prayeramedic.com » Blogosphere Updates

NEW WEBSITE LAUNCHED!!!

Dan — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:37:22 +0000

The long awaited new website has been launched: http://odayfam.com

Head over to the new site for more great content! RSS and email subscribers will automatically be transferred soon, no need for you to do anything new.

WINNER ANNOUNCED!!!

Dan — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 01:45:39 +0000

Luke won the contest. His idea was more of a guide than a solid recommendation, but we’re going to run in that direction: just not sure how yet. We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, be sure to check out Christian Diversity, where I am a contributing author.

Contest Extended

Dan — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 05:58:07 +0000

I had said that I would announce the winners today, but that didn’t happen. Unfortunately I have been very busy as of late and only logged on to this blog as an after-thought. The contest is being postponed for at least one more week, and we will still be accepting submissions. Click here for more details.

Christian Diversity

Dan — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:55:57 +0000

A new multi-author blog has been formed: Christian Diversity. I have been invited to be an author, and all of my more theological and philosophical writings will now most likely find their way to that blog.

The blog currently features eight authors who each consider themselves to be either nondenominational, Reformed, Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, or refuse to be labeled.

As regular readers are aware, there are only a few more days remaining to help prayeramedic.com choose a new name! We’ve had some good ideas submitted in the contest and are looking forward to beginning a new blogging chapter. For those of you that aren’t aware, Tiffany and I (Dan) intend to begin a new blog where both of us will contribute more. Enter the contest!

CONTEST! Help us choose a new name!

Dan — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 23:00:46 +0000

prayeramedic.com is having a contest to help decide our future name. Last week I pointed out that this blog’s title is misleading, and many come here with entirely different expectations than that they find. Also, I’ve learned a lot more about blogging since I originally began prayeramedic.com so an entire restructuring of content is called for.

It wouldn’t be fair to ask you to come up with a name without knowing the future vision and direction of the new blog, and a little about us. Here goes:

Authors. The new blog will feature regular written and video content from both myself (Dan) and my wife (Tiffany), and we intend to have more guest blogger participation as well (that could mean you!). prayeramedic.com has largely just been me (Dan), this will change (my wife promised). Oddly enough, Tiffany and I are right on the dividing line of statistical age categories, she is a Gen-Xer and I’m a Mosaic, and it is blatantly obvious in our opinions about various issues and such. It’s great having both perspectives, and more! Here are quick bios of each of us that might help as you think about possible blog names:

Dan is an eccentric 20-going-on-30-something postmodern reactionary (also known as a Mosaic or Gen-Yer). He tries really hard to be a devoted Christ follower, but he fails miserably. Somewhere along the way he learned to stop asking what he could do for God and he began focusing on what God has done for him. He discovered that the focus is really all on Jesus, not His followers! Dan is an avid reader, musician, student, computer geek, and social media participant.

Tiffany is a beautiful 20-going-on-30-something Gen-Xer. She sucks at being a Christian, but Jesus was loving enough to die for her and forgive her sins, despite her tainted past. A nonconformist at heart and latecomer to the Christian faith, Tiffany finds it challenging to find acceptance in most institutional church settings. Loving outsiders to the Christian faith came naturally to Tiffany, but loving insiders took a little more work. The Holy Spirit has taught her how to love insiders, however, and she now has a passion to help reform the modern church, not scrap it. Some of her other passions include taking walks with friends, Cary Grant movies, Old Testament history, putting together puzzles, and apologetics (defending the faith by answering tough questions).

Content. The content will vary greatly, ranging from current events to theology and whatever else we feel like sharing, all from the perspective of Christ followers. You can expect similar content to what you currently receive at prayeramedic.com, but with a more personal, authentic twist. Topics will continue to focus on the undomesticated, unadulterated Christian faith. Expect more interaction and intentional community, and less “preachy” content. We want to hear your thoughts, questions, and opinions.

The Prize. The winner will be announced on October 4, 2010. We’ve put together an entire package of fun stuff for the winner (over a $40 value!). Here’s what the winner will receive:

Just Do Something: How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc. by Kevin DeYoung. This is a great no-nonsense approach to understanding the will of God for your life. The book is humorous and to the point, and it really helped us understand God’s will as revealed in Scripture, not in hyper-spiritual Christian cliches. We hope that you find this short, freeing book as helpful and insightful as we did.

The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals by Gene Edward Veith. This book really helped us grasp how many cliches we had bought into that really had nothing to do with biblical Christianity. While this book is admittedly a Lutheran approach to the Christian faith, it actually addresses a lot of issues common to all Protestant faith groups and challenges many of the unbiblical and unpractical views. This book is worth reading for Veith’s explanation of the believer’s vocation alone, but has many great points that very few other voices are proclaiming.

Victory Over the Darkness: Realizing the Power of Your Identity in Christ by Neil T. Anderson. This book was foundational in helping us understand our identity in Christ as believers. This book stresses how to live as new creations in Christ, not by vain self-effort, but by realizing who we are in God’s eyes. We are accepted into God’s kingdom and family by grace, not by how little we are sinning. The results of Jesus’ performance evaluation gets applied to us, and He gets our cruddy results in a rather unfair exchange. Jesus received our death penalty (which we deserve), and His perfect righteousness was credited to our accounts when we became His followers.

Steps to Freedom in Christ by Neil T. Anderson. This workbook is a helpful discipleship tool that many have found useful as they seek freedom in Jesus Christ from hurtful habits, hangups, negative thinking patterns, and other sins. Tiffany and I use this resource on a regular basis for our own personal edification as well as to help others. Don’t think of the content as sequential steps, think of it as general areas that should be addressed scripturally in a believer’s life. The workbook helps you work through issues such as pride, unforgiveness, past occult involvement, sexual purity, identifying deception, etc. in a practical and easy-to-understand manner.

The Rules. Submissions will only be accepted that include your valid email address and name/title recommendation(s) for the new blog. You will also need to provide your name and shipping information should you win the contest (so that we can send you the prize). Acceptable submission methods include:

Leave a comment on this post (preferred)
Email me (use contact form on the left or use dan -at- prayeramedic.com)
Comment on this post on Facebook

Twitter submissions will not be accepted, mostly because my Twitter account seems to delete my @replies within a week of receiving them. This contest ends on Friday, October 1st, 2010 at 11:59PM Central Daylight Savings Time. Domain name and SEO considerations will be part of our decision in selecting a winner, but don’t let that stop you from sending in any ideas you have. You may submit up to ten (10) recommendations. If you do not see your comment immediately after posting, don’t worry. It is most likely in the approval queue and will be displayed soon. If you do not see your comment within 24 hours, your comment may have been marked as spam. Email me and I will approve your comment.

Additional Rules:

Entries must be original (you must come up with them all by yourself)
Your submission cannot have been previously published or submitted in connection with any other contest
Your submission must not be offensive or inappropriate (as determined by us in our sole discretion)
Your submission cannot infringe upon any person’s personal or property rights or any other third party rights
By submitting an entry, entrant hereby grants permission for the entry to be posted on prayeramedic.com, Facebook.com, or any other social media service in connection with the entrant’s name
By submitting an entry, each entrant agrees that Dan & Tiffany O’Day shall own the entry submitted (including all rights to the name and/or title recommendations) and that they and their designees shall exclusively own all trademarks and other intellectual property rights in and to the name and may exploit, edit, modify, and distribute the entry and all elements of such entry to name any website or blog and in any and all media now known or hereafter devised, worldwide, in perpetuity without compensation or notification to, or permission from, entrant or any third party. Winner and any other entrant (if applicable) agrees that he or she shall execute any documents required by Dan & Tiffany O’Day to perfect their rights in and to the name
Submitting an entry constitutes acceptance of these rules

Changing names, misleading title, new directions, etc.

Dan — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 01:25:29 +0000

So I’m thinking about doing away with prayeramedic.com, or at least segregating some of my content. I won’t stop writing or anything like that, but I really don’t think the title fits the content. I think people come to prayeramedic.com expecting one thing but finding another.

I’ve been reading the surveys, and I really appreciate the honest feedback. It seems most of you enjoy the content, but several folks mentioned that the name and overall design doesn’t match the deliverables.

I agree with these readers’ observations. I don’t want to get rid of any content, but I also don’t want to publish a lot of the content on this blog on my new one (which I haven’t released yet). The other problem is that when I started prayeramedic on Blogger years ago, I didn’t understand tags, categories, SEO, etc. and the general database structure of this blog is really messed up as a result. This only got worse when I switched over to WordPress and experimented with a lot of stuff over the years.

In the meantime, do you have any recommendations for a new name? There’s a quick bio of who I am for those who don’t know me well on the bottom of this post. What direction do you think I should go with blogging and such? I’m open to your ideas!

My name is Dan, and I’m an eccentric 20-going-on-30-something postmodern reactionary. I try really hard to be a devoted Christ follower, but I fail miserably. Somewhere along the way I learned to stop asking what I could do for God and began focusing on what God has done for me. After a lifetime of learning that Christianity is all about “Christ in me,” I am beginning to understand that it’s all about “Christ for me.” The focus is really all on Jesus, not on me or any of His followers!

Short Reader Survey

Dan — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:30:36 +0000

Please consider filling out a short reader survey (only 10 questions).

I’d like to hear your input, even if you don’t read prayeramedic.com all that much anymore. I’d like to know why. Please be honest and blunt, your identity is anonymous, and the survey is being handled by a third-party service to ensure this.

Here’s the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5BX86C3

Changing names, misleading title, new directions, etc.

Refocusing

Dan — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:52:14 +0000

I’ve gone through lots of old posts and deleted many of them, most of them dealing with local events and anything having to do with politics. I wanted to free my database from some clutter and get a fresh start. I’ve also redesigned the website (again) to incorporate some more features that hopefully make it easier to connect. Here are a few of the changes:

Notification of Followup Comments
I’ve noticed that a lot of people comment and then never reply to followup comments. This is most likely because it is a pain in the neck to have to go back to a post and check for followup comments manually. Wouldn’t it be nice if you simply received an email every time a new comment was posted on a blog article you chose to follow? Of course you can always cancel a subscription at any time. Here’s a photo of this feature, note the checkbox just above the “Submit” button:

Additional Social Bookmarking Options
Want to share a blog post on Facebook or Twitter? Want to Digg it or StumbleUpon it so others find out more about it? I’ve tried to make this a simple process by placing these social bookmarks on the bottom of each blog post, as shown below:

Easier to scan recent blog posts
I’m now showing previews of the recent 20 posts on the home page of prayeramedic.com. The most recent post will be shown in its entirety, and then beneath it will be excerpts of recent posts. Simply click “Read more” to see the whole article.

Features I continue to provide:
In addition to these new features, there are many ways to connect at prayeramedic.com that continue to be options:

Easily subscribe to new content by email for FREE (go to top right of sidebar)
Easily subscribe to new content via your favorite RSS feed reader (all the way to the right of the menu bar, top right of the website)
Easily comment on any blog post without having to sign up or register, comment anonymously if you’d like! (First comment is reviewed by an administrator prior to approval)
Follow updates on Twitter @prayeramedic
Always find featured content, now in the top right of the side bar!
Visit the website!

I just wanted to remind everyone of these features and inform you of the new ones. I look forward to hearing from you!