At the end of last month I logged onto the online service that hosts Family of God's website. They have a lovely piece of software there that tracks how many distinct individuals have visited our site. The software tells me how many, when, for how long, etc people looked at our site. I was looking forward to seeing how the 9000 postcards we had sent out affected the number of folks checking us out. I figured we would have a high month. Can you imagine how shocked I was to see that September had been one of our worst months ever. I was dumbfounded. So, I reacted the way I usually do. I threw myself at correcting it. No way I was gonna let our web site go unnoticed. So, I started a new blog. I started a twitter stream. I enrolled us with the company that sends out those cool email newsletters. I updated the website, a lot. I started a Facebook group. I did all the social contact stuff online that is supposed to draw folks to your site.
Today I re-checked the visitor tracking software to discover that ZERO people had visited in October. Ok, now I was suspicious. I knew I had visited. I would be at least one. I knew my boss had, because he told me how much he like it. What was I missing?
I tell my kids all the time how important it is to pay attention. Well, it applies to us grown ups too. Apparently, I failed to notice that the software on the website had changed. Now I have to hit the "Update" button before it would update my stats, instead of doing it automatically like it used to be. So I hit the button and PRESTO the statistics for the site showed me that September was one of our best ever. What's more it showed that October was on it's way to being a full 33% better than September!
I sat there and couldn't figure out if I was feeling happy about the exposure that Family of God was getting, or sad because apparently I am starting to have more and more "senior moments". But it made me think if we were doing this much better with all the wrong information, what would happen if we tried harder with all the right info.
I want to recruit all of you to getting the word out about the great ministry we are doing. So, it is time to start up the Family of God Press Corp. Feel free to think of yourself as officially recruited. Each month (at least) there will be a new Press Corp assignment. Don't worry they will be fun, quick, and easy. For example the first task I need the Press Corp to do is forward the last email newsletter to everyone you know. That is as easy as hitting a button. Now is your chance to return the favor to your friend who is always sending you forwards of pictures of cute cats with funny sayings. You may already even have gotten a Newsletter newsflash asking you to do just that very thing. Don't get the newsletter yet? That's ok, just go to the Church's home page and sign up on the form at the bottom right.
I don't know how many ways we can use the network of folks we have here at Family of God, but I bet that we are just scratching the surface. So hit that forward button with pride my good Press Corp member. Be watching for future assignments and maybe even contests.
Good luck, and God bless.
Pastor Rus
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