Ron Graham’s Report
— for Oct-Nov-Dec 2013
This page reports my voluntary ministry activities for the information of those who take a special interest in my work.
Dear Brethren... This report covers the final quarter of 2013.
Preaching at Bundaberg
During October, November, and December 2013, I presented 24 Sunday lessons in Bundaberg. These included 13 sermons, and 11 Bible class studies in Acts (chapters 22-28). The sermons were on various topics.
Studies in Acts
We commenced the studies in Acts in January 2012. The final lesson was on December 29, 2013. So my Sunday morning Bible classes at Bundaberg were profitably occupied with the book of Acts, verse by verse, for the better part of two years.
Website simplybible.com
In the quarter, I added four new pages to the simplybible.com website. Three of these were new lessons, and the other was a magazine page. I also added six slide collections (the slides for Sunday sermons).
In December, the website saw another birthday. It has now been online for eleven years. It has grown to 1667 pages, 1255 of which are Bible study pages.
Behind the Scenes, aside from usual maintenance, I planned and commenced an upgrade to the website which (God willing) will be progressive through 2014. It doesn't involve very much —mainly, improvements to the structure of page headings. Also, for those 150 or so lessons that are split into parts, we are moving to a new pagination method implemented by Google for long articles presented in consecutive pages. This upgrade will happen gradually without any disruption to the normal running of the site.
Video Operating Successfully on Website.
I mentioned in last report that I had begun operating two YouTube channels. In this quarter I added some more video clips, but not too many. I wanted to see how the channels operated before getting too committed. The video channels ran quite well. Most of the video clips have been viewed several times, with the best one being viewed over 100 times. I added the two YouTube channels to the social media links that appear on every page of the website.
Detrimental Changes in Google Results
Google made some changes to its indexing system, allocating the first few search results to favoured websites, pushing the rest of us down the list. Since Google normally displays only ten results per page, some results that used to show on page 1 now show on page 2 which a lot of people never look at. Because of this, simplybible.com is getting fewer page views. The figures for page views (source Awstats) over the past six months illustrate this: July 57,000; August 62,000; Sep 30,000; Oct 24,000; Nov 24,000; Dec 22,000.
Improvements in User Statistics
On the other hand, a very much wider selection of pages is now being viewed. Whenever I check which pages have been looked at in the past half hour, I see a wide variety. It's good to see the whole website being used, rather than just parts of it.
Social Media Involvement
The website now has several associated social media pages: facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and a WordPress blog. This allows me to have some personal contact with website users, and gives users a medium through which to share Bible teaching.
Thank You Again
Again may I say how much I appreciate those who keep on helping me in the Lord’s work. “Without you, I could not do it.”
Love and best wishes in Jesus.