Milestones . . .

I’m bragging just a little today . . .

For those of you that don’t know, I started a web site several years ago: BuildingChurch.net

My sitemeter indicated this week that I crossed over 250,000 visitors to the site since 5/17/2004, which is actually quite a bit later than the site went online in March of 2001.  Of those visitors, they average 3.1 pages per visit.  That means most people actually stick around and look at the information on the site.

I started the web site as a place to provide information free-of-charge to help people help others grow in relationship to God.

The name BuildingChurch.net comes from my call to ministry:  The Church is not the Building . . . it’s the People.

I honestly have done very little to keep the site updated over the past 3 years.  Most of it is just holding information.  I will probably be updating portions of it to closer match our church planting vision in the coming months.  The fact that it makes this kind of impact with such little maintanence just baffles me.  It’s definitely a God thing.

Over the years, the Gifted2Serve Spiritual Gifts Inventory that I wrote has been the lifeblood of the website.  Many folks have found it to be the most balanced approach to spiritual gifts discovery out there, and the fact that I offer it for free has definitely catapulted its influence.  It has become so popular, that even though I do almost nothing to promote it, it will show up in the top 5 of all web sites on Google for several related search phrases.  For example, as of today:

“online spiritual gifts inventory” - #1
“gifted serve” - #1
“spiritual gifts inventory” - #2
“online spiritual gifts” - #2

Other related searches that show up high:

“spiritual disciplines” - #4
“spiritual disciplines and gifts” - #5

Reading Blogs . . .

As I the vision for planting a church grows, so is the list of blogs I read.

I have been spending WAY TOO MUCH TIME clicking from blog to blog to see new content.

I finally broke down . . . I am using Google Reader.  In the process, I changed my home page from Google.com to iGoogle.  This means that I can put a little widget on my Google search page that tells me when there’s new content on any of the blogs I subcribe to. You could even click on the little picture below and have it add my blog to your Google search page if you want.

And, IT’S FREE!

I’m hoping this little exercise massively streamlines my blog reading.  If you read a lot of blogs, you need a reader.  There are tons out there.  I’m just a fan of Google. Google is the king of doing things efficiently, simple, and free.  If you use another reader, use the link below to subscribe to APK’s Attic.

Subscribe in a Reader

Embracing Baltimore . . . online!

I just discovered that the Embrace Baltimore website is finally online . . . haven’t had much time to look at it yet, but it’s up and running!

http://www.embracebaltimore.com

In honor of the occassion, I added some Baltimore look to my blog.

The Five Love Languages

This week in Growth Groups, we will talk a little about “The Five Love Languages, ” a concept from a book by Gary Chapman.  For those of you looking for more information, you can buy the appropriate books by clicking on the links below:

The Five Love Languages
The Five Love Languages for Singles

You can also learn more by going to the web site: http://www.fivelovelanguages.com

Eric has the following quiz listed on the Journey Church web site . . . a quick 5-minute quiz to help you discover your love language:
http://www.greaterquest.com/LoveLanguages.asp