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The History of this Site

The idea, or better, the need to create this site first entered my mind early in the year 2000. The site existed in my mind as "1truth.net.au" for approximately one year before a partial or pre-site was posted at churchserve.com (at "http://users.churchserve.com/au/truth"). The "site under construction" page remained for about a year! In that time the basic concept of the site underwent several changes and gradually I built up the content that would be placed on it.

During January and February of 2002 I started developing the programme which would generate and maintain the site once posted, as well as studying and writing significant content. It was not until I was happy with the first three sections that I was willing to consider placing the site in its own domain name, happily this occurred soon after in early March 2002.

It was at this point that I acquired "1way2God.net", and soon after "1way2God.com" and "1way2God.org" (redirecting these to "1way2God.net"), and officially launched the site on 31 March 2002 (Easter Sunday), using Summerland Web (YACH) as host.

Thankfully, since its launch, the visitation of the site has been growing healthily, and above all praise God that He has led a number of visitors to give their life to Christ!
In late August 2002 it became clear that the site needed a facelift, so a new layout was designed. A couple of screenshots of the old layout are here and here.
On 11 September 2002 I acquired "www.onewaytogod.net" and had it also redirected to "www.1way2god.net", as I found that a lot of people were confused with the use of digits instead of words in the address.
On 27 October, after the site had been online for exactly 30 weeks, it received its 10,000th distinct? visitor, at the same time recording 33,500 page hits. It looks like, by the grace of God, the site is on track to hit 20,000 distinct visitors and 70,000 page hits at around week 41 (12 January 2003), based on how things are looking now (writing this at week 39: 29 December 2002).
Am looking into new hosting - possibly free from a Christian brother, possibly elsewhere...
Writing on 11 January 2003: Glory to God! At the end of week 40 the site has recorded 20,660 distinct? visitors and 68,745 pages viewed. I am also beginning work today on a new resource devoted to prayer and the building up of prayer life. I think I will call it "Prayer Central".
Writing 12 March 2003: "Prayer Central" was added 16 January 2003. At week 49 there have been 31,947 distinct visitors and 104,640 recorded page views. This week also I have changed hosts to Your-Site.com, and everything seems to be going rather smoothly. The site's 1st Birthday is coming up and I'm thinking of launching a new section entitled "Thoughts", where I can basically write devotional messages on any topic and not have to tie it in with a reading plan.
Writing 10 January 2004: The year 2003 saw me complete a year of full time theological study at The School of Christian Studies, Robert Menzies College. Unfortunately, during this year I found that I devoted less time to this site than I had previously, and dropped off in prayer for it. As a result, it seems that God, to some extent, removed His blessing on it in order to teach me His power and wisdom. I hope I have learned that lesson now and am preparing for the year ahead with the site in a much higher priority.

2003 also saw my beloved computer "Boris" give up the ghost. Again, unfortunately, maintenance of this site depended a great deal on Boris, and my new computer (Doris) will not run the site maintenance program that I wrote, meaning I have a lot of work to do before I regain total and effective control of the site through my home PC - including a total rewrite of many of the programs I had used previously.I'm using this as an opportunity to redesign the site, and have hired a professional web-designer to help out.

I've similarly found a difference in my perspective on ministry and the Christian life. Raised in a conservative environment I have often found myself taking pains to approach all my writing for this site without the emotion that is necessary for any semblance of a pastoral ministry. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that I should "inject a bit of Daniel" into every page, and by so doing, I hope to make this more than a resource for biblical teaching, but a rewarding, refreshing place of Christian encouragement.

I have many plans for addition for the year to come. Prominent among these is the addition of a section devoted to two missionaries serving in Thailand. Their service to the kingdom needs prayer and I hope that 1way2God.net and it's visitors can be an encouragement to these missioners and the Church in Khon Kaen.
There are also plans for a Frequently Asked Questions section, more internet resources and of course, more individual resources on areas of theology, Bible Study, Church History etc.

That was a big addition to the list - I suppose it is indicative of the time I have spent away from the site, and my desire to get back into it. Unfortunately, all of these updates and new ideas must wait until after I rewrite my site maintenance program, and that too, must wait. Still, if you've read this message, it means it's all sorted out! Praise God! I will hopefully have a new point under this one with a later date of writing. That's how long it took to get everything to run on the new computer (and I have a degree in Computer Science!). I really find computers frustrating sometimes - do you?
Writing 19 March 2004: Well - I expect the site to be reloaded March 31 - a little less than two weeks. I have just about finished the majority of the programs needed to run the site - I have been finding and removing the bugs over the last couple of days. I'm also going to sort out the page design next Wednesday - that's cutting it close!

Let's hope that the next date that appears below is Wednesday 31 March 2004. I'm aching to get this site back up and moving!
Writing 31 March 2004: Well - it took four weeks of every spare minute I had. It meant postponing college for a month, going without some meals and a lot of sleep. Fifteen hour days in front of the computer were not uncommon, 12 hour days were standard... But when God wants you to do something, you get it done (though I think I was the one who set the deadline - God just encouraged me to do it). Anyway, the new site is up!! I'm still not happy with the homepage, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done, but it's up. I'm going to spend all day tomorrow fixing up little problems, but after that I'm taking a day off.

...But when I come back, I have so many ideas for improvement - most of them outlined above. The big one is the section for James and Air Mitchell - serving God in Thailand. Expect it soon!

...By the way, today is the second birthday of 1way2God.net.
Writing 20 April 2004: Well, I uploaded the Missionary section yesterday (by accident - I hit the wrong button when it wasn't quite finished!) and am hoping that it will lead many to greater understanding of mission needs, especially the mission needs of James and Air in Thailand.
Writing 26 April 2006: I managed to go a fair while without writing an update! Since the last entry actually a great deal of time went into the site Newsletter "InPrint", which while good, took too much of my time away from the content of the site - something I can't do when my ministry is to the many on the web, and I'm theoretically looking to the few on the email list for prayer support.

Noteably I introduced the "Did you know" section of the site after I asked myself 'what would I like my coworkers to read if they found my site?'; and a number of other additions.

In the last few months, however, I have been married (!) bought, renovated and moved into our house (!!) and grappled with a large promotion at work that, combined with the previous two, really took a lot of my time. Settling into marriage now, I have upgraded my presence on the web and now rent my own virtual dedicated server - this gives me heaps more control over my site, as well as options for other websites etc. I hope that I can settle into good productive time working on this site for a few years now.

In the last two days I've redesigned the site and rewritten the "about this site" page and will be changing a few other things in days to come, before uploading the new look site. (The old look can be found here.)
Writing 23 March 2008: Again, I have had a large period of time 'away' from the site. In the last two years I haven't spent much time at all writing or editing the site, instead spending a fair amount of energy on work and most of my remaining energy on my weekly Bible Study group. As I write this, it marks four weeks since I instituted a new regimen in my life, of waking at 5:15am each weekday and spending an hour in Bible Study. I quickly grew to love this time, and am using it not only to grow in personal holiness, but also to prepare my Bible Studies; meaning that I am finding more time on weekends which I intend to use to write for this site. Please pray for me as I do this.