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I am asking all blog users to pray for this ministry. Yes, it is a ministry, not a business. Every month I have more expenses than income. Since our inception over 4-1/2 years ago, I have received approximately $200 income to cover several thousand dollars in expenses. Thank you to those who have donated or have had me do minor web work.
Along with expenses, there is time involved to keep this blog site functioning. I do my best to keep this site free of blogs that have advertising, pornography, etc. This requires me checking the site each day for violations of policy. Each day, I am removing blogs created by spammers.
I am considering not allowing any new blog users so that I do not have to take time each day to block spammers. There are not many each day, but if I don't stay on top of it, there would be hundreds of spam blogs in a month. I do my best to block IP addresses of spammers when I find a spam blog by them.
So, please pray for me in regards to the Lord's will in regards to allowing new users to sign up for blogs. There is a limit to the amount of free time I have and at the same time incurring monthly expenses. I am thinking maybe requiring a $5 yearly subscription fee for new subscribers to help cover expenses and discourage spammers from registering a blog. Please pray about this.
I want to assure each of our current bloggers, that I will never charge you a subscription fee.
Richard Dover
ChristianBlogSites
P.S. Along with donating my time and finances for CBS, I donate several hours to our church as the outreach pastor, and I donate my time as the Program Director for two clean & sober houses. A year ago I was making $36,000 a year, that all went away with the poor economy. I am not complaining, just explains why I need to decide what to do with CBS.
You Are Appreciated [
Reply]
Thanks 4 updating me on your situation. YES, I understand perfectly. You try to do a good thing and many jump on and abuse it. Some may be not be appreciative, think you are a large corporation and a free service is nothing, or even have an agenda against Christianity. As a missionary to the Philippines, your ministry is essential. I tried to use other free blog sites and they didn't compare, work right or had tons of advertising. Yours was PERFECT. I also use free web hostings and have links to my devotionals and blogs (your ministry). I send that link to all on my Facebook, Friendster and have it on all my sites. Many visit it and are encouraged. Your ministry is invaluable! It has changed many lives, encouraged the saints and has kept many informed on what is happening to us as missionaries far away on the field. Here is just what one person wrote me..."I can't wait to get to know more about you and your mission work slowly. Your words touched my heart the other day when I was at my darkest hour! Thanks again.." NO, don't let the unthankful, neglectful or abusers blind you to the spiritual value of your ministry. I love what God is doing through your ministry. Keep up the good work! Only heaven will reveal the fruit of your labors! No need to reply. I know you're swamped. God Bless.
You are doing an awesome job. I love this site. Thank you! I would be happy to pay $5.00 a year to use this. I can imagine that others would as well. Just keep us posted. God bless you for what you are doing. Praying over you and this ministry.
Thank you for sending this email out to all of us "bloggers" - those of us - all of us - who are blessed daily by your tremendous ministry and obvious labor of love. From the day we first found your site and began benefiting from the beautiful fruit of your labor, we have prayed for you and your ministry - We recently sent a donation for $10.00 because we are so thankful to you for all of your labor to keep ChristianBlogSites a safe and consistent space for us (all of us) to minister through. We understand that the Lord is the one who will ultimately direct your decisions for the site, but we will give our "two cents". Because of the magnitude and intensity inherent in maintaining, scanning, and the like for this site, not to mention the hard expenses, we would be honored to pay you a yearly fee - (Dr. Jay says $5.00 isn't enough - that's why we sent $10.00!) But however the Lord moves you, we are with you, brother! As far as limiting the amount of new blog users - again, that's up to the Lord; however, we do pray He will lead you and direct you in all of these very valid decisions. We are confident of your faith in hearing Him.
Thank you for your hard work. My wife and I are "tent maker" missionaries in Sweden and understand the problem of having a ministry with very limited funds. We will pray for you.
I fully support you thoughts on charging a membership fee. Those who are serious about Christian blogging will, I 'm sure, agree with this. I would have no problem paying 10 dollars a year for this service.
God bless and keep you in His care.
I am sorry to hear of these troubles on this web site. On the whole I think your site is operated "better than most" spiritual based sites. That is why I left "helium.com" in order to set up my blog with you. I am on perm.disability, making less than 1/2 of the money I earned while working. I can sympathize with your financial woes!
Keep things up as best you can. If you need to charge advertisers for ad space on your site, so be it. If you have to charge a $5 membership, (even to current bloggers), do it. I wish I could help in some way with funds...I will pray for you and the Christianblogsite.com operation.
I will keep you in prayer I believe those reading my blog are getting ministered to and am encouraged by the number of people reading the posts.
We are still getting slammed by blog spammers. Almost for sure we are going to require a $5-$7 registration fee for new bloggers. This should stop any spammers registering a blog. If they still register a blog, at least they are paying me a fee to delete their blog and block their IP address.
That actually sounds like a good deal.
As soon as I opened up the site again for blog registrations, we immediately started to get hit by spammers registering for blogs. It is time for us to charge a fee for blogs-I really hate doing this, but see no other solution.
However, there will be no fee for existing CBS users.
I will be implementing this policy this week.
If you have a friend that would like a blog in the next few days, have them contact me and I will get them set up for free prior to the changes I make.
We have now implemented the $5 annual subscription fee.
It was hard for me to do this, but I just don't have the time to deleting spam blogs each day. Also, we had multitudes of people signing up for a free blog and then do nothing with it.
We have several features to block spam registrations, but there is always a way for the 'bad guys' to get in. This subscription fee requirement should stop all spammers. It will also stop those who sign up for a blog and do nothing.
Well, it appears the $5 annual subscription has stopped the spammers. But the sad thing is that it appears it has stopped legitimate blog subscribers.
I actually am not surprised-at times some of the cheapest people are Christians. They expect everything that Christians offer to be free.
A week later and new blogs, so even Christians are not willing to pay $5 a year for a blog service.
The good news is no spam blogs for a week-yeah.
But our expenses continue on with no income. In the next 30 days we need to make a final decision of what to do with this site. If expenses cannot be covered, then it does not really matter how much encouragement people give us. Encouragement will not cover costs. If God wants this site to stay up, them He will need to provide the funds. It is in His hands.
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