Visit FaithVillage

FaithVillage.com is our new website that provides Christian community and resources for teens and young adults. We've just opened our new beta-testing phase, and we're inviting our friends to come look around town.

Here's the condensed version of how FaithVillage came about: As you probably know, the past 30 years have been difficult for (a) the newspaper industry, (b) denominations and (c) denominational newspapers. Almost four years ago, after months of fervent prayer fueled by hot tears, I became convinced the Baptist Standard needed to branch out beyond the news business.

After all, we enjoyed numerous strengths. These included almost 120 years of continuous ministry, a strong heritage for serving churches, a committed staff, a courageous board of directors, strong relationships with many Christians and an array of ministries. We just couldn't sell many newspaper subscriptions.

So, as I drove several of members of our board of directors from Love Field in Dallas to our office for our spring meeting, one of them asked what we were going to do that day.

"Think bigger"

"I'm going to ask you to create a new position, called resources director," I answered. "This person's job will be to find terrific non-news content that will help individual and churches, and post it on our website."

One board member asked, "What's this person's job description?"

"Well, he or she will need to be a bright, creative networker, capable of finding the best resources available," I said. "But since she or he will be 'it' for resources, this person also will need to stay close to the computer and post all this material on our website."

"I've hired lots of staff through the years, but I've never met anyone who possessed both of those skills," the board member replied.

In that ride to the office, the three board members in the car convinced me to hold off on requesting on new position. In return, they asked me to think bigger and to consider what we needed to do to impact the church, and then the world, for Christ using Christian resources.

Fortunately, we had just hired Brad Russell as our new marketing director. Brad is a former church planter with an advertising and marketing background. Brad has a heart for reaching people—particularly teens and young adults—with the gospel and helping them grow in our faith. Brad was the perfect person to join us at that moment.

A whole new strategy

Over the next several months, Brad and I wrote a new strategy plan for Baptist Standard Publishing, our parent company. It described a vision for not only publishing news, but also distributing a broad array of Christian resources — articles, podcasts, blogs, movies, webinars and more.

Our board of directors enthusistically endorsed the vision. Then they told us to follow best practices to move ahead with creating a website that would fulfill the vision. 

We began by doing our research. We conducted a nationwide poll of young-adult evangelicals, asking them how they use the Internet, how it intersects with their faith, and what would they like to see in a website built just for them. Then we analyzed what they told us and worked with a team to design exactly that kind of site. We also collaborated with an expert in web-based commerce to draft a business plan that will guide the new site toward self-sufficiency. After that, we hired technology, design and marketing support and got busy building the site, FaithVillage.com. Along the way, we started raising money to pay for it all. We named Brad senior editor and COO of FaithVillage. And we hired a bright, faithful, enthusiastic young staff.

That last paragraph is short, but it reflects about three years of work.

And that brings us to today.

FV is open

FaithVillage.com is up and running. It provides all kinds of Christian resources, all in one site. In fact, you'd need to visit more than two dozen separate sites to find all the kinds of content we've placed on one site. 

In FaithVillage.com, you'll find articles, blogs, videos, podcasts, etc. on everything from marriage and parenting, to missions and ministry, to training church leaders, to Bible study and devotionals, to entertaining musical performances and uplifting sermons.

And did I say we built this on a social networking platform? So, each person who registers in FaithVillage will have a personal page. Members can post their own personal information, plus pictures. They can communicate directly with their friends, form groups, join groups.

Churches can use this feature, too. We provide FaithVillage.com free to individuals and churches. And we think both of them will love the communication/social networking tool. In fact, churches can use FaithVillage.com for their congregational communications program.

Get ready for some links.

If you want to look at the homepage, click here. You'll see our terrific navigational structure—a virtual village, where each building represents a separate content channel.

To check out the social-networking component, click here. You can register any time you like. And feel free to invite your friends. We'd particularly love it if you would encourage your church to bring its youth and young adult ministries into FaithVillage.

If you've got a faith-oriented blog and want to talk to us about placing it in FaithVillage.com, go here.

To learn about registering your congregation as one of our church partners, here's your link.  I think I told you this is free. Just think about improving your intra-church communication and saving money.

If you're affiliated with another ministry and want to learn about how you can place content on our site, visit our content partner page here.

I could go on till Jesus comes back. But I'll stop now. Please visit FaithVillage.com. We'd love for you to be our neighbor.