Project Praise - Need Your Help!

[IntoTheCrimsonSky]

Hey Everyone over in Prog land.

I posted about this on the Trad board, with the idea I'd repost it here too..which I'm doing now. Since this doesn't have to deal with doctrinal stuff, I want all of my buddies help on this one..and figured you guys would be more comfortable posting about it in your own area. So here goes:

As many of you know I have a fair amount of knowledge and experience in web and graphic design. Over the past years I've wanted to do some sort of Christian website that stood out. Since I'm at home 99% of my time, I'm rather limited in how I can work for the LORD in witnessing to others. However, I don't know nearly enough of my Bible to do one of the standard sites out there that preaches to people. I had attempted an SDA site last fall sometime, but it fell kinda flat. It just wasn't right. It wasn't that little something I knew could be different.

I always felt that I'd know it when God showed me it, that I needed to be patient. With everything going on the past months I was getting very depressed, feeling useless. Never really getting the chance to even fellowship about God, since I'm never around anyone with like-mind on certain issues. Even CF didn't work for me, as a large amount of it has been negative in the SDA area. So much fighting and debating and such, I rarely left feeling uplifted. (Nothing personal, just follow along with me a second)

Then today happened. I've been forcing myself to read Steps to Christ (even though I have many reservations about E.G.White), and have been enjoying it actually for the most part. Keep coming away enlightened. While reading today for a bit, I came across the following paragraph which stood out:

"If Christians would associate together, speaking to each other of the love of God and of the precious truths of redemption, their own hearts would be refreshed and they would refresh one another. We may be daily learning more of our heavenly Father, gaining a fresh experience of His grace; then we shall desire to speak of His love; and as we do this, our own hearts will be warmed and encouraged. If we thought and talked more of Jesus, and less of self, we should have far more of His presence." - E.G. White - Steps to Christ

After reading it a few times my head started to swim with ideas. I knew God was speaking to me about it, and I went with Him. Even ended up writing a bunch down in my journal that very moment.

You see, one of my biggest problems with people today is their complaining. 99% of conversations seem to revolve around what's wrong and rarely about the little blessings we all have. We've been trained to focus on the negativity which surrounds us, almost feeding off of it. It's not healthy and often can lead to hate, revenge, discontent...basically things that are ungodly.

I once heard a Pastor say (probably Pastor Doug Batchelor, considering I mostly listen to him) that we can make a better witness for Christ is we respond to the question "How are you?" with positivity, rather than complaining. Especially in cases where people know we have a lot to complain about!

So, how can this be done I asked myself? I could start a thread in CF, I thought. Something simple, maybe get a couple people to join in. Untill it clicked that it's got the potential to be bigger! So much bigger...

What if I could come up with something aimed at re-training the thoughts into positivity? Even just a tiny bit! There's a verse somewhere that says praising God is glorifying Him, so it's killing two birds with one stone.

I don't know any real details yet, there's so much to consider! Nonetheless, I know He's calling me to this...and I want your help, guys. In the next post I'll talk about some of my brainstorming on it, and I want suggestions, ideas, feelings, anything you can think of! No promises that all will be used..but more brains are better than one.

Hehe. Excited.

 

[IntoTheCrimsonSky]

Okay, so..here's where I'm at with it so far:

The title of it I'm not sure of, but these are some ideas:

-Project Praise
-The Praise Project
-Counting Our Blessings
-Power of Praise
-The Bright Side Project (Suggested from T&O)
-Project Sunshine (Suggested from another friend, Peter)
-Project Happiness (Suggested from Peter)

I'm open to any others, or any feelings on those! I may post a poll eventually for it.


How it'll work:

I'm not sure about structure of it yet, but I was thinking of aiming at getting people to commit somehow. At first I was going to suggest daily posting, but weekly could work better for most. All that's basically required is that members must come up with blessings that happened to them since their last post..no matter how bad that time frame was! There's always blessings and reasons to praise, even if they are very obscure. By getting people to focus on the positive things it can help them to be more happy while going through stress, since they will start to be trained into seeing them at the moment rather than just while typing it up.

This also opens the possibility that others can read about the blessings, which glorifies God and in turn gives us more to be thankful for! Think about it..you're having a bad day, maybe lacking faith a bit..but could go to this site and see how others in just as bad situations are still finding blessings. It can be a bit of a faith boost.

There might be a section for larger stories, too. Rather than just day to day things like "I went for a walk and a squirrel stopped near me", you could get full out large scale miracles which people could submit and be logged into a section.

That's the main idea for it right now, what do you guys think? Suggestions?


I'm thinking I may start with a small group on CF at first, since it'll take a long time to get a site working and what not. Start small and work up, letting God bless it as it goes. Anyone interested in joining in?

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

If people who hurt other people severely, routinely, and without a cause would make it right instead of blaming those they hurt for having feelings at all and then finding fresh reasons to harm them all over again, people would have plenty to praise God for. If people would start LIVING Christian love (1 Cor 13) instead of always looking for where they might cast the next stone, what every little nit they might pick to scrutinize and find fault with, people would have plenty to praise God for. Nothing glorifies His name better than Christians acting like it instead of finding ten trillion reasons to justify their precious selves for being as dastardly as they care to be on purpose, particularly toward those they ought to regard with tender charity as less fortunate than themselves.

Praise God there always bes others with needs we can help, and cheer, and bless, who will appreciate us for exactly what we have to offer and for the blessing God makes of us, through us, without needing to scrutinize every flaw and turn their noses in the air. It bes not done to prove anything to anyone, nor for show, but because God has ordained that we may all have the privilege of ministering to one another in love ... IF we will accept that privilege and count that duty as our highest joy.

Good luck with your project hon.

 

[ricker]

Okay, so..here's where I'm at with it so far:

The title of it I'm not sure of, but these are some ideas:

-Project Praise
-The Praise Project
-Counting Our Blessings
-Power of Praise
-The Bright Side Project (Suggested from T&O)
-Project Sunshine (Suggested from another friend, Peter)
-Project Happiness (Suggested from Peter)

I'm open to any others, or any feelings on those! I may post a poll eventually for it.


How it'll work:

I'm not sure about structure of it yet, but I was thinking of aiming at getting people to commit somehow. At first I was going to suggest daily posting, but weekly could work better for most. All that's basically required is that members must come up with blessings that happened to them since their last post..no matter how bad that time frame was! There's always blessings and reasons to praise, even if they are very obscure. By getting people to focus on the positive things it can help them to be more happy while going through stress, since they will start to be trained into seeing them at the moment rather than just while typing it up.

This also opens the possibility that others can read about the blessings, which glorifies God and in turn gives us more to be thankful for! Think about it..you're having a bad day, maybe lacking faith a bit..but could go to this site and see how others in just as bad situations are still finding blessings. It can be a bit of a faith boost.

There might be a section for larger stories, too. Rather than just day to day things like "I went for a walk and a squirrel stopped near me", you could get full out large scale miracles which people could submit and be logged into a section.

That's the main idea for it right now, what do you guys think? Suggestions?


I'm thinking I may start with a small group on CF at first, since it'll take a long time to get a site working and what not. Start small and work up, letting God bless it as it goes. Anyone interested in joining in?

No suggestions right now, but I think you might be on to something good, even if EGW sparked it. It might be nice to have a place to share our thanks for things God has done for us.
I do think it may have a potential for problems if people say things like, for a wild examples "I found such a blessing in my sabbath observance this week", or "I just mowed my lawn on the sabbath and I feel so free". I trust we could stay away from such juvenile behaviour.
God bless! Ricker

 

[IntoTheCrimsonSky]

If people who hurt other people severely, routinely, and without a cause would make it right instead of blaming those they hurt for having feelings at all and then finding fresh reasons to harm them all over again, people would have plenty to praise God for. If people would start LIVING Christian love (1 Cor 13) instead of always looking for where they might cast the next stone, what every little nit they might pick to scrutinize and find fault with, people would have plenty to praise God for. Nothing glorifies His name better than Christians acting like it instead of finding ten trillion reasons to justify their precious selves for being as dastardly as they care to be on purpose, particularly toward those they ought to regard with tender charity as less fortunate than themselves.

Praise God there always bes others with needs we can help, and cheer, and bless, who will appreciate us for exactly what we have to offer and for the blessing God makes of us, through us, without needing to scrutinize every flaw and turn their noses in the air. It bes not done to prove anything to anyone, nor for show, but because God has ordained that we may all have the privilege of ministering to one another in love ... IF we will accept that privilege and count that duty as our highest joy.

Good luck with your project hon.

You know, I can't agree more. I think it goes both ways, too. So many who are hurt turn just as bad as those who hurt them. It never ceases to amaze me how petty people - even myself - can be at times. Can you imagine what God is thinking as He's seeing it all...?

Maybe forcing our eyes open to the blessings we already recieve might just lead to many more, also.

No suggestions right now, but I think you might be on to something good, even if EGW sparked it. It might be nice to have a place to share our thanks for things God has done for us.
I do think it may have a potential for problems if people say things like, for a wild examples "I found such a blessing in my sabbath observance this week", or "I just mowed my lawn on the sabbath and I feel so free". I trust we could stay away from such juvenile behaviour.
God bless! Ricker

*lol* Believe me, never woulda guessed EGW woulda sparked it. I have nothing against her, and don't have enough experience to judge either way...but I'm far from the standard reader at this point. Nonetheless, I believe God can inspire us no matter what it is He uses. Even suffering can turn into inspiration if you look at it right.

I'm glad you think it's a good idea. The more support for this, the better.

I can see your point about problems, but I do want to stress it won't be denomination specific. It'll be Christian specific (gotta be careful with that, though, as I know it'll open the door to a lot of other faiths due to it being about praise. Hm. Something to consider where to go with that.). Thusly, things like Sabbaths or doctrines shouldn't cause any problems. It's not meant to be a place to convert, just to glorify God for His blessings. I think the only line I'd draw is if someone said something like "I really enjoyed (insert some cruel/mean/violent/obscene thing here)".

Of course, getting people not to judge can be a problem..but that'll depend on if I worked it to allow comments or something.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Moriah does not think it goes "both ways".
There bes the one that got poisoned and the one that injected the poison.
From outward appearances the former has the more "troublesome" behavior. The latter may appear perfectly calm and reasonable. Yet only the latter bes culpable.

He who has ears, let him hear.