Hi Young Adult Leaders, Young Adults, FGA people, friends from facebook, melbournians, people who have stumbled on this via google and you ..
Thanks for coming to this site and thinking of volunteering to help improve our ministry. I thought I’d write to kind of explain how to best use this site (as it stands at the moment). The thing to realise about this site is that it really is a preview site, a kind of work in progress. I’m using it to pen down all the ideas we’ve got for the upcoming young adults service and ministry revamp. Sure, the site is going to continue after the launch, and we are going to use it continually for planning and for discussing a wide range of issues related to the ministry (and life), but we’re not quite there yet.
When we launch we’ll have a more thorough PAGES section (this is the TOP NAVIGATION BAR) with detailed information about various aspects of our ministry and services. However, for now, most of our site is contained in the CATEGORIES/POSTS section, which is dynamically generated based on the category tags given to each post.
So here’s a quick heads up on PAGES vs POSTS
- PAGES are static. You cannot comment on a page (right now anyway), and for the most part, its for displaying important information (about our services, themes, our team, events etc.)
- POSTS are what we will constantly update. You’ll see posts about design, outreaches, wacky ideas, book reviews, theological contemplation etc. I’m hoping you’ll browse through posts and when you come up against something that either rubs you the wrong way or inspires you, you’ll take some time to write a comment.
So, here’s a quick heads up on how to COMMENT on a post. See the picture below:
1. Firstly, you have to let the site know who you are.
You can either log in via our FACEBOOK app (which will save you having to type in your name everytime you comment) or you can fill in your name/email in the section at the bottom of a post. If you’re really worried about your privacy etc. just put in some “other” name.
2. Secondly, you just type your thoughts in that big TEXT BOX below the word “website”.
Write whatever you want, cut and paste a link in, use HTML if you want etc. I do have some caveats on what makes a good comment (I do have complete management of the site and I will exercise that ability to remove inappropriate comments). I’ve put down a couple of guidelines below:
- I assume that everyone commenting is wanting in some way to help/chip in into the process of creating a better way of ministering the gospel to our generation. You can be a non-christian, you can have never been to church, or even someone in our leadership team … you’re very welcome to pitch in to give us a hand. If you’re not a christian and something we say rubs you the wrong way and you comment, awesome, we’ll get insight into how the words we use gets perceived.
- I will remove comments that specifically flame, implicate people or comments where I really struggle to see the desire to help develop the ministry. We’re trying to work towards a common goal. If you do not share this common goal, perhaps the FGA Young Adults development/collaboration website isn’t really the place you want to be investing your time in. Once our real site gets up and running, check us out again, there’ll be no requirement for a common goal or any such thing once we’re LIVE. Again, negative comments and gut reactions are VERY welcome, we’re just going to have to find a balance in figuring out what’s prudent. Also, web spammers, sellers of dodgy pills aimed to increase sex performance, social media marketers who want to increase their hit count etc… I will delete your comments.
3. Click the SUBMIT box
I’ll get an email (on my iPhone) when you submit a comment. You’ll make my day. I’ll take this moment right now to thank you for breaking out of the crowd and venturing to join in on this project. Your help, ideas and even your opinion is going to shape the kind of ministry we want to have.
Please note that you also have the option (if you signed in to Facebook) to let Facebook know about your comment and post. I’m working to have this disabled by default, but as for right now, its a bit complicated. Please don’t let this deter you from signing in via Facebook, its really a lot easier to uncheck the “publish this comment on Facebook” box than to type your email address and name each time.
Well, that’s it for me. Enjoy browsing through the site. Shoot me an email (my email addy is the home page) or post a comment (see instructions above). Also, if you have any suggestions for the site or want to drop a suggestion that doesn’t fit anywhere, head over to this post and drop a comment.
God Bless,
Ps. Chris Ong
