to share all of this with everybody, I hope I've given some small amount of insight to how things "work" here at ChristianBlog.Com!!
For Christ's Ministry,
John B. Abela
Founder/Owner, ChristianBlog.Com
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Posted: 03/19/08 6:54am - Total Views: 1,852 - Category: Site News
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Login to be able to view all the comments for this blog! If you are not already a member we invite you to become a member... it's free!
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youaregolden |
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Posted by:
youaregolden 
(Posted: 03/19/08 7:49am)
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John, Thank you so much for this site.  It is such a blessing to me. I will continue to pray for you and this site and that God will lead you in the right steps for this site.
You are also such a blessing to us all!!! Keep up the good work brother!!
YSIC,
-Golden 
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blessings2you |
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Posted by:
blessings2you
(Posted: 03/19/08 8:13am)
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John, Thanks so much for sharing so much of your heart and vision. Personally I am very blessed to hear you will be devoting so much of your time to this site. Thank you for making this site available.
B2Y
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reborn |
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Posted by:
reborn
(Posted: 03/19/08 9:26am)
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Thank you John:
For all the hard work you poor into this site and not to mention all your other responsibilities you have going on in ministry. No wonder your single, you just don't have time to settle down, LOL.
Thanks again for everything!
Raul.
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kraftykatz |
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Posted by:
kraftykatz
(Posted: 03/19/08 10:25am)
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John,
Any changes you decide to make will be good ones.
You have an insight and vision most people do not.
May you find the health improvement life style enjoyable.
KraftyKatz
 drinking tea
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mumbly |
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Posted by:
mumbly
(Posted: 03/19/08 5:51pm)
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Thank you so much John, for sharing this insight into your hopes and aspirations, and the way you are so open to God's calling on your life. So pleased that you will be with us still at
Christian Blog, in a time giving way, and that with God's help you will find time to sort out priorities, which are also so much a part of the equation. I am so thankful to God, for all that you do for us on this site, and also for your transparency.
Christian love, dear brother in Christ.
mumbly.
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blackrose65 |
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Posted by:
blackrose65
(Posted: 03/19/08 5:57pm)
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Whhoo ! that's a lot goin' on ! may you be continually blessed as you don your father's business!
Thank you so much for the ministry that is Christian Blog!
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grandpa |
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Posted by:
grandpa 
(Posted: 03/21/08 8:06am)
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Thanks John for all the work you do, (here at ChristianBlog, and elsewhere).
I look forward to the new and improved things that you have in mind. I am blessed to have found this site and doubly blessed to have chatted with you in the past.
Keep going, God has a plan for you that is bigger than you can imagine.
When I first stumbled into this site, I would have never guessed that I could have so much fun chatting with fellow believers all over the world.
Praise God that you listened to His calling and followed His lead.
Thanks John,
Grandpa.
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magdalenawoman |
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Posted by:
magdalenawoman
(Posted: 03/22/08 9:02am)
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Thanks John for thinking of us New Christians who needed a place to come and share in fellowship with other Christians where we wouldn't feel persecuted for being believers or have to worry about the hurtful talk or judgement of those with mean spirits. You are a true brother in Christ! Hugs* Sandra
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hisperson |
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Posted by:
hisperson
(Posted: 03/23/08 12:07am)
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John through websites like this I am constantly reassured that God still speaks to people, and so much more now, because of these new technologies. He speaks more, to more people, than He ever did in the past. The God of the burning bush speaks to us today through the internet, radio, television... Yet in spite of this there are those who cannot hear His voice because, through the same media, the devil is also luring people to him. I feel that as the Christian Blog community we cannot just be happy to share and be revived amongst each other; "The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few" (Luke 10:2). Let us use the tools that God has given us to carry the message of salvation through Jesus Christ forward. Let us not lose sight of that this is an urgent commission; for two things are certain to happen, in the future: either Jesus will return or death will come, whichever happens we need to know that those people who cannot hear God's voice are ready to face either of these events.
Let us march forward Christian soldiers!
HISPERSON
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abelajohnb |
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Posted by:
abelajohnb
(Posted: 03/24/08 4:00am)
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Hello Everybody,
Thank you to all that have taken the time to share your thoughts, blessings and support!
We have now gotten five of the twenty-five changes completed. See the first post for details.
I really am sorry to those who were using the remote.christianblog.com third-party system, but the amount of support-time verses the amount of financial inflow it generated did not equate to a viable and high enough level for me to justify keeping it around.
There were also some major changes to the profile/bio page made this morning. We welcome feedback on the changes from our community, as always.
Thank you,
John B. Abela
Founder/Owner, ChristianBlog.Com
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abelajohnb |
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Posted by:
abelajohnb
(Posted: 03/24/08 3:25pm)
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Another update here folks....
Today I completely redid the "My.Friends" section of the website.... suffice to say, the new version rocks!!
By far a majorly uber rewrite here everybody...
I've now gotten the ability to have "Closest Friends" within your profile/bio friends list (ie: your 12 closest friends)...
I've now gotten the ability to category/group your friends into four categories/groups: Family, Friends, Church, Professional (!!)
And a whole bunch of other really cool things you'll just have to check out and discover for yourself 
Just go click on the "My.Friends List" within the right-side navigation!
Blessings All,
John B. Abela
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abelajohnb |
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Posted by:
abelajohnb
(Posted: 03/24/08 4:26pm)
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Oh, by the way.....
It seems a Gold Member (one step above a premier member) talked me into increasing the "Closest Friends" from 12 to 15 for all Gold Members... so... yeah... all you Gold Members out there will be able to have 15 of your closest friends displayed on your profile/bio page, rather then 12.
Who said there wasn't any perks to supporting ChristianBlog.Com, eh!!
John B. Abela
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greybear |
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Posted by:
greybear
(Posted: 03/25/08 5:35am)
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Thanks for the updates and God's peace and blessings in all that you do for him in the many many ways you are doing it!
GreyBear
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abelajohnb |
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Posted by:
abelajohnb
(Posted: 04/07/08 12:06am)
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Hello All,
A (sort of) big update here folks... at least for everybody that has a free account 
In order to accomplish #23 above (Gallery Report Feature) we decided to make some major changes to our My.Gallery System.
In the past, free members had one "Gallery Management System" and Premier Members had a totally different (a much better) one -- but that time has now passed and EVERYBODY is now going to get to use our Advanced Gallery Management System!!
There are a few major changes that come with this (mostly for those of you with a free accounts)
As you have probably noticed by now the "Gallery" within your Bio/Profile page has been revamped and moved to the right-side of the page.
As of this time you will now also see a link that says "See my complete gallery" at the bottom of the right-side gallery display.
The second item to note is the addtion of the "My.Gallery" at the top of the website:
Should this addition to the header (top part) of our website cause your browser to scroll to the left-and-right, let us know please!
Thirdly, free members now have access to a LOT more features, including these three features not previously available to free members:
The ability to edit your photograph title,
The ability to not show specific photographs in your gallery. (this is cool for when you want an image for a blog, but not within your gallery, such as the three in this blog comment)
The ability to delete photographs.
Fourthly, please note that for the time "Commenting" has been disabled. THIS WILL RETURN shortly... we just need to work out some details in order to accomplish what all of this effort is for -- that is to accomplish #23 above (Gallery Report Feature). Gallery Commenting WILL return... just give us time folks!
Lastly, let it also be noted that "Gold Members" are allowed 100-uploads, compared to 75 for Premier Members and 5 for free members -- click here to upgrade if you are a free member!
Ok, please report any weird things that anybody might encounter... this was not fully tested so we might have missed something!
Thanks all,
John B. Abela
Founder/Owner, ChristianBlog.Com
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kraftykatz |
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Posted by:
kraftykatz
(Posted: 04/07/08 9:43am)
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That certainly answers the question I sent to tech support about the gallery! All looks great to me!
KraftyKatz
drinking tea
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everfaithful |
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Posted by:
everfaithful
(Posted: 04/11/08 9:07am)
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Ty for it all John! I know all of this is a lot of time an effort on your part. But not it is truly appreciated!
Effie
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bimonics |
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Posted by:
bimonics
(Posted: 04/23/08 10:17am)
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Thanks for the hard work. Thanks for a safe environment. Grant.
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abelajohnb |
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Posted by:
abelajohnb
(Posted: 04/23/08 10:46am)
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Thanks everybody for the comments!
I can now report that the following have been completed: #2, #19, #22, #23.
Thanks,
John
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Member Biography |
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Raised in a private Christian school until his senior year, Mr. Abela has been around the Christian Faith nearly his entire life. Shortly after entering High School he became involved in researching his Native American heritage and soon found himself deeply involved in the Native American religion. Shortly before his...
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