OCTOBER 2011: AUTUMN REFLECTIONS

Seasonal changes bring about new and exciting adventures! In the northern hemisphere October ushers in the autumn season with its brilliant colors, cooler temperatures and a return to the fall rains. As we view this change in the seasons it reminds us of the truth of Deut 11:14 “I will send rain for your land in its season, the autumn and the spring rains”. Just as God gives us seasonal changes so we at bible.org also are bringing about new and exciting changes for you, our readers, such as updating of the home page, adding or saying goodbye to some of our bloggers, adding new articles and new material so that you may benefit as you prepare for your role in ministry. Be sure to watch for the new and updated “NEWS” block. Participate in the poll’s question: How do you do devotions? Read the daily changes of the blog posts.

October is Clergy Appreciation Month. Studies have shown that the average church in America has less than 75 members and a Pastor earns less than $34,000. In addition studies also show that of those 90% work extra jobs to help make ends meet for their families. This is your opportunity to show your pastor that their work is "worth it all". Here are some suggestions for you to implement: a note of encouragement, a monetary gift of any amount with no strings attached, get the church involved to provide a thank you banquet in his honor, provide a get away gift to a bed and breakfast or a retreat; upgrade his office with new furniture. These are just a few ideas. Tell us what you and your church will be doing by filling out the webform called Reflections so we can share your ideas with our readers.

NEWS ITEMS

1- Check out the new series by one of our Impact Bloggers, Lance Ponder, on Creative Science.
Lance is an active Christian author publishing regularly on various blogs including the Impact blog here on BIBLE.ORG.

OUT AND ABOUT

1- Please remember your bible.org staff as they participate in the Kingdom Agenda/First Ladies Conference between Oct 3-7. Your staff will be exhibiting and sharing with pastors the bible.org Ministry and showing the NET Bible Study Environment. Pray for us as we use this as a way of sharing the vision to get God's Word to everyone on the planet through the Internet.

2- The time to register is NOW for The Women of Influence Conference at Dallas Theological Seminary to be held on Nov 14th. This is a one-day conference equipping you to reach, lead, and impact those in your sphere of influence. Your bible.org women’s leadership team will lead up a workshop titled: “Got an Internet Connection? You can have a ministry”. Click here to gain information on this marvelous conference.

Status on 2 Projects supported by your 2010 donations

Enhanced NET Bible mobile App- We have shared that your 2010 donations allowed us to hire a NET Bible mobile APP developer and we expect to announce the need for testers for it this month. Watch the home page. If you can't wait for our new app you can get the NET Bible on your mobile device from this page.
Path to Spiritual Maturity (Pilot Testers Release, TESTERS IMMEDIATELY NEEDED!) God commands us to grow spiritually (Eph 1:17-19) and to make disciples (Matt 28:19). We wanted to assist our readers around the world to be in obedience to those commands so we created a customized 5 stage “Path to Spiritual Maturity” environment. This five stage environment (Discovery, Foundations, Maturing, Disciplining, and Specialized) uses the 155 topic categories on Bible.org "search by topic list" . Selected articles, audio, and video, along with assessments, Bible reading/study, application, interaction, and more have been drawn together to provide a helpful framework for intentional spiritual growth. The first version of the foundation stage has been completed and needs testing. Disclaimer: This program is in Beta Testing. It has not yet received its full “Bible.org Ministry Seal of Approval.” It needs to be tested in real life discipleship situations. Frank and honest evaluation is needed to assess all aspects of the program. What we really need to know is how useful this whole program is with its specific discipleship purpose. What does this need to make it the best aid possible for the church in discipling? To that end we have questions that we need your feedback on if you are willing to take a group or an individual through this process.

For more information and to help beta test this discipleship environment check out: Maturity Foundation Stage Note the MUST READ info links for fuller explanations.
If you are willing to start under these conditions and provide feedback. Tony Tucci, the project manager, will assist and interact with you through the process in this Bible.org Users Group For questions contact Tony here. ( Our target is to get at least 10 brave testers/co-labors)

MAILBOX LETTERS: Once again our hearts are rejoicing as we read your notes of encouragement to us. You are our Barnabas and we thank God for you!

From Joyce: Your article on facing death with faith was very special to me. Our dear friend is nearing death. He has served God diligently. I was searching for words of comfort and so enjoyed the message of Mr. Smith's funeral.
From Sandy who has recently suffered a 2nd stroke. She listened to a sermon by Bob Deffinbaugh and then took time to write to us: Having done the study myself, I had confirmation many times over, This is a site that teaches truth. I wept and am still weeping and thanking God for directing me to your ministry. Lots for me to listen to while I heal, and do my home PT to recovery. I know the time is short and the Lord will be coming, I so want to be found doing my labors for Him as joy. Working full with love, laboring hard for the profit only for the kingdom of God, it is no life to me to live it without His words moving into my own eyes to hear and trough me, to grow.
(Editor Note: Thanks Joyce and Sandy for these sweet and encouraging notes)

FINANCIAL UPDATE**

As we enter the Autumn months and looking ahead we, as always, want to share how we are doing and what we are doing with your sacrificial gifts. We reported on 2 of those projects above and we hope you are as encouraged as we are. Please note below the graphic which shows where we are and our needs. We are once again thankful for how God is allowing us the privilege of using your gifts for the kingdom.We may not have the monies that many big ministries have but with each gift we move ahead into the internet ministry. We once again thank you for each and every gift which we know is sent from heaven to us. I would also point out our advertising revenue almost equaled our donation income. As we have shared, we do not run ads on the home page or the bible study environment as we always want to keep the bible study tool free from secular ads.

Note-** All income (Donations and Bible sales/revenues) are accounted for. The store has outstanding NET Bible debt and sales are being used to meet debt and store expenses. When there is a future profit those profits will be reported as a donation to the foundation. As you have noticed we have turned on limited Google ads to help in the revenue side and we appreciate you telling us the links to inappropriate ads which we immediately block..

OPPORTUNITIES

Looking to minister to the world from the keyboard of your computer?(Volunteer with the opportunity to move to a paid position)

Volunteers/Interns needed:
We are making slow progress on the Chinese NET Bible project (CNET) because we lost the one technical person that could read and write Chinese, We desperately need a tech support person who knows perl and can read and type Chinese. If you have those skills Contact us.
Several responded to our call for help: (1) to enhance our NET Bible online environment in Spanish and (2) our Sunday school teachers effort, but we still need someone to lead the effort. Maybe that is you? If you would like to explore leading the effort Contact us.

Blog News

Heartprints Blog welcomes Susan Greenwood, who hails from the fine state of West Virginia! Become acquainted with Susan by clicking here. Susan is the author of A Parent’s Guide to Spiritual Milestones, a must read book for parents who want to lead their children to Christ. The book offers insightful methods to teach your children about God, his love for us, and his gifts. Susan is also webmistress of Childlike Faith. Stay tuned to read her ideas and thoughts on childrearing the first and third Tuesdays of each month.

Recently Sandi Glahn’s entry was found by Google. You can read her post on Tapestry where she discusses and gives ideas on Observations for Bible Study.

An author by the name of George Guthrie, in his ministry of “Read the Bible for Life”, chose to highlight Lisa Goodyears’ Heartprints blog titled: “Teaming With Parents To Build Strong Biblical Foundations."Start In The Early Years" ...

bible.org FORUM

Forum: The Forum continues to shine as bible.org’s Network ~ Impacting the World for Christ one post at a time! Register on the Forum and meet the moderators. To whet your appetite here are two moderators for you to check out:
MikeC1956. His passion is Early Church History, Apologetics,and Men's ministry. Check out Mike’s posts on the Forum.
Gideon’s passion is God and His Kingdom, The Gideon’s International, family, friends, history, economics and literature. Gideon has many followers on the Word Association Game as well as other posts. Check Gideon’s recent posts here.