Tread Heavily

I am not a professional minister. I did not go to a seminary, and I have not been around great Christian thinkers all of my life. I grew up Baptist, but I never really understood or cared about what I was being forced to learn. I went through college making fun of Christians and organized religion in general. It wasn’t until 2002 that I started going back to church, and wasn’t until 2004 that I fully accepted Christ and was baptized as a Christian. For those of you that might not know, the act of baptism isn’t a necessity of being Christian, but it is a symbolic way for someone to publicly express their faith.

Given all of that, it is absolutely amazing to me that God would have put such a burden on my heart and mind like he did when I found out about The Christian Pulse. I use the term burden because that’s what it feels like. A heavy stone around my neck that I can’t take off. No matter how hard I have tried, I can’t completely turn my back on the project, what it symbolizes, and the future I can see for it. I know that sounds like a negative thing, and probably sounds strange, but a burden is exactly what it is. Confused? Keep reading and I will explain.

Just about two years ago, I got a bulletin on MySpace that someone was looking for writers for a new Christian magazine that they were putting together. It was a web mag and was being run by a trio of friends in Alpharetta. I met with the guys because I wanted to see where they were coming from and if I felt like their motives were in line with mine. I didn’t want to donate my time and thoughts to people who were just in it for the quick buck. After talking to Aaron Harris and the other two guys, Robert and Pon (a different Robert) I believed that these guys were the genuine article and this was a project I wanted to get involved with. I wrote my first article and started helping out with the design and maintenance of the site.

That involvement grew and grew until now I handle the technical side of the ministry while Aaron manages the people and content.

For those who are familiar with the history of the site itself, I’ll be brief. It started as a newsletter for Atlanta-area singles, became a small web mag, and eventually evolved into fully-functional online entertainment media, complete with a user community and a ‘behind-the-scenes’ organizational chart. What started with a couple of friends and a couple of writers has turned into two guys with a bunch of editorial and authoring support, all across the globe. I am amazed every day that we have so many people willing to pour their heart into what we are building. There were times when we struggled getting anyone to submit content, but now content is the least of our trouble.

Things are changing in the online world. Things that we have to adapt to and start offering, or we will become more and more obsolete. We have to give people information in the formats they want, how they want it. It is my belief that websites that are full of articles are becoming lapped by those that offer video and podcasts. So, we’re going to have to adapt.

It has always been my contention that the Christian community is very slow to adopt new technology. Will they accept video reports and interviews? Yeah, I hope so, because our audience is those Christians who aren’t afraid to step out and be where God wants them. One of our taglines is ‘cutting edge faith,’ so I feel like we need to present our readers with cutting edge content that challenges their mind and helps them defend themselves from attacks on both sides.

And that brings me back to the beginning where I said The Christian Pulse is a burden. I am not writing this because I want to stop working on the Pulse. I am not writing this because I want pity. I am writing this so I can explain to people out there that we sometimes do things, not because it is fun and rewarding, but because God has told us to do it. I have fought and fought against him for at least the past year with this, and this is my way of saying, ‘Ok. I give in.’ I know there are steps, fairly simple steps, we can do to get the site to the level we need it to be to be able to generate enough revenue to help produce content in emerging formats, fund outreach and community-based events, and really take that extra step in connecting people through entertainment.

Soon, I am going to launch a few initiatives on my side:

• Social Media - We are a social media site, yet we don’t use it like we should.
• Social Marketing - We need to start using other sites besides MySpace to announce our content. That’s not really where our audience is these days. We need to grow the audience!
• Audio and Video - We need to figure out how to do some of our interviews and articles in other formats. I have lot of ideas for this, but can always use more.
• Site Cleanup - Our site is nice for a Joomla site, but I know we can make it look better.
• Community - I don’t like our current community system. It is great as a Talent Directory, but it insn’t a true social network.
• Ministry Outreach - I know that part of any good Ministry is having good ministers to help you along the way. We need to increase our support base.

If there is anyone out there who reads this and wants to help out in some way, great! Just drop me an email and let me know what you want to do. I know that Aaron and I both have struggled keeping our heads in the game, but God won’t let either of us ride the bench.

I just want the courage to say, ‘Give me the ball!’

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Filed under: Christianity, Social Media, Entertainment, Real Research