Gospel.com Blog

The publishing industry has undergone massive changes in the internet age. Where does that leave Christian writers who want to take advantage of the new opportunities presented by the digital age?

James Watkins is a Christian writer who has been charting a course through the challenges and opportunities of publishing amidst a rapidly-changing industry and a massive economic crisis. He was recently interviewed by Upper Case about how to avoid becoming a digital dinosaur. He talks about his own experience making the transition from the traditional Christian publishing model to the wide-open world of modern web-savvy publishing. It’s an interesting discussion of the importance of adapting to the new online medium.

It also goes along nicely with a recent discussion among Christian bloggers and writers about the increasing pressure on writers to market themselves in the online world. Christian literary agent Rachelle Gardner kicked off the discussion on her blog, and the ensuing conversation is well worth reading.

There’s been a flurry of activity behind the scenes here at Gospel.com in the past few months. We’ve been working hard to develop new ways to communicate with you and help you communicate with each other.

A few weeks ago, we introduced a new commenting system for all of our Bookmark pages. The more observant of you probably already noticed and have jumped into the conversation; however, since we’ve started to gather some steam we thought it was time to finally announce it publicly. After all, we’d hate for any of you to feel left out.

If you’re feeling brave, go ahead jump over to the Latest Comments section to explore the most recent comments, or start up a new conversation by commenting on any bookmarks you run across.

If you’re still a little confused, that’s okay, read on for more of an explanation:

Aside from the blog, the majority of the content and resources on Gospel.com are organized under things we call Topics and Bookmarks:

• Topic pages are collections of every Bookmark that has been associated with a particular topic (ie Devotionals, or Christianity)
• Bookmarks are individual pages that link to outside content and provide a place for discussion (ie “Born again” in the Bible: John 3:1-21, or Sabbath in the Bible – a Christian perspective). Each Bookmark is tagged with Topics and appears on those Topic pages.

Bookmark pages used to be pretty boring, but now each bookmark has its own separate place for comments. You can use that as a place to say whatever you want about the bookmark: ask and answer questions, declare that you like the link, describe how useful you found it, etc. Think of it like a mini-message board for that specific bookmark.

There are thousands upon thousands of bookmarks so there’s going to be plenty of conversations opening up in the next few weeks, so you might want to watch the Latest Bookmarks section.

It’s really pretty easy once you get into it, so jump in and comment away!

A few weeks ago, I pointed out an article on the Koinonia blog about common Bible study mistakes and the usefulness of inductive Bible study. But what exactly is inductive Bible study? How’s it different from “normal” Bible study, and is it something you need a seminary degree to undertake?

It turns out that inductive Bible study is actually a very simple concept, something that anyone can do while reading through the Bible. It’s a very personalized way of reading through the Bible, and lets you walk thoughtfully through the Bible at your own pace. The good folks at Intervarsity have a short step-by-step guide to inductive Bible study that has helped me grasp the concept.

If your Bible reading feels directionless or lacking, I encourage you to try out the inductive study method on a few chapters. It’ll get you interacting with the Bible text in a way that you may never have done before. If you do try it out (or if you’ve been doing inductive Bible study for a while now), stop by the comment section below and share your experience!

Do you think the Church is as unhealthy as people say it is? There seems to be an increasing number of books and blog posts devoted to the failings of the Church. A recent Out of Ur post cites statistics that say that 70-80% of youth are leaving the church by the age of 22. If it was half that number, I’d still think it was an extremely high percentage.

In his most recent blog post, Dale Fincher reflects on negative statistics like those and asks some fantastic follow-up questions. He wonders if there’s something intrinsic to today’s church that repels so many people who follow Jesus.

Here’s a few paragraphs from his post:

We’ve all witnessed the onslaught of recent publishing. We’ve read the articles that speak to so many people leaving church. We’ve seen the books by people disillusioned with church. We’re heard the statistics decrying that most students won’t even attend church by the time they are out of college. Many leaders are fretting over the dropped attendance as an indication of the spiritual maturity of the Christian population.

What exactly is going on here? Why are people discouraged with church? What is church that it isn’t meeting people’s needs? What is it about church that seems to be missing the point?

I’ll extend the same question to you: is there something identifiably wrong with the Church that’s putting off Christians (and non-Christians)? Or is it all just a lot of people complaining about a problem that’s always existed, or doesn’t exist?

Are you struggling to find work in this economic climate? Or maybe you’ve managed to stay employed, but are feeling the pinch of a tighter budget or mounting debt. As the ongoing economic crisis continues to drag on, chances are that you and the people you love have been directly affected by it.

Biblica has put together a series of articles and helpful resources for anyone coping with unemployment and other economic pressures. They note that the loss of a job and economic security is more than just a financial setback: it exacts a spiritual and emotional toll as well. Biblica’s articles address issues like fear, anxiety, faith, and hope—all things that you experience during the turbulence of unemployment.

So if you’re desperate for a ray of hope in the midst of a personal financial crisis, take a look at Biblica’s unemployment resources. They might help you find the perspective you need to make it through.

When’s the last time you gave thanks for the simple things in life?

If you’re like me, despite the many Biblical injunctions to be thankful, I rarely spend serious time in a spirit of thankfulness. I’ll devote a token amount of time on Thanksgiving to thank God for my family and friends—and that’s definitely a good thing—but I tend to miss out on the day to day opportunities for thanksgiving.

Thankfulfor.com is out to create a collective journal of everyone’s daily thanksgivings. They ask the simple question, “What are you thankful for today?” to which people have responded with everything from “This class being over in 45 minutes!” to “I am grateful that my mother lived for almost three years after stroke. I am happy that she met her grandson.”

You can login using your twitter account, or create an account with thankfulfor.com. Or jump straight to reading what the world is thankful for.

So, what are you thankful for today?

Have you walked through the aisles of video games at Best Buy or Gamestop lately? If you have, you’ve seen the bewildering array of game titles lined up on the shelves, their flashy box art promising hours of immersive entertainment.

So how do you, as a parent or discerning gamer, tell the good games from the bad?

There’s no shortage of video game review sites out there eager to share their opinions on the latest titles. But beyond the question of gameplay quality, which games will engage you with wholesome content—and which will fill your TV screen or monitor with virtual ultraviolence and other gratuitous elements? It’s not always clear from the game’s description and rating whether or not it’s appropriate for your family.

If you’re familiar with Al Menconi Ministries, you know that for years, his team of game reviewers have been offering a Christian perspective on the latest video games. Now, it looks like his reviewers have launched their own ministry: Reviews4Parents. They’re a game review ministry that doesn’t hide their Christian approach, and doesn’t apologize for weighing a game’s moral and spiritual elements in their analyses.

They’ve already got a large library of reviews online, including recent hits like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Prototype.

So don’t be left in the dark about video games—see what Reviews4Parents has to say. And if you’ve got any other tips or ideas for weeding out the good from the bad when it comes to video games, feel free to share in the comments below.

You might have noticed a new type of ad appearing on certain Gospel.com pages: Google sponsored links. Sponsored links–which you can see on many sites around the web, including Google.com itself–automatically generate relevant ads based on the content you’re viewing.

Here’s what they look like on Gospel.com:

We hope that you’ll find the new ads useful and unobtrusive. The goal of these new ads is to financially support the site without interfering with your use of it. If you have comments, concerns, or ideas about how we can do this better, don’t hesitate to contact us. The ads are generated by Google and not by Gospel.com; if you spot an ad that you think is inappropriate, please let us know and we’ll take action to remove it.

Thanks for your ongoing support! We have some exciting improvements in store for Gospel.com, and we hope you continue to find the site helpful and encouraging!

Remember what it was like to be a freshman, new on campus and unsure about college life? Now that school is back in session, if you’re an upperclassman tempted to look down on the wave of freshmen students running around campus looking lost, let me point you to an article at StudentSoul.org about what freshmen wish upperclassmen would remember about their first year.

It’s a good reminder that you can be a good Christian witness to your fellow students simply by being patient with underclassmen and occasionally going out of your way to help them acclimate to campus life. Here’s the article’s concluding exhortation:

As you meet new students, remember their inexperience. Remember unknown roommates and more noise in the dorms than you had at home. Remember not knowing anyone. Remember learning to live with cafeteria food. Most of all, remember that freshmen are more than recruits to grow your numbers. They are people you will soon learn to love. Be open to who they are and let them grow into who they are becoming. Avoid pegging new students too soon, and introduce them slowly and clearly to the Christian subculture on your campus.

Be nice to freshmen, because you used to be one: sounds like good advice to me!

What would it be like if God called you up on your cellphone? Back to the Bible has an interesting ministry called 411God that provides an idea of how that might work: you sign up for an account, and then you get a daily call to your cellphone with one minute of Scripture.

The service is free to use; and if you’re curious what the daily calls sound like, you can listen to past ones online at their archives. (There’s also a free album from the band Vota available for download.)

411God’s an intriguing idea, and I wonder if we’ll see the concept spread to other forms of daily spiritual engagement, like devotionals or prayer. How many of us don’t spend enough time each day in Bible reading or praying because we just can’t seem to find the time? This program sidesteps that excuse by bringing the Bible to you instead of waiting for you to find time to come to the Bible. If you give it a try, leave a comment below to let us know your impressions.