Delve Into Jesus News

Better Bible References

Michael Lane — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:40:50 -0800

Thanks to an excellent suggestion from user Debora, we now have a much better and simpler way to add scripture references to Delve Into Jesus. We've implemented a product called Ref Tagger which automatically detects passages of scriptures, displays the scripture in a little pop-up window when you hover over it, and displays the scripture in context when you click the link. It's all automatic - you don't have to anything!

For example, I'll just type my favorite passage here: 1 Peter 3:15. If you place your mouse cursor over the reference, you'll see the entire text of the passage. If you click on it, a new window will open with the passage in context. This will now work in all areas of the site, including prayers, comments, discussions and devotionals.

Most of our articles, reflections and devotionals on Delve Into Jesus were manually set to link to Bible Gateway, and these links are preventing Ref Tagger from doing it's job. Over time we will remove those links to allow Ref Tagger to work. (Sorry Bible Gateway, but this is a much simpler way to do it!). Here is a link to an example article where we've removed the links to Bible Gateway in order to get Ref Tagger working.

Finally, thanks the folks at Logos Bible Software for such a great product. They also have Bible study products for PCs and iPhone. Check them out here.

Subscribe to Comments

Michael Lane — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:21:21 -0800

Thanks to another great suggestion from one of our members, we have one more new feature today.

Sometimes when you post a comment on a question or prayer request, it would be nice to know when someone else has come along after you and posted another comment. For example, let's say Mary has created a prayer request asking for prayer about an upcoming job interview, and you added a comment to let her know that you will be praying for her. Wouldn't it be nice to get automatically notified when Mary posts a comment a few days later letting everyone who prayed for her know that she got the job? Now, that is exactly what you can do.

On every prayer and question, just above the comments, you will see a link that says, "Click here to be notified by email whenever someone posts". When you click the link, the text will change to "You will receive all new comments by email. Click here to unsubscribe". From that point on, you will receive an email whenever anyone posts a new comment on that prayer or question. If you change your mind, you can click the link anytime, or click the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of any of the notification emails. Of course, you'll need to be logged in to see the link, since that is the only way we can identify you and sign you up for notifications.

We'll add this feature soon to some other items such as news, testimonials and articles.

Enjoy, and please let us know what you think.

Private Prayers

Michael Lane — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:05:04 -0800

Based on a wonderful suggestion from one of our members, we've implemented a new feature called "private prayers". Sometimes, our members want to write a prayer so that they can organize their thoughts and feelings, get the words out in the open and share with God what is on their mind. They may not, however, desire to share what they've written with anyone but God. Now, it's possible to do this by selecting "Private" when you create the prayer. No one will ever see this prayer but you and God.

The prayer will remain on the site indefinitely so that you can come back at any time and see what you've written. Thus, it's now possible to begin using Delve Into Jesus as a personal prayer journal. All of your prayers, both public and private, are always accessible from the "My Prayer Page" under the "Prayer" menu.

I really appreciate the suggestion, and I hope that as people begin to use this new feature, we can get some more suggestions to make it even better. Please let us know what you think, and we'll continue to improve and expand on this idea based on your feedback.

Bookmark and Share

Michael Lane — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:52:35 -0700

We sometimes notice that articles and devotionals from Delve into Jesus get shared and posted on social networking and content sharing sites such as Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Propeller, Stumble Upon and others. We're delighted that our members and visitors are sharing our content, so we thought we'd do our part to make it even easier.

On each of our articles, devotionals and reflections, you will notice a new button in the top right corner that says "Share". If you hover over the button with your mouse, you will be given the option to automatically post the item on all of the above-mentioned sites, plus dozens more.

You also have the option of bookmarking the item, not only in your browser, but with bookmarking services such as Delicious, Live, Google, Yahoo and more.

We hope this new feature will make it very convenient to share your favorite Delve Into Jesus content with the world. As always, let us know what you think. We appreciate your comments and feedback.

New Discussion Feature

Michael Lane — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:03:35 -0700

Sometimes the discussions can get quite long, which means that if you want to add a reply, you have to scroll and scroll and scroll....until you get to the bottom of the page.

We added a new feature today to do all that work for you. At the top of every discussion, you will find a link that says "Scroll Down To Last Post". Click the link, and you will be instantly taken to the last post.

We also considered the idea of having the posts appear in reverse order, with the newest one on top and the oldest on the bottom. We thought this would be convenient for people who want to add a reply, but would be confusing for someone reading the discussion for the first time, so we decided against it. Let us know what you think of this idea, and if there is strong support for it, we can reconsider.

We hope you find this helpful. Let us know if you have any questions, or other feedback about how we might make the discussions easier to use.

The End of 'arsindelve'

Michael Lane — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:14:18 -0700

Most of you have come to know me as "arsindelve", but I've decided that the time has come to retire this alter ego and allow myself to simply be known as Michael. I certainly don't desire anonymity, and I don't want there to be any confusion about who this "arsindelve" person is, who this "Michael" person is and whether or not they are one in the same. The "arsindelve" persona is one I've had since I was a teenager, and it comes with many wonderful cherished memories, but as Delve Christian Ministries continues to grow and expand in new areas, it's important for people to get to know the real me, not a name I made up for myself 17 years ago.

I've changed my user name in the database to "Michael Lane" , which means that this will affect every item I've ever posted, retroactively. I hope this will cause less, not more confusion. If you have any comments or concerns, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Farewell, arsindelve.

Devotional Podcast

Michael Lane — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:22:47 -0700

Since last fall, we've been working hard on a new project to bring you an audio version of our devotionals. What we discovered is that it's easy to produce a bad podcast, but actually quite difficult to produce a good one. (I guess that should have been self-evident!) We started out with a basic headset microphone and simple voice recording software, but when we listened to the results, we felt the final product was not consistent with the high quality you would expect from Delve Ministries.

We did some research, bought the right equipment, some music to mix in and some recording software. Next, we spent weeks learning how to do it right. At this point, we're pretty happy with the results and we hope you will be too.

In the next few weeks, we'll be recording the backlog of the thirty or so devotionals. Once we feel that there are enough there, we'll start to make the iTunes link available in the "about" page and on each devotional itself. We'll also announce it here in the news.

If you're really excited and can't wait to get a preview, here's a link to our first devotional which we finished up late last night.

You Never Thoroughly Intended It

Please let us know if you like it and we'll keep doing what we're doing. If you're not impressed with what we've produced and think it can be improved, please let us know soon so we can correct it before all thirty are recorded!

Did You Know?

Michael Lane — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:57:17 -0800

Tomorrow, we'll be rolling out a neat, fun new feature on Delve Into Jesus called "Did You Know?". Delve Into Jesus is a pretty big place with lots to see and do, so this new section on the bottom of every page will present some random, interesting fact about Delve Into Jesus that hopefully you did not already know. There are about a dozen right now, and we'll keep adding more over time.

We hope this will help introduce members and visitors alike to other areas of the site they did not know about, or features they have never tried. We also threw in a few fun facts about how the site operates and some things that go on behind the scenes. In researching this, we came across some facts we didn't know either! For example, we found out that in 2008, we had visitors from 195 different countries!

Christianity.ca

Michael Lane — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:14:26 -0800

We're extremely pleased to announce that we have partnered with Christianity.ca to allow some of our content to be published on their web site. Christianity.ca is operated by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, and features content which has been previously published in a variety of Canadian print and web media. The first article they have chosen to publish can be found here. We're hoping that this will be just the beginning of a long and mutually beneficial Christ-serving relationship.

RSS Feeds Downtime

Michael Lane — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:19:47 -0800

Yesterday and today, our RSS feeds were all down as a result of our switch from an old Feedburner account to a Google account. It should have been a simple switch, but we got caught by an unfortunate bug in the process. Everything is back to normal as of about 5:00 EST. Sorry for the downtime, I hope it did not affect anyone too much.

New Email Feature

Michael Lane — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:22:21 -0800

For the past few months, Delve Into Jesus has had the ability for members to email one another, but in order to email someone, you have to first click on their user name to view their profile. What if you want to email someone, but cannot find a page with their user name on it?

The new email feature solves this problem by allowing you to email a member by simply entering their user name. You can find this new feature under the "Home" menu.

Please keep in mind that when you send an email, the email comes from info@delveintojesus.com and does not contain your email address, so you can stay in touch yet still maintain your privacy. Unless you give it out, there is no way for another member to view your email address or contact you directly.

We monitor all emails to protect our members from abuse and harassment.

Finally, if you don't wish to receive any emails from other members, you can turn this option off in your profile.

Send us an email, let us know what you think!

Merry Christmas!

Michael Lane — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:40:53 -0800

I just wanted to take a moment, on behalf of the staff of Delve Christian Ministries, to wish all of you a wonderful and merry Christmas.

Since Christmas occurs so close to the end of the year, we tend to get a little reflective this time of year. As I look back on 2008, there can be no doubt that it has been filled with incredible challenges, yet each time, God has demonstrated that no challenge is too big for Him to overcome. It is through the challenges that we most clearly see His hand at work, and so for that we are very grateful. It has not all been challenges - the blessings have been abundant as well. Thank you God for this ministry, and the lives that you affect through it.

Thank you so much to all of your who have contributed of your time, effort and financial gifts this year. Delve Ministries is as strong as ever, and poised to grow in new and exciting ways in 2009. I hope that you will all be a part of it!

Merry Christmas to all of you, and God Bless!

Most importantly of all, Happy Birthday, Lord Jesus.

Changes For Testing

Michael Lane — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:52:48 -0700

If anyone is interested in doing some testing, a new version of the site is available at http://beta.delveintojesus.com. The site does not look all that different, aside from the new menu and banner. However, the changes you can't see are significant and may break the site in some interesting ways - that's why we need your help in testing.

(For those with technical curiosity, we're moving away from "table" based layout to CSS and div based layout. Once this transition is done, the site will be much easier to work with, update and maintain.)

If you see anything at all that does not work or look right on the beta site, please let me know by email, or by creating a suggestion under the "About" menu.

Please note that the live site and the beta site share a common database, so anything you post or any comments you make will appear on the real site.

Thanks in advance to those brave testers who accept this mission!

IMC Day Two

Michael Lane — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:16:11 -0700

Yesterday was amazing. I have not felt so energized about our ministry in years. For the last few months, we've been struggling to come up with new ideas to bring people into the site, to add more value for the people who come here, stay on top of the newest emerging technology trends, all while staying true to the vision of our mission statement. Yesterday, we received so many ideas that it will take us months to implement them all. I'm excited about each and every new idea - about how it will make this site easier to use and more appealing, but more importantly, how it will bring in more people and add to our growing membership.

To start, we're going to tweak the design of the site just a bit. I had the pleasure and honor of meeting with David Russell of National Community Church in DC. He gave us some excellent advice on how to make Delve Into Jesus a little easier to use and to make it more user friendly for first-time users. Expect those changes within a few weeks.

The next big idea which I can't wait to start work on is to record our devotionals in MP3 format and make them available as a Podcast on iTunes. I think this will do wonders to bring new members to the site. This is my favorite new idea.

We're also thinking about a new logo and brand image for Delve Christian Ministries (but not Delve Into Jesus). The current logo is one I came up with in 30 seconds at my desk over two years ago, and it's not working for us. I think we need to give DCMI a new "look" with a memorable, simple logo combined with a short phrase which captures the essence of what we do. Your ideas are more than welcome.

Next, we're going to integrate the search function of Delve Into Jesus with your browser. If you're using FireFox or Internet Explorer 7, you will have a search bar in the top right corner of the browser, and you can select various search engines to use. We're going to make "Delve Into Jesus" one of those search engines so that wherever you are on the internet, you can enter a search term and get results from here. We're also going to spend some time making the search a little better and more relevant.

The biggest idea of all is one which will require much more debate, thought and prayer. We have the idea of breaking up Delve Into Jesus into two sites. Right now, I feel it's a bit disconnected. For seekers, we have questions, knowledge paths and articles. For Christians, we have resources, prayers, devotionals and reflections. These seem like two different sites which have been mashed together, and maybe it's time to break them apart. Unless we do this, it's hard to tailor the site for a single audience and hard to come up with a single marketing strategy which encompasses all our potential visitors. People coming to the site can't get a clear understanding of what we do. I think Delve Into Jesus would keep the material for Christians while the material for seekers would get a new site called "factsaboutjesus.com" (another domain name we own). Each would have their own discussion area. The two sites would looks very different, but would share the same membership so your login would work at both. Comments?

So, that's it for now. I can't wait to see what new ideas await us in today's sessions.

IMC Day One

Michael Lane — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:41:03 -0700

We're here at the Internet Ministry Conference in Grand Rapids until Thursday. This is our first time at the IMC, and we are very impressed by how well organized and well-run the conference is. The facilities are amazing, and last night's key note speech by Gabe Lyons was certainly thought provoking. The first speaker we'll be hearing this morning is Rusty Wright, whom some of you might know as a contributor to Delve Into Jesus - Rusty has written all of our most recent "reflections". I'm excited to meet him for the first time in person and to learn from his years of experience. He'll be giving a talk on how to communicate effectively with a secular audience.

As you know, this is a time of transition for Gospel Communications, the ministry which is hosting the conference, and which is the operator of the Gospel.Com and Biblegateway.com websites. As we learn more about the future of these websites and the alliance (of which we're a member), we'll post the details in this new discussion. If you're worried about the future of these two amazing resources, we hope you'll head over the discussion area to learn more.

Prayer Warrior Tools

Michael Lane — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 20:21:30 -0700

For all of you who are so consistent and diligent about praying for others, we've added two new tools which should help you to keep track of your prayers. If you're logged in, you will see two new options under the "Prayer" menu, "Prayer Requests I've Responded To" and "Prayer Requests I've Not Responded To". The first will allow you to see all of the prayers you've ever responded to so that you can go back, re-read them and remember these issues once again in prayer. The second option will allow you to see the twenty most recent prayer requests which you have not responded to, in case you're looking for someone new to pray for.

Thanks so much to all of you are so good about praying regularly for those in need. You are the "Delve Into Jesus Prayer Warriors" and we're so grateful for you. I hope these tools will help. If you ever think of an idea to make it easier to navigate Delve Into Jesus, please don't hesitate to let us know.

Credit Card Donations

Michael Lane — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:34:52 -0700

This week, we added the ability to accept donations by credit card. If you wish to donate to Delve Christian Ministries, this is a very quick, secure and easy way to do so. Please know how much we appreciate your assistance as we go through this difficult period of transition. Your gifts will enable us to make it through stronger and better than ever.

The donation page can be found here

Accepting Donations

Michael Lane — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:37:59 -0700

As many of you know, we have been holding off accepting donations until we were registered as a charity with the Canadian Government. Since that recognition does not seem to be forthcoming, we feel we need to proceed without it. We are facing a difficult road ahead for many reasons - some we have revealed and some we will reveal in the coming month. Suffice it to day that while I do not think that Delve Into Jesus is in danger of shutting down, we do need and appreciate your support. We will gladly begin accepting donations by check starting today. We will be accepting donations by credit card very soon. If you wish to donate to Delve Christian Ministries and support the work that we're doing, we thank you so much from the bottom of our heart.

You can mail a check or money order (payable to Delve Christian Ministries) to this address:

Delve Christian Ministries Inc.
P.O. Box 31032
Barrie, ON
Canada
L4N 9H0

You will soon start to see more emphasis on the site asking our visitors for donations, but I can assure you that it will be subtle and tasteful.

Stay tuned for more news very soon (some good news I hope!)

Government Woes

Michael Lane — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:56:40 -0700

First, let me begin by expressing my gratitude for all of you who commented on our news story earlier in the week. Your prayers and your kind words of encouragement mean the world to us.

There are two main challenges facing us right now, one I will talk about below and another that I will be able to discuss later next month.

Let me begin with some background. Delve Christian Ministries is currently operating as a non-profit incorporated company. This allows us to operate tax-free provided that any money we take in is used directly in the pursuit of our goals as laid out in our mission statement. This has not been an issue up to now, as we are privately funded and have not solicited donations from the public.

The funding we receive allows us to keep Delve Into Jesus operational, but does not provide for much more than that. We would like to expand into many other areas, so it became clear that we would need to begin asking for donations. As a non-profit company, we're entitled to ask for donations but we cannot issue tax receipts for any contributions. We don't feel comfortable asking people for money without being able to provide them with the tax receipt they're entitled to, so last year we applied to Revenue Canada to become registered as a charitable organization.

This week, they sent a letter rejecting our claim. They cited recent legislation that forbids charities from providing services through the internet only. According to this legislation, a charity must provide some sort of tangible benefit to the community outside of cyberspace.

Now, we are faced with a dilemma. We want to expand our ministry but cannot afford to do so without financial assistance. However, we cannot accept charitable donations until we show that we have expanded our ministry!

There are several ways we can proceed, and we don't have much time to act before our window to appeal closes and we are faced with the prospect of starting over and waiting another grueling 18 months. We either need to quickly come up with a very low cost way to expand our ministry, or we need to give up for now, expand slowly as we intended to and hope that people will be willing to donate to our ministry without receiving the tax benefits.

We would love to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions. If you want to offer some ideas on how we should proceed, please join the discussion here:

http://delveintojesus.com/discussions/149/Application-With-Revenue-Canada-Denied.aspx

We also thank you for your ongoing prayers. Of course, God knows exactly what we are supposed to do and we hope that His plan would be revealed to us so that His ministry stays on His intended path. Thank you all so much.

Weeks Of Bad News

Michael Lane — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:32:37 -0700

The past few weeks have been a difficult time for us at Delve Christian Ministries. I won't go into details at this time, but I did want to let our members know that we have come up against some serious challenges. God knows our struggle, so I ask for your prayers during this difficult time.

I should be able to say more in a month or two but for now, please remember us in your prayers. I am grateful for all our visitors - you mean so much to us and give us the strength to keep going! Thanks and God bless.

The Shack

Michael Lane — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:24:44 -0700

A few months ago, I read the most amazing book I've come across in years. It's called The Shack, and you can read my review here. After reading it, I intended to immediately post about it here, but my daughter was born a few days later and time has slipped away. Yesterday, I started reading it again and remembered that I had better hurry up and share the good news with all of you.

This book is a phenomenon. Right now, it's the number five best seller on Amazon.com. Now, consider that this is a book by a first-time author printed by a very small publisher on a limited marketing budget. For a book such as this to have reached so many people in just over a year, I have to consider that God is behind it in a powerful way. After you pick up your copy and discover what a treasure it is, you will understand why this book is resonating with people.

Please do yourself a favor. If you have not read this book yet, get a copy today. No work of fiction has ever touched me this deeply and I hope it does the same for you. Be prepared to learn, to cry and to deepen your relationship with and understanding of God.

You can learn more about it and order copies from the book's website or from Amazon.com

(Just so we're clear, we are not affiliated with the author or publisher in any way, and receive no kickbacks from book sales. I just really think this is a book everyone should read)

Emailing Members

Michael Lane — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:13:31 -0700

One of the first features we put in place (but never finished) was the ability for members to email one another from the website. One of our new members, Weedy, asked me about this last week, which reminded me, "hey we never finished that feature!" So, we've gone ahead and completed it, and it is now active. Thanks, Weedy!

We think this is an excellent way to increase the sense of community and fellowship which is such an integral part of being a member of Delve Into Jesus.

Here's how it works: If you click on any member's user name, you will see their profile and from there, you will see a tab called, "Send a message". Here, you can type the message and it will be sent to them by email.

To protect everyone's privacy, you will never see the recipient's email address, and the email will show as originating from Delve Into Jesus so that your email address will never be appear to them. The staff at Delve Christian Ministries will monitor all correspondence to make sure there is no abuse or harassment.

If you prefer that other members not have the ability to email you, you can turn this feature off in your own profile.

Congratulations to IgnitedFaith who was the first to find this new feature, and who sent the first email yesterday.

Creative Writing

Michael Lane — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:34:03 -0700

In the past few weeks, we've had requests to post poems and stories our members have written, but they did not fit into any of the existing categories. They were not articles, nor were they devotionals or reflections. Yet, we felt strongly that we should share what the Holy Spirit has placed on their heart to share. So, we decided to start a new section of the site called, "Creative Writing".

We finished that change last week and it is now ready and waiting for you. if you have any kind of Christian-themed creative writing you'd like to share, go ahead, don't be shy! You can find "creative writing" under the "Encouragement" menu above.

We hope that this new section of the site will be a blessing for both writers and readers alike. We can't wait to read the creative and brilliant compositions our talented members will come up with. Enjoy!

Conference

Michael Lane — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:38:56 -0700

Delve Christian Ministries will be attending the Internet Ministry conference this year. The conference takes place in Grand Rapids Michigan from October 20 - 23. We're very excited about what we can learn from those who have been doing this much longer than we have. No only that - we can't wait to meet all the people in the amazing Gospel.com community. We hope to see you there!

http://www.internetministryconference.org/

Church Site Evaluations

Michael Lane — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:18:21 -0800

I received the following from Tony Whittaker, over at "Internet Evangelism Day." I think this is an amazing resource, and I am delighted to share it with you.

New Advance for Church Websites
Free Church Site Evaluations Now Available Online

Summary

Churches can now receive a free customized 15-page report about their websites, enabling them to develop strategies to reach outsiders in their communities.

And this year's international web outreach focus day - Internet Evangelism Day - will be used by churches around the world on Sunday 27 April 2008

"How can our church website help us reach out into our community?" Churches often find it difficult to know how to build sites that will engage with outsiders in their area.

A new online tool has been released by Internet Evangelism Day, which provides churches with a free 15-page evaluation report. Users assess their own website by answering 55 simple questions in the tool questionnaire. Their customized report is immediately displayed online, ready to print or save. Its recommendations are tailored with specific practical suggestions, based on the questions that were ticked. View the design tool here:

www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/design

A church site which has been prioritized for non-Christian visitors can be remarkably effective in reaching the community. "Week in, week out, more visitors turn up at our church on a Sunday because of the website, than anything else," writes one growing church in London UK.

Church leaders have welcomed this new resource:

"This competent evaluation tool and rating service provides a valuable service to churches and Christian ministries that will help them strengthen their effectiveness in outreach through the Internet." - Dr. Sterling Huston, Director, North American Ministries, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

"Most church websites are not evangelistic. The new Church Website Evaluation Tool can help rectify this problem. This is a wonderful tool." - Dr. Bill Gordon, Evangelism Response Center, NAMB.

"There is no silver bullet for a great ministry site. However, this checklist is an invaluable tool to identify critical areas for improvement. Every church should study this regularly and act on it!" - Gary McClure, LifeWay Ministries.

This Evaluation Tool is just one of a range of pages at www.InternetEvangelismDay.com that help Christians learn to use the Web to reach the world. Internet Evangelism Day also encourages churches to hold a web awareness focus day on or near 27 April 2008, to explore this huge potential. Their site offers free downloads (PowerPoint, video clips, drama scripts and handouts) so that churches can create a custom program of any length from two minutes to an hour. "I am glad to commend Internet Evangelism Day," says Dr John Stott.

Website: http://www.InternetEvangelismDay.com

Number of Visitors

Michael Lane — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:19:53 -0800

I thought I should let everyone know how much things have picked up over the last few weeks. In the summer, we were averaging about 10 visitors a day. This month, the number is around 250 per day! Praise God!

The biggest reason for the increase is our partnership with Gospel.com, and their launch last month of the Gospel.com website. We receive more visitors from them than from any other source. Our relationship with them has been more fruitful than I could have ever imagined, and I am so immensely grateful for the work they're doing.

The other increase has come from the hard work we put in earlier in the year making the site ready for the search engines. Today, that hard work is paying off, with nearly 50 people per day finding us through the various search engines.

Thanks to everyone, especially Gospel.com for their help in getting us this far. Let's pray that by this time next year, the numbers are even bigger.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Rusty Wright

Michael Lane — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:26:14 -0800

I'm delighted to announce that international lecturer, award-winning author, journalist, and syndicated columnist Rusty Wright has generously given his permission for his articles to be published on Delve Into Jesus. In the coming weeks, we will be posting some of his work in the articles and reflections sections of the site.

Rusty's specialty is communicating Christ to secular audiences in biblical, culturally appropriate ways. He holds Bachelor of Science (psychology) and Master of Theology degrees from Duke and Oxford universities, respectively. An associate speaker and writer with Probe Ministries, he trains Christian leaders, broadcasters, print-media and Internet professionals in effective communication with secular audiences. You can find out more about Rusty here: http://www.probe.org/Rusty/

We are extremely grateful to Rusty for allowing his work to be featured here, and are very anxious to begin sharing some of that great content with you.

Small Changes

Michael Lane — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:59:33 -0800

As you can see, we've made some very small cosmetic changes this week which, I think, give the site a lighter feel and a more professional look. With every change we make, we are closer to the vision we have for the site and eventually, someday we'll be totally happy with the design and call it quits. We're closer now than ever. As always, please let us know what you think, positive or negative!

New Home Page

Michael Lane — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 18:11:27 -0700

Thanks to an excellent suggestion but member "davec", we have started work on a new personalized home page, customized for each user. It will show you

1) All items you created which have new comments since you last viewed it
2) All items you have commented on which have new comments since you last viewed it
3) All discussions you have joined which have new posts since your last post
4) All items you have not yet read.
5) All items which are new since your last visit.

Numbers 1, 2 and 5 are done, and if you want a sneak preview, you can head over to http://delveintojesus.com/members/userhome.aspx

Please note that the code which tracks your viewed items went in two weeks ago, so any items you viewed before then will not be tracked. This means that if you commented on an item two months ago and someone else has commented since then, it will not appear in this list. You will have to go back and review all items so the system gets caught up. This will not be an issue for new members, only members only than two weeks.

Once all 5 items are done, we'll spend some time making it look all nice and pretty, and then we'll announce it and add it to the menu.

DIJ Is Done

Michael Lane — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:54:52 -0700

It's hard to believe, but we started development on Delve Into Jesus about a year ago. At that time, we had a pretty clear vision of what we wanted, and we've spent 12 long months making that vision come to life. As we approached the one year mark, we set the end of September as a goal to have the site completed. As a result, there has been a flurry of new features on the site in the last month as we ticked off the remaining items off our to-do-list.

Today, we put the last pieces of the puzzle into place, and declared that we are done. That is not to say that the site will not evolve over time, but we are saying that we have achieved the vision we started with. From this point on, all development will be driven by member suggestions, but we do not have any plans of our own for changes at this time.

All of that is with respect to development. We will still continue to add content frequently such as new articles, reflections and devotionals. We will continue to promote and advertise the site as well.

What's next? Well, we never want to sit still! We will be starting work soon on a brand-new site at factsaboutjesus.com. Once again, we have a clear vision of what this website will look like when it's complete, and we don't think it will take nearly as long as Delve Into Jesus. We will keep you posted on our development of our new site as time goes on.

Email Notification

Michael Lane — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:31:20 -0700

We've just added a new feature I'm very excited about. Now, you can be notified by email whenever we add a new devotional or reflection. All you need to do is go to the reflection or the devotional main page (the "What Are" pages) and click the link. If you ever change your mind, one click is all it takes to unsubscribe.

Resource Progress

Michael Lane — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:02:33 -0700

If you hunt around the site, you can find some evidence of the progress on the resource section - just enough to give you a taste. The bulk of the work is done. We have a few ends to iron out, and everything should be live by the weekend.

Dr. Craig

Michael Lane — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:05:22 -0700

Dr. William Lane Craig, whom you may remember as one of the world-leading experts interviewed in Lee Strobel's Case For Christ and Case For a Creator has very generously agreed to allow us to reprint some of his articles here on Delve Into Jesus. We are very excited about having this material on the site, and very grateful to Dr. Craig for sharing this important writing with us. The first article, "Does God Exist?" is available now, with a few more to follow in the next couple of days. Many thanks to Dr. Craig and his staff. You can learn more about Dr. Craig from his website, http://reasonablefaith.org

Spread The Word

Michael Lane — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:52:09 -0700

We want your help getting the word out about Delve Into Jesus. We're going to start two new promotions. The first is simple - if you have friends, family or co-workers who could benefit from learning about this site, send us your address and we will send you a dozen business cards. We'll even pay the postage. All you have to do is hand them out.

The other promotion is going to involve linking to us from your own personal or corporate website or blog. We want to offer some incentive since it's a lot of work to maintain a list of links. I think the incentive will come in the form of Amazon.com gift certificates - something like x dollars per website which links to us, or x dollars for every tenth person who links to us - something like that. In any case, we will iron out the details soon. In the meantime, let us know if you have already put up a link to the site and we'll enter you for whatever incentive program we dream up. Details will follow soon.

DIJ Mobile

Michael Lane — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:00:55 -0700

I've started work on a "mobile" version of Delve Into Jesus. It will be very stripped down, with no images, no logging in and no feedback or comments. It will simply be a way to read articles, questions, devotionals, reflections, discussions and prayer requests on your mobile device. It should be very fast and easy to use. You can preview it at http://mobile.delveintojesus.com. The only thing working right now are the most popular articles, but the rest shouldn't take too long.

Let me know what you think, and whether or not you think this will be useful.

Comment Changes

Michael Lane — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:17:43 -0700

I've made several improvements to comments today (yes, yes, I'm supposed to be working on the resources section, but I was on a roll). First, it handles paragraphs correctly now. Some people were adding multi-paragraph comments only to find their spaces were removed any everything got lumped into one giant paragraph. This will no longer happen. Second, if you are logged in, you will be able to edit your previous comments. Please note, though, that editing a comment will cause it to go back to "Pending Approval" status. These changes were long overdue - thanks for your patience. Now, back to resources....

More Rating

Michael Lane — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 01:35:23 -0700

Up until now, only articles could be rated by our members. Today, I added the ability to rate devotionals and reflections. I think it's important for our members to be able to give us feedback about the kind of content they like and don't like so we can respond accordingly. (Naturally, questions, prayer requests and testimonials will not be rated.) There are also new pages to show you which articles, reflections and devotionals are the highest rated. The "All Articles" page can be sorted by rating, popularity and date, and the devotionals and reflections page will have this very soon as well.

So, please don't be shy - let us know what you think. All it takes is one click on the number of stars from 1 to 5. Your vote will be recorded immediately, and the total rating will be updated in real-time.

Resources

Michael Lane — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:36:05 -0700

At long last, development has begun on the last remaining section. Stay tuned for details!

Awful Incident

Michael Lane — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:35:11 -0700

This week, as I was monitoring the web site statistics I noticed our bandwidth was very high. Extremely high actually, far more than any of our web sites could explain. Our normal daily usage is about 0.3 GB. For the last three weeks in August, it was averaging 75 GB per day.

When I investigated, I found that someone had been using our FTP Server illegally to store and transmit illegal movies and pornography. I was sick and disgusted and I felt violated. I stopped the FTP server and deleted the files, but the damage was done. I don't know how they got access, but I will have to investigate that soon. When I called our Internet Provider (GoDaddy.com) and explained the situation, I was told it was going to cost us 1,700 in extra fees.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that we cannot possibly afford such a bill. I had to face the real prospect of shutting down the site and dissolving Delve Ministries. In desperation, I placed a call to the office of the president at GoDaddy. After explaining the situation to one of their senior staff, he offered to allow us to upgrade our package to one which could handle the extra traffic and waive the overage fee. The cost of this is still substantial, but no where near the original cost I was quoted.

I have a few things I need to pass along to everyone.

1) Check your bandwidth on your server very regularly. If you have a feature on your server which will shut it down if you go over the bandwidth, turn it on. Go Daddy offers this and we did not use it because we were certain we would never come anywhere close to the limit. Previously, we were only using about 30 of our allowed 500 Gb. I will turn it on now, that's for sure! Please don't assume that GoDaddy or anyone else will let you off the hook if this happens to you.

2) This was an amazing and extremely generous thing for GoDaddy to do for us, and it basically saved the ministry. For this, I will be loyal to them for as long as we need a server. Please show your support for them and visit them for hosting and domain names if you need this service. They're a little wacky, and some of their ads may cross the line of good taste, but I never let that bother me. They are good people.

3) I can't remember when I prayed so hard about something, and God came through to save his ministry. Thank you God for always being faithful!

Changes to Paths

Michael Lane — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 21:37:49 -0700

Two quick changes here. First, some people had commented that these pages were a litte drab, so I have added images to the top of each one to spice things up. Also, discovery paths have been divided into two categories (Investigating Christianity and Christian Living) to make them easier to find. I may add more categories down the road if necessary.

New Article Series

Michael Lane — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:01:37 -0700

I'm very happy to announce a new series of articles (which have also been combined into a discovery path) on Delve Into Jesus. "Dealing With Difficult Trials" is a series authored by Steve Miller of Legacy Youth Ministry Resources, and was originally written as a lecture series for youth pastors. We are extremely grateful to Steve for allowing us to offer this series. These articles are a great read and I highly recommend it to anyone, even if you're not dealing with hard times now. As Pastor James McDonald says, if you're not going through hard times right now, just wait, they're coming!

Site Search

Michael Lane — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 08:37:41 -0700

If you've been following the news here on Delve Into Jesus, you know that the problem which has been occupying my time has been searching. It's so important that people are able to find what they're looking for, and we have had very mediocre search functionality since the day we launched. A few weeks ago I said I would implement Google then didn't, and last week I did the same again.

The problem is that every time I work with Google's tools, I remember why I did not want to work with them in the first place. If I use the very basic tools, I cannot manipulate the search results which means that I cannot tell you how popular or highly rated an article is. I can do this by using Google's AJAX API and webservices, but it's an enormous amount of work. Finally (and this is final, I promise) I decided to drop Google and make the current search work really well since it was already 80 percent done.

To begin with, I fixed the discussion search which had been broken since day one. Next, I sorted all the search results by relevance, so that those items with the search term in the title come first, followed but those with the most occurrences of the search term in the body. (Search for "prayer" and look at the titles, you'll see what I mean). Finally, I created a unified search which searches the entire site, and made it accessible from the front page.

So, finally, I am pleased with how it all works and I think I can say that I am done with searching. Whew!

Google Search

Michael Lane — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:54:33 -0700

The searching on this site is not great. The article search is okay, the discussion search never worked, and there is no way to search the entire site.

A few weeks ago, I posted that we would soon have search functions on the site provided by Google (called their custom search engine). I'm usually pretty good about implementing things soon after I announce them, so what happened?

I could not find an easy way to display the results without showing ads on the side. There was a way to get results and display them manually, but it was very complicated and I gave up after a few hours. I decided to move on to more important things and come back to it later.

Yesterday, Google announced a business version of their custom search engine with no ads at a cost of 100 per year. I was just about ready to go ahead and purchase it, but something told me to hold off. When I went back and looked at the control panel for the custom search engine, I found a feature which permits turning off ads for non-profit organizations. Bingo! Was that feature there before? I'm not sure, otherwise I would have seen it. I think this new feature coincides with the launching of the business version.

Anyway, now that the advertisement problem is out of the way, I'll finish up this week. There will be specific searches for articles, prayers, reflections, devotions, questions and discussion. There will also be a search for the entire site, which I will try to cram on to the front page. Someday I still want control the results so I can show relevant information (for example, show an article's rating or popularity as part of the search results) but this will do for now.

Gospelcom.net

Michael Lane — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:25:29 -0700

We're very proud to announce that Delve Christian Ministries is now a member of the Gospelcom.net Ministry Alliance. Gospelcom is a fantastic organization that has helped many Internet ministries get off the ground by providing leadership, technical support and promotional assistance. They have also started several of their own ministries such as the very successful BibleGateway.com. We are very excited to be part of this alliance, and we look forward to many years of growth, partnership and success with them.

Incorporation Final

Michael Lane — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:46:36 -0700

The documents arrived on Friday. It's official, Delve Christian Ministries Inc is a separate, legal entity. I will take the next three weeks and work with the other directors to create the mission statement, constitution and by-laws. If you're interested in seeing these, keep an eye on the corporate web site. So much work to do!

Statement of Faith

Michael Lane — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:52:26 -0700

Delve Christian Ministies (our parent company) has adopted the statement of faith of the National Association of Evangelicals which is as follows:

We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

More Down Time

Michael Lane — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:33:29 -0700

The site was down almost another two days. Ugh! I finally had enough and have moved DIJ onto a dedicated server hosted with a well-known, reputable company. It costs 3 times as much, but if the site doesn't keep going down, it will be worth it. I apologize profusely, but if you know me at all, you know how much it upsets me when the site is down. Believe me, no one is more concerned about it than I am. I woke up 1.5 hours early this morning just to complete the move before work.

There are still some DNS issues to work out, and the site may experience some coughing fits as a result, but I should have that resolved before the end of the weekend. The server has enough horsepower for 1,000 times the amount of traffic we have, and enough space for 10,000 times more content, so this should keep us steady for years.

Article Rating

Michael Lane — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 21:20:28 -0700

Well, I've been busy! I've completed another new feature which has been on my mind for a while, and that is article rating. Users can now rate an article from 1 to 5, and you can see the average rating that users have given. This will serve as feedback to article writers to help us know what you like and don't like, and what is important to you. One thing left to do is to permit you to search by rating, and to see which articles are the highest rated. I'll work on that later this week.

Favorite Articles

Michael Lane — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:51:41 -0700

I've added a new feature - favorite articles. As you browse through, you can flag articles as your "favorites" and then access them conveniently from the "Favorites" page on the "Articles" menu. This should help anyone who is doing research or is interested in one particular topic.

Downtime

Michael Lane — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:19:58 -0700

Well, the site was down for nearly two days, and as you can imagine, I was beside myself. I couldn't sleep and I could hardly think of anything else. No data was lost, thanks to my own paranoia and obsessions with backups, so that's good at least.

There's no big, exciting story, just that the server had a heart attack and died. Unfortunately, the support staff where the site is hosted was not as motived to get the server up and running as I would have liked. Someday soon, I would like to have our own dedicated server so that we don't have to rely on anyone else for support. I'm in the process of making those arrangements now and hopefully the finances will work out.