I have had an online ministry since Thanksgiving 2006 on this site and at Christianbusinessguy.com. I started out not knowing what I was doing. There was much to learn about "doing a blog", blogger itself, online ministry, etc. It was challenging, new, difficult, and rewarding. I advertise with Google Adwords across the Google display network so my ads show up on places like Myspace etc. I actually advertise my testimony site christianbusinessguy.com and I have that site linked to this blog. My testimony has a lot to do with God's grace, forgiveness, coming back from back-sliding, freedom from immorality, etc.
I get a small but steady number of inquiries, prayer requests, and some cries for help. My life has been so busy working in the business world, launching a Web venture in my "spare" time, and raising a family that for more than a year I have been terrible about responding to ministry emails. However, I don't think it was just being busy that caused me to respond slowly- or sometimes not at all. I think there has drifted into my heart a coldness to this ministry. I like writing, I really do but for various reasons- some of them even valid, I think my ministry sites have become too-familiar and too "common" to me. I still enjoyed this ministry but time, busyness, a lack of being able to see if I am making a difference, and a general hardness of heart caused me to treat this ministry as a common thing- and neglect it.
Through some messages at church www.gatewaypeople.com (watch the last 3 messages online and you can have God speak to you and recharge you too) and the work of the Holy Spirit stirring my heart I have realized that God uses little things, small things, inglorious things like this site. I have realized that I cannot see what he is doing in me and through me and this site. I am slowly recommitting my heart back to this online ministry.
My original vision was to advertise in places across the Web- kind of like an online missionary. I realized quickly that my ads were hitting people on blogs and websites all over the place and I saw how God could take his Word and his Spirit --- his HOPE right into the living rooms of people who need him.
If you could read the emails I have received over the years you would see how many hurting and hopeless people there are out there. Sin and the pains of life are shredding people. The Internet is a place people live and work- Jesus is into reaching people in common places, through common little blogs like this, and through common little people like me.
I'm recommitting myself to the common. May God in his grace reach people through these sites.
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