The impulse for this website originated in summer 2015 (and three years passed before it became a reality.) I felt a need, a desire, a calling to reach more people for Jesus Christ. After all, His last command to us at His ascension was to make disciples. Everyone should endeavor to do what He instructed mankind to do.
When this idea emerged, the World Wide Web added more domain extensions, including “.community”. On the very first day of this offering, I purchased the domain of www.jesuschrist.community. In my opinion, it’s a very strong name that with some cultivation should emerge high on search engines with SEO techniques. My vision was and still remains to gain a huge number of regular readers and make disciples. It takes time and money to make it work.
The website has been partially successful, but far short of my hopes and expectations. A major issue is people simply not knowing about it. I’ve admittedly done a poor job of getting the word out, and hoping for others to inform their friends and relatives has been modestly successful. I certainly appreciate those who have done so. Unfortunately, most people–even devout Christians–do not promote Jesus Christ for fear or embarrassment or whatever reason.
I’ve spoken with the two churches that my wife and I attend regularly, and neither one has actively promoted the website, even in the simplest manner possible–e.g., just writing the web address in the weekly bulletin. One was “all in” and then changed its mind for the bulk of its involvement. The other responded positively, but hasn’t done anything yet other than informing one of the small groups about it. I’m hopeful that minds will be opened for them to become involved in the future.
This website has lived up to its promise of being dynamic with something new every single day since its inception. It started on Palm Sunday, so it has about three months of history behind it. I’m now able to track the readership. I find it humorous that it falls well short of the number of people who’ve told me that they read it regularly! Perhaps this reality will spawn a future devotional.
I feel that I’m preaching to the choir in the devotionals and blogs. The website is reaching a few believers, but I don’t sense that it’s making new disciples. For the next few days I’m going to work on how to publicize this website for broader distribution. In the meantime, I’ll repost some of the best devotionals of the past few weeks and clearly indicate in the title that they are repeats. This won’t impact new readers to the site.
If my friends and relatives who know how to contact me have any suggestions for improving this website or gaining greater readership, please let me know. I’d put my personal email address here, but with hundreds (over 720 so far) of hacking attempts to damage this website, I’m not inclined to provide any information that may help hackers.
Thanks for your consideration! Pray that this website will take the best direction to meet whatever the good Lord has planned for it.