Six months. The halfway point. We are officially halfway. Halfway left to go. (I’m not panicking, you’re panicking). Here’s the deal. If it weren’t for my self-inflicted claim that I could get to 20,000 visitors inside of a year, I would actually be really happy with my blog project. Things are going really, really well (from a technical point of view). My book sales are also going really well. Both of those I’ll explain further below. I guess the reason I’m saying this is to temper expectations with your own online success. It’s so easy to come out of the gate thinking everything will fall in ..read more

There was a pretty momentous event last week. Did you feel it? I’m not talking about Super Tuesday, the day when 16 states voted for their respective political party’s presidential nominee. It did happen on Tuesday, and there’s at least a few conspiracy theorists who claims that the two are connected. I’m talking about the great Meta Shutdown of 2024. For nearly two hours, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads were all down. People panicked, rioting in the streets, claiming that they were being unnecessarily censored. What really happened? If you believe Meta, it was a simple “technical issue.” The ..read more

As of March 1, 2024, we are officially five months into our Bible Blog project. What is that project, you ask? Simple. Take a brand new blog on a new domain and get it to 20,000 monthly visits inside of a year. (If you’re interested, you can read the full write-up here.) Do I think it’ll happen? Unfortunately, not anymore. For the first time in this project, I’m actually more pessimistic about the results than I was at the beginning of the month. I’m not getting the traction that I was hoping for, and even though I think I could be more targeted in some areas, I feel like I’m hitting most of m ..read more

I learned something new the other day: Google hates me. Well, not me per se, but definitely my website that I’ve been working on. If you’ve followed along with this blog, you know that in October I launched the Bible Blog Project. Basically, it’s Bible-based blog (super original, I know) that I started completely from scratch with the goal of getting it to 20,000 hits inside of 12 months. If you want to catch up on the monthly progress, you can do so here: Bible Blog Project (Announcement) Bible Blog Project (November, 2023) Bible Blog Project (December, 2023) Bible Blog Project (January, 202 ..read more

When you work online, owning software is just a way of life. At last count, I have subscriptions to exactly 13 pieces of software. Anything from Canva (for digital graphics work) to SERanking (for search engine data) to Vellum (book formatting software). All of them, I would argue, are completely necessary to effectively manage different aspects of online work. Except one: Zapier. I’ve waited literal years to remove that thorn out of my side, and it feels oh so good. What is Zapier? Zapier is a software company that provides integrations between two different pieces of software. If you have o ..read more

The new year is upon us, which can only mean one thing: Goal-setting. Every year, as regular as the mail, the clock strikes midnight and millions of people all over the world flip the switch into becoming the “best version of themselves.” I, personally, love it.  I’ve always been that special breed of weirdo that loves Mondays. I love the “resetting” nature of it, the freshness, the belief that the week is yours to create. (Of course, it also helps that as a preacher, Mondays are a little bit like most people’s Saturday mornings. Most preachers take it as a day off since Sunday is usually ..read more

I love me some fried chicken. If you stick a plate of fried chicken in front of me with some creamy mashed potatoes, fried okra, and white gravy — along with a side of Dr. Pepper — I promise you that plate will be gone in less than ten minutes.  Five minutes…if it’s lunch time. My problem with Church’s Chicken, then, does not come down to its food. I happen to love Church’s Chicken as an eating establishment. My problem with Church’s Chicken is that it almost always ranks higher than most churches in any given city and state. That means that if someone isn’t paying attention, they might f ..read more

Here’s something you already know: Human bodies need blood to survive. God even talks about this in Scripture when He tells the Israelites that “the life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). Using modern science, we know that the circulatory system carries oxygen to all parts of the body, fueling the muscles and helping your body move. Take the blood away, and the body ceases to function. It’s as simple as that. A website is the same way. Without links — internal and external — your website will cease to exist. How Google Ranks Your Site When Google was created in 1997, there were already sever ..read more

If you let it, ChatGPT can become your best friend. No, it won’t (and shouldn’t) write your sermons for you, but it can help you do a lot of the ground work involved in putting together a sermon in a fraction of the time.  Think of it as a high-powered research assistant. Instead of combing through page after page of websites looking for the perfect illustration, or a list of relevant Bible characters, or a set of common arguments against baptism, you can just ask AI to do it for you. To be fair, some of the data it will spit out at you will be garbage. A recent joint study by UC Berkley ..read more

2020. What a year. For most churches, it’ll either go down as the year that they started their social media channels, or the year that they really put a ton of effort into it…because they had to. Even if your church didn’t shut down in-person services for at least a few weeks, there’s no doubt that your church most likely started a virtual Bible study, explored live-streaming to social channels, or at least threw up a couple graphics to keep the church engaged. But while most churches increased their online efforts in 2020, a few absolutely nailed it. One of the best things you can do for your ..read more