SINCE YOU ASKED....
1. I posted a long time ago (soon after signing up here) that sites like this need a CLEAR mission statement, a crystal clear sense of vision - and that this needs to be conveyed CLEARLY, centrally, foundationally - right down to the name of the site. Before a business even begins (certainly before anyone will loan that start up a DIME), it needs to CLEARLY understand the market (including competition), the need, and how SPECIFICALLY it will address that need. If you move into a community with 20 Starbucks - all growing and profiting - and determine to open up a coffee shop in a center with 2 Starbucks because "I like coffee shops" and with a plan to "make good coffee" you are DOOMED to failure - and a lot of problems. I shared that ALL the Christian websites I've seen fold or go into decline have done so because they lost their sense of vision, purpose, mission - or worse, abandoned it to become a "me, too" site. THAT (and over-moderating and staff in fighting) is what kills sites. I've seen it over and over again.
2. IF this is a "HAVEN" for Christians, then I think it is doomed. BeliefNet and a thousand other sites are already doing that.... really well.... and have HUGE communities you will never compete with. But good luck.
3. What I like about this site (and why I've "adopted" it as my home) is because...;
A. It seems open..... rules are few, simple, easy to understand, fair - and liberally "enforced." Basically, we are asked to be respectful adults..... BUT permitted to be open, honest, real. And to respectfully disagree. IT'S ALL I ASK FOR IN A SITE. CH is the only one I know of that actually, consistently, fairly DOING that. I want meaningful, respectful, REAL discussions of things that divide us, things I therefore CARE about. I'll bend over backwards for such a site..... I'll pray daily for it to grow. When I felt CF could be that kind of site, I worked by _____ off for it, I served on Staff some 20 hours per week for that.... In a cesspool of relativism and kumbyahism and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.... while what matters is EMOTION and not TRUTH, to find an island in that horror of contemporary Christianity is a precious, precious thing to me.
B. I want to LEARN. I don't go online for fellowship or support. I meet with PEOPLE for that. I come to LEARN. I want to be CHALLENGED. I come to have things I think revealed to be false or nonsense. I come to be presented with things I didn't know. If I just want to "sing with the choir" and be surrounded by a bunch of "yes-men" I'll go to some "confessional Lutheran" discussion forum (I'm sure they exist). I DON'T. I NEVER go to those sites. I won't be changed there. I'm not likely to grow there. While CH has a LOT of growing to do, we do seem to have a small core of people who are informed, intelligent and articulate with whom I have some disagreements. Now, all we need are a few hundred more to liven up the place and make it really productive and profitable. I think we are headed in that direction.
IF CH becomes a relativistic, all-that-matters-is-how-you-FEEL site, I'll leave. I'm already registered at a whole bunch of those sites - all much bigger than CH (and probably better than CH could be); heck, I'd probably just go back to CF since that's what it has become.... or more likely, just give up with internet discussion forums.
Sorry (but you asked, lol)
- Josiah
