by J. Randal Matheny, editor
(BNc) — A year ago today, BrotherhoodNews.com made its official launch. With a couple of hands on board and a small group of well-wishers to see us off, the crew of BNc took the fair winds and blue skies as a harbinger of blessing for our voyage.
With no backing of a queen or king, no full-time captain nor even a navigator to keep us pointed toward our destiny, we still managed to steer by the grace of God and his kindness toward fools with a dream.
Of course, we’d been tinkering with the idea for quite some time. In Oct., 2006, I had opened a news site on the WordPress free hosting service. The first real news story was a notice of Johnny Ramsey’s death on the 11th of the month (now archived here).
But it wasn’t until Assistant Editor Matt Clifton and Associate Editor Joe May signed on that we made an official launch. They have been indispensable in keeping our little ship trim and fit.
Others have since made significant contributions, such as our advisory board members, news correspondents and Roy Davison, now Contributing Editor.
A year ago, I wrote that we sought to serve faithful brethren, those who believe the New Testament serves as our pattern for faith, practice and mission. I said that “with high hopes we want to demonstrate to a world awash in confusion and turmoil a people whom God is blessing, a people with convictions and faith, a people with trust in God’s providence, a people confident of the Lord’s presence among them and of his power working through them.”
Our world is more awash in confusion and turmoil than ever before, some of it invading the church itself. Some outlets, under a guise of impartiality, feed the moral confusion and sow doctrinal softness. So we believe that BNc has a mission as strong as ever, through reports that encourage us to faithfulness, with stories that remind us that God is still at work among his people.
We’re pleased with the modest results of our first year. We thank God for letting us share in this blessing, for letting us share this blessing with others.
As a part of our anniversary, we’re in the midst of a remake of the website, so please excuse any messes you may see while we scrub barnacles and apply spit and polish.
And we’ve returned the feature Flash News through the Twitter service to the front page. We had scrapped it last year when we began to get feeds that weren’t ours. We hope Twitter has now gotten their lines uncrossed. You can check the website for those quick pieces or sign up directly to the feed.
Again, echoing what we said a year ago, we need your tips and stories, ideas and suggestions, your prayers and support.
While our labor is all volunteer for the moment, our overhead is low, but we do have expenses. So far, some of our staff have been actually paying to work. We’d like to change that in the near future.
Help this effort not lag in its service to the Lord’s church. Tomorrow, we’ll mention some specific actions you can take to help BNc grow and become more effective.
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