Stepping Toes 2014 in review

For the Belgian Christadelphians 2014 was not the ideal year. But it was not a a year they consider waisted and where they waited and wanted to see how everything went without doing something new.

Having transferred Stepping Toes from Xanga to WordPress, we had to start all over again and continued in the same way we had done on Xanga, though did not find so  many articles of like minded people to reblog. We had also invited many Christadelphians to join us here on WordPress but shamefully did not receive many  positive replies. We regret that there have not yet presented many volunteers to help preaching the Good News.

Also for the new lifestyle magazine From Guestwriters there have not many people presented themselves to help to bring more awareness into this world or to talk about life matters. We also had hoped some photographers would have be willing to share their work to show the beauty of nature, the creation which more people should come to respect more.

Perhaps the received 3100 viewers for the 228 posts in the first year of From Guestwriters can convince others to join the team to reach even more people.

As founder of the lifestyle magazines Stepping Toes and From Guestwriters, I came to close down my other foundation Bijbelvorsers, Vereniging voor Bijbelestudie, Bible Scholars the association for Bible Study, because it turned out always to be the same persons to be doing all the work and not really many interested to put their hands out of the sleeves. Though I still believe in the free sharing and of the necessity of giving our values and assets also to others I was negatively surprised to find that not many are really willing to take up the action of sharing for nothing in return. Our society is still so directed to speak in terms of money and personal gain that we still have to go a long way before we can find enough people willing to share what they have with others for free or for not asking anything in return.

For this website Stepping Toes

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,300 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Having most visitors came from the United States, Australia & U.K. were not far behind, we only received 330 visitors from Holland and only 223 viewers from Belgium, the country we are based.

Our busiest day of the year for Stepping Toes was March 20th with 59 views. The most popular post that day was Reblog: Happy International Happiness Day!.

For 2014, having not so many people willing to contribute we only had 156 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 307 posts or 310 on December 30. For a Christian blog about not such easy subjects it is perhaps not bad, but to be honest, we could not be so happy, because we would have loved to have found many more contributors.

We also did not manage to get many followers, though at one time we had 56 but got it fast reduced to 16 when we spoke about the Holy Trinity. Now we are back to 51 followers.
We are thankful for those who followed us from the early hours, like Clay J Mize who is our longest member, 1 year, 2 months, with ethicsbeyondcompliance, The Semifeminist, Kendall F. Person, thepublicblogger, Raluca Stoica, The CoF, AConservativeEdge, Joxua Luxor and purpleraysblog

We are grateful for those who clicked on the ‘Like’ button or shared a link to one of our articles on Facebook or Twitter which brought us 128 and 41 readers respectively.

We are also thankful we could get 27 extra views by referrals from Tasmedes.wordpress.com: Taede A. Smedes and  20 views from James Paulgaard his WordPress site:Farewell to Shadowlands.

He like us, does know that there is a better future coming and how we need to prepare so that we are ready to get on board when it comes. At the moment it is really a shame that we do not see more Christians involved in sharing the Good News. Like the author of People Get Ready writes:

We want, with every fibre of our being, to fully engage with the mission of Jesus Christ. We want all people everywhere to come to life through faith in Jesus Christ. This means, as we seek to engage with the mission of Jesus Christ, that everything is on the table.

What we are going to have to face is too important to ignore or to let it in the shadow.

It’s not about you or me and what we like. It’s about the missio Dei, God’s mission of saving people from an eternity of condemnation and suffering apart from God and bringing them to a life of meaning, purpose and joy with Jesus that will last forever. God’s mission has a church that exists to carry out that mission. If we abandon our mission, we lose our reason to exist.

Today there are still too many Christians who think once saved always saved and that they do not have to do any works. They forget that faith without works is dead. We may find lots of readers and people in our ecclesia who believe that Jesus existed, that he died or even that he was risen; but are they willing to show their love and show their works of faith? We do know that by works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. And through the faith in Jesus people should follow his teachings and orders, like going out into the world to preach the gospel of the coming Kingdom. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ,we should show others our faith in him and live according our faith (= a work)

( Habakuk 2:4; Romans 2:13; 3:20-22; Timothy 1:14; Galatians 2:16; 3:11 +)

“17 Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. 18 {1} Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from [thy] works, and I by my works will show thee [my] faith. {1) Or [But some one will say]} 19 Thou believest that {1} God is one; thou doest well: the demons also believe, and shudder. {1) Some ancient authorities read [there is one God]} 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 {1} Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect; {1) Or [Seest thou…perfect?]} 23 and the scripture was fulfilled which saith, {1} And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; {2} and he was called the friend of God. {1) Ge 15:6. 2) Isa 41:8; 2 Ch 20:7} 24 Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith. 25 And in like manner was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.” (James 2:17-26 ASV)

“Faithful is the saying, and concerning these things I desire that thou affirm confidently, to the end that they who have believed God may be careful to {1} maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men: {1) Or [profess honest occupations]}” (Titus 3:8 ASV)

We would like to see many others joining in doing such good work of preaching and sowing plus showing others the way to God.

We did try to do our best to reach more people and got the most views in 2014 for following articles:

• 1 Christianity without the Trinity 11 comments February 2014
• 2 Ian Barbour connecting science and religion 6 comments January 2014
• 3 Marriage of Jesus 1 Mary, John, Judas, Thomas and Brown 10 comments May 2014
• 4 All Souls’ Day 6 comments October 2014
• 5 Marriage of Jesus 8 Wife of Yahweh 7 comments May 2014
  

Hopefully these results shall be able to inspire others to join us and to be active preaching people on Stepping Toes or on From Guestwriters. We could do with some help in the preaching-work, soplease do not hesitate to become a contributor.

Click here to see the complete report.

Help us to get on the right track and carrying enough good articles to as many people as possible. -Subway tracks on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York City, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Find also:

From Guestwriters 2014 in review

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Additional reading:

1. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy
2. Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
3. Atonement And Fellowship 4/8
4. Looking for True Spirituality 7 Preaching of the Good News
5. Faith and works
6. Being Missional
7. Missionary action paradigm for all endeavours of the church
8. Learn how to go out into the world and proclaim the Good News of the coming Kingdom
9. Good or bad preacher
10. What Should I Preach ? (Stepping Toes article) + What Should I Preach ? (From Guestwriters)
11. How should we preach?
12. Asia Cahaya Conference focusing on preaching
13. Jehovah’s Witnesses not only group that preach the good news
14. Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach
15. Different approach in organisation of services #1
16. Different approach in organisation of services #2
17. Different approach in organisation of services #3
18. Holland Week of billing
19. Record breaking preaching in Mount Dora
20. When discouraged facing opposition
21. Dealing with worries in our lives
22. Our openness to being approachable
23. Not many coming out with their community name
24. Belonging to or being judged by
25. Words to push and pull
26. Who are the Christadelphians
27. Christadelphian people
28. Dissolution of Bijbelvorsers (Bible scholars), Association for Bible study

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