Ron Graham’s Report
— for Jul-Aug-Sep 2014
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 third quarter of 2014.
Preaching at Bundaberg
During July, August, and September I presented 23 Sunday lessons in Bundaberg. These included 13 sermons, and 10 Bible class studies. All sermons are presented with coloured slides on the interactive white board.
Studies in Ephesians
In the Bible classes we completed the studies in Ephesians. These were brand new lessons. Each lesson covered around half a chapter. The translation and comments are easy to understand. We took a few verses at a time and related them to the general themes on which Paul writes. We also emphasised that his message applies to all Christians.
Profound Questions
Sermons covered a number of subjects such as "No Night There", "Seven Utterances on the Cross", "Jeremiah the Prophet", and "God Will Take Care of You". There were six sermons in a series called "Profound Questions" based on questions asked by people in the Bible.
Website simplybible.com
What's New
In the quarter, I added 15 new lessons to the simplybible.com website. These included the lessons on Ephesians and the "Profound Questions" sermons.
Upgrade Completed
Behind the scenes, I completed the upgrade of the website pages as mentioned in last report. This included changing the markup from XHTML to HTML5, the latter being the current established standard. Fortunately much of this change could be done by automated search-and-replace sweeps through the 1600 pages of the website.
Bislama Lessons
Some years ago, I created a small website of 15 Bible lessons in Bislama the national language of Vanuatu. Recently I incorporated these lessons into simplybible.com as a new series, and archived the stand-alone site redirecting its internal links to the simplybible.com pages. The series is called "Tru toktok blong Bible" which means "The Bible’s True Message".
Website Usage
The figures for page views over the quarter were pleasing. For July, August, September respectively, the numbers of pages viewed were: 48,819; 46,000; 53,429 (source Awstats). That's about 1,600 page views per day on average. This is a big improvement over figures earlier in the year. I'm hoping that Google (still the main refer of visitors to the site) has recognised the upgrade. If so, the improvement in the stats is not just a temporary quirk.
Rapid Changes
More than half the visitors to simplybible.com are now accessing the website on mobile devices such as tablets and phones, rather than on desktop computers. I continue to improve the website's compatibility with such devices.
Roland McDowell’s Funeral
On September 30, we said goodbye to brother Rolly McDowell. I was asked to speak at the funeral, which I was pleased to do. I've known Rolly for 50 years. His work will be long remembered.
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.