Thursday, December 25, 2008

For My Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist or any other faith group… or a person of no faith friends! I Love You All!

(Photo of Marion Nell Lincoln - my mom with six of her great grandkids)

Merry Christmas and A Blessed and Happy New Year from our Home to Yours!

This Blogging has become a brand new ministry in my later years. It is a little like the old days for me and the Radio Ministry. It is like Radio in that you spend time putting together your thoughts, writing it out, then you sit in front of a machine that sends out your “voice” to people that you never see. You never quite know what is happening – but you can trust God that someone some where will be reading.

On Tuesday Feb 28, 2006 I posted my first Blog Posting as I encouraged people to pray for my friends Hervey and Helen Shank. You can view that are Hervey and Helen Shank - February 28. That was the first post of 2 years and 5 months of posting. And when I stopped posting on that Blog in June 2008 – my last day as Pastor of Northview church there had been over 22,800 visitors… and 31,900 pages read. I stopped posting on this Blog at the request of the Church Board… changed the name at the top… but left it in tact. Even after 6 months of no posting it averages 45 people a week from all over the world – dropping by for a visit. Each Google Search (and any other search engine) picks up the northchurch.blogspot.com an average of 6 people per day.

That is where it is unlike Radio… you words are there forever.

Blogging is dangerous however. It can make people upset. In those early months of almost three ago I told some stories that some thought I should never tell. I told about the results of immorality in our church and its deep affects on the life of the church. Yikes – in 2006 – you should never tell about people sinning!

Even the prayer and posting about my friend Hervey Shank drew great criticism in that People wanted me to not be so open about something so private. But they all read it to see what was going on. The greatest critics read the most – and still do!

On June 30, 2008 I posted my first post on this Blog – that was 180 posts ago. Since that day there has been 6,348 people drop by to read what is written and 7,906 pages read. There is now an average of 50 people a day dropping by. When I preach to an audience of 150 people – I am lucky to have that many people listen to what I say any one morning.

I am publishing this Link to the World Map of Site Meter – for today Dec 25, 2008… (but you can also go to the Site Meter icon to search it out) however when you look in on this page in days following Dec 25 2008 – it will be different again. Today it shows – visitors from Korea, Australia, Pakistan, Morocco, France, the United Kingdom – Britain, Brazil, and dozens of places across the USA and Canada.

What started as an idea to reach out to our own church community has leaped way past that to a world that is waiting.

In the past - all the people that listened on the Radio – in Canada and the USA and later in all parts of China – never spent one second in our church… nor did they care about it.

I am honored to have a number of Islamic people dropping by often to read the Blog. The amount of time that they spend reading is amazing. Yes you can see that along with the exact kind of monitor screen size, which program they are using and a whole bunch of information on every one that visits the Blog.

You can see it for yourself as well. Go to the small icon/button at the bottom of the Blog posting page… click on Site Meter and take a look at who is visiting.

When I reported on a tragic airplane accident in Africa and then published the names of the victims – telling the world that I was praying for these families – hundreds of people from all over Africa dropped in to read what was said about the accident. Even today there are still people going back to read that posting.

I say all that to say that Blogging is a powerful tool that reaches thousands upon thousands of people. And I state her that it is worth ever hour of every morning that I have written.

I say Thank You to you as a Reader – as someone that drops by for a regular or occasional visit. You are why I do this.

I hope that you will be blessed today. I hope for peace where you live and for your family. May your family be prosperous and find the security that you so need in our troubles world. And YES – I say MAY GOD BLESS YOU – whether you are Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist or any other faith group… or a person of no faith! I love you all!

~ Murray Lincoln ~
Friend of the Waiting World

For your reading and research pleasure you can look at…
http://www.murraylincoln.com/
http://murraylincoln.blogspot.com/
http://prayforleaderstoday.blogspot.com/
http://northviewchurch.blogspot.com/

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