Welcome to the new Baptist Standard website. We’ve been thinking about you and working on this design for a long time. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but suffice it to say I’ve got 3-year-old e-mails documenting the discussion that brought us to this day. Of course, in Internet time, that was several generations ago. This new website uses technology that wasn’t even available when we started thinking about and longing for a better site.
And like any good relationship, this site isn’t finished yet. Every day, we’ll add things—content for sure, but also products and services—to make it better and better. We hope and pray you’ll soon feel you can’t let a day pass without drawing upon the resources we offer at baptiststandard.com. We’re even bold enough to believe many of you will make baptiststandard.com your homepage because it connects you to “all things Baptist” in ways you only dreamed were possible.
New resources for you
Speaking of resources, the Baptist Standard’s mission is to “inform, inspire, equip and empower people to follow Christ and expand the Kingdom of God.” For right at 120 years, we’ve interpreted that to mean providing accurate, reliable and timely news about Baptists here in Texas and God’s work around the world. That always will be Job 1.
But as we’ve talked to our readers, we’ve come to realize we can’t fulfill our mission unless we provide a broader range of resources—products and services that strengthen individual Christian believers, build better churches and help all of us fulfill Christ’s Great Commission and Great Commandment.
So, we’re trying to figure out how to do just that. Although you can’t see all of it right now, this new website has been built upon infrastructure that will enable us to give you much more than news. We’ve got some ideas about where we’re headed, but I don’t even want to speculate about them just yet. Right now, we’re cooperating with our publishing partners—the Associated Baptist Press news service, Virginia’s Religious Herald and Missouri’s Word & Way—to research the possibilities. Also, the Baptist Standard’s board of directors has created a strategy committee to determine what we need to do to support this venture. We’re thinking about adding a resources editor—an unprecedented step for a religious news journal—to focus full time on creating non-news content for our website. Please keep us in your prayers.
Tell us what you need
Meanwhile, we’re going to work hard every day to serve you better. You can help by telling us what you need. To suggest news and feature story ideas, contact Managing Editor Ken Camp . To offer ideas for improving our site, get in touch with John Rutledge , our webmaster. If you have questions about advertising on our site or want to know more about how we can help you market your church or ministry, write to Marketing Director Brad Russell . And if you love what we’re doing and want to know how you can help us expand our ministry and strengthen our website, reach out to Tom Ruane , our development director. For just about anything else—resources you’d like us to offer, ideas for improvement, you name it—contact me, Marv Knox .
Next time …
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OK, and one more thing: I’m not so sure what to call this blog. But we’ll save that discussion for another day …
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