Gospel.com Blog

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!

You may have noticed something new here on Gospel.com: advertisements! That’s right—for the first time since Gospel Communications went online over a decade ago, we’re serving ads on our websites. (Similar ads are online, or will be soon, at our other properties, like BibleGateway.com and ThinkChristian.net.)

Why are we taking this step now, after staying ad-free for so long? In the past, we’ve always steered far away (perhaps too far away) from any form of advertising because we didn’t want to dilute our evangelistic message with any hint of commercialization. This is an issue we’ve been debating ourselves for a long time, but ultimately we came to the conclusion that it would be irresponsible not to make use of advertising on our websites. As you know, we’ve always relied on your donations to keep our many ministries and websites going—but it’s not fair to you or ourselves to rely entirely on donations when we can fund the expansion of our ministries through a combination of donations and advertising.

You can read more about this decision, and the reasoning behind it, at the Gospel Communications corporate website. (You can also find our advertising terms and conditions there.) Rest assured, we’re going to make sure that all the ads we deliver meet the moral standards you expect from us, and that they’ll never interfere with your use of Gospel.com.

We’d love to hear your feedback—how can we make the ads better? Feel free to send your questions or comments about the ads to us at onlineads@gospelcommunications.org.

As you may recall, earlier this month we discontinued the old Gospelcom.net website and welcomed Gospelcom.net users to Gospel.com. We also invited you to send us your comments and questions about Gospel.com—and you have done so!

Two user requests in particular have been showing up most frequently in our email inboxes. And we’ve listened! We’ve made two new adjustments to Gospel.com based on your feedback:

1. You can now search the Bible Gateway from the Gospel.com homepage. Many of you told us that you missed the Bible Gateway search form on the old site, so we’ve added one to the top right of the Gospel.com homepage. Just check the “Search BibleGateway.com” option, type in a Bible passage or search term, and you can search the Bible!

2. The Verse of the Day is more prominent on the Gospel.com homepage. The Verse of the Day has been on the Gospel.com homepage since we launched, but it wasn’t obvious where it was. So we’ve bumped it higher on the page so you can see it right away when you visit Gospel.com.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to email us with your requests and feedback! We’re always looking to make Gospel.com more useful to you. We hope you like these additions, and don’t hesitate to send us your thoughts at info@gospel.com.

Back to the Bible has a brand new website!

All of Back to the Bible’s classic content—including the Bible Minute daily devotional and the Back to the Bible radio broadcast—are still there, but are now easier to find and use. You can take a tour of the new site (PDF) to get a quick look at their many different devotionals, radio programs, Bible studies, and more.

If you’re not familiar with the broadcast ministry of Back to the Bible, now’s a great time to get to know them! Start with their website tour, or for a bit of holiday spirit, check out their special Thanksgiving message.