2010–A Growing Year
2010 was a growing year for the Preacher’s Pen. At various times throughout the year, I would be somewhere at a church event and people would comment about the Preacher’s Pen website. My favorite by far was when I was at a lectureship and someone kept staring at me, then walked up and asked, “Aren’t you that Preacher’s Pen guy?” I love it!
As you may have noticed, the site has gone through a few changes recently. The new change in format offers more of a full website look as opposed to a blog. Do not fear, there is still a blog on the Preacher’s Pen and there probably always will be. In fact, I was calling them an “online journal” for a while, then gave into the word blog. This new look enables the addition of several more features throughout the year. By the end of this year, there will be several more ebooks and I am currently looking at putting “The Road to Better Living” into a video series. Like I said, there are some big things going to happen this year.
Every year I like to take a look at the top referrers and see who is mentioning or linking to the Preacher’s Pen website. Once I removed some of the sites like Google, Facebook, NetworkBlogs, Yahoo, Twitter.com and a few others, this is the top referrers of the Preacher’s Pen in 2010. Thanks for all your help!
- Bridgeport Church of Christ, Bridgeport, WV (http://churchofchrist-bridgeport.com/)
- Adam Faughn (http://www.faughnfamily.com/)
- Brian Nicklaus (http://blogprophet.wordpress.com/)
- Timothy Archer (http://www.timothyarcher.com/kitchen/)
- John Dobbs (http://www.johndobbs.com)
- Trey Morgan (http://treymorgan.net)
- Mitchell Skelton (http://www.mitchellskelton.com)
The website visits to the Preacher’s Pen went through the roof this year. The image below is not any visitor, but unique visitors. I use my webhosting company’s statistic program/viewer to get a good look at where people are going. For the past several years, I have noticed people arriving at the Preacher’s Pen site through the Outlines/PowerPoints page. There are always a large number of visits on Friday and Saturday nights to the Outlines/Powerpoints page. (Hummm, what does that say?)
Anyways, people are coming in at all angles and not just the blog page. I am excited about that because it shows the influence is expanding a little bit.
Here are the views for 2010:
Yes you read that number correctly – 396,636 visitors to the Preacher’s Pen this year! Amazing!!
I am humbled and shocked that people are stopping by the Preacher’s Pen and even using it as a resource. Thanks for your time and trust in using the Preacher’s Pen website.
Just some thoughts,
Chris
Miss Me?
Whew! I feel tired, yet enthusiastic about the upcoming series of events. Last week, I disappeared to the one of my favorite places in the world. I spent a few days at a cabin deep in the woods of West Virginia then returned home to spend quality time with Carrie and the kiddos. I am truly blest to be able to do what I do each day. While away, I reflected on some things regarding my personal ministry and I plan on sharing some of those things in January. For now, there are some changes coming to the Preacher’s Pen website in January 2011. Take note of several of the changes listed below.
Coming to the Preacher’s Pen in 2011:
BRAND NEW Website Design + PLUS
- Yes, this will mean a change to your feedreaders, but I will do my best to make it simple.
- A new eBook section featuring your favorite ebooks as well as a description for a simple download process.
- A new podcast page with recent sermons, past sermons and other valuable audios.
- A new sermon outline page hosting the PowerPoints and the PDF outline.
A few tweaks will take place towards the end of December, but the new site will launch on January 1st.
What changes would you like to see come to the Preacher’s Pen?
Just some quick thoughts,
Chris Gallagher
Back to Blogging!
What I Love About the Church Guest Writing Series
Over the past month that Preacher’s Pen has been hammered by many visits during the “What I Love About the Church” series. Each article was read by people from all over and the site saw a significant jump in the number of readers. If you missed the series, you may catch the topics here.
I want to personally thank each writer who took time so share their thoughts on what they love about the church. Each writer did an excellent job and I commend them.
Transparency Week
Last fall I took some time and made my life a semi-open book and blogged about the activities each day. Beginning Sunday, I want to share with you another such week and let you in on a week of the life of a preaching Gallagher. Each evening before bed, I will share my thoughts for the day. I must warn you , some thoughts will be good and some will be greatly challenging. I know in doing this I may open myself up a little too much, but I believe it will all work out for the best.
More Interesting News:
- Appreciating your Preacher – In a few weeks (maybe next week) I want to share some challenging information for the members of the church in relation to preaching and how you can assist your minister in becoming better each day. Preacher need your support! With October being Clergy Appreciation month, I want to share some thoughts before October so you can take part in show your minister how much you appreciate him.
- New EBook! – After taking a break from publishing some ebooks, I am working on a couple to share with you in a few weeks. Hopefully, these ebooks will provide you with encouragement and challenge you to grow spiritually each day.
- Preacher’s Pen Website Redesign! – Sometime in the next few weeks the Preacher’s Pen website will undergo a quick and simple redesign. As the plans and the site undergoes a change, it may be necessary to change the RSS feed, but I will keep you updated with more information.
- New Sermon Outlines! – As the site changes, more sermon outlines will be added to the Preacher’s Pen. As always, all the sermon outlines and PowerPoints on the Preacher’s Pen are free for download.
Stay tuned for more from the Preacher’s Pen! Stop back on Sunday and let’s see how Sunday goes!
Just some thoughts,
Chris
The Preacher’s Pen in 2010
By the end of 2009, the Preacher’s Pen will be inexistence for a little over four years. When I first began writing I had no idea what the word “blog” meant, instead I called it an online ministry journal. Since those days of hardly any visitors to the point of reaching 200,000 visitors this year, I have been amazed at the outpouring of encouragement from the online religious community. From the days of typing HTML to the current days of WordPress, this site has been a blessing to my life.
This site did not start with the www.preacherspen.org domain name, instead it was piggybacked off of our family website and stayed there for several years. The Preacher’s Pen began as an online journal concerning our move to South Carolina. With the prospect to join a domestic mission work, many friends and family wanted an opportunity to keep up with my ministry. With them in mind, I felt it best to design a website to inform them of the recent events in my ministry and to post various random thoughts as well. Little did I know, this small website would become a release and a encouragement to my life. As the visitors increased on our family website, it was time to get a domain name and take it out on its own…and the Preacher’s Pen was born. And so the story continues…thanks for being a part of it!
The year of 2010 will be a beneficial year for the Preacher’s Pen. My personal goals are to increase the website efforts by 10%. Simply put, here is what it means:
- 10% more Articles
- 10% more Powerpoints
- 10% more Ebooks
- 10% more Sermon Outlines
- 10% more Teleconferences
- 10% more Book Reviews
- 10% more Audio Sermons
- and much more!
I hope you will stick with me during 2010 and together we can reach as many as possible. I adopted a tagline for the Preacher’s Pen this year and I will use it often, “The Preacher’s Pen seeks to assist others in creating a better day today for a better life tomorrow!”
The current plans are to establish a “post plan.” Instead of posting various articles each day, the plan for 2010 is to post articles along the same lines each day. This will assist you in staying in touch with the efforts of the Preacher’s Pen as well as finding some encouragement for the day. Here is an overview to the plan as of right now:
- Monday – Monday Morning Blues and Sermon PowerPoints
- Tuesday – Marriage and Family Articles
- Wednesday – Bible Study Articles
- Thursday – Random Thoughts from a Random Mind articles
- Friday – Preaching Posts
- Saturday and Sunday – Anything goes!
Thanks for sticking around. 2009 is not over yet, expect some surprises; there is much more to come!
Thanks for being a part of the Preacher’s Pen, (and oh yeah, any thoughts are always appreciated)
Chris
Day #4 of Transparency Week – Wednesday
This morning, I needed to take Carrie’s car to get the tires rotated so I figured it was a good time to spend reviewing yesterday’s (Wednesday’s) day of “Transparency Week.” Whenever we need work on the car that I cannot do or that I do not have time to work on, we take our car to Gerald’s Tires. Gerald’s Tires is owned by members of the church and many members of the church work there. Gerald’s Tires provides a great working environment as well as a great place to wait on your car. Plus, with a sign flashing messages like this, why not go there?
So here I sit, mobile again: phone is on, instant messenger is on, computer is on and I am connected. (Gerald’s has wireless internet access, so the mobile-office-car-repair-center fits well in the schedule.)
Wednesday’s Thoughts
Why is it that my three year old son is the last one to go to bed, but the first one up? By up, I do not mean early, I mean e…a…r…l…y!! For some reason, his head pops off the pillow at 5:00am and his first words every morning are, “Mommy!!” When I ask him why he is up so early he tells me that “sleep is done.” I am blessed that Carrie gets up with him and allows me to sleep a little longer before I have to rumble out of bed to go roll the girls out of bed.
From the start of the morning until the middle of the morning, coffee and writing became a large portion of my day. I have to admit that I would love to be a writer, but I do not have the ability. I get writer’s block more often than I need and trying to overcome writer’s block is like trying to start a morning without a cup of coffee; it can be done, it just takes a while. About once a week, I get my brain moving and I am able to knock out five to seven articles along with approximately five ideas for future articles. The ideas are the easiest part because those occur everyday, but during the “good writing” days, I spend time beginning the articles and brainstorming for future “good writing” days.
As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I am a huge fan of using technology to better workload and to make working more efficient. For instance, some of the articles I wrote yesterday (Wednesday), are scheduled to post later in the week. For those of you who are not familiar with WordPress software, you are able to schedule your posts to be published days, weeks or months in advance. Since I am a Windows user, I prefer to use Windows Live Writer instead of the WordPress software. Windows Live Writer is a simple program allowing you to post to your blog in very easy steps and adding photos and videos are as simple as a few clicks. Windows Live Writer also allows you to select the time and date of your post before publishing it. Be sure to add your category and tags to your post using the options at the bottom of the screen. For more on Windows live Writer, go here! Windows Live Writer and WordPress make my web-publishing much easier.
(By the way,I am now back from Gerald’s Tires…see how quick they work! – It’s a great day at Gerald’s!)
After finishing several articles, it was time for some email correspondence. Over 100 emails per day find their way through the ever-growing internet and trickle down to my computer. Emails regarding anything from church communication, Preacher’s Pen communication, Gallagher Institute communication, to personal matters fill my inbox at various times during the day. Wednesday’s email brought a flood of positive communication aspects and idea generation.
Idea generation brings thousands of thoughts and more ideas. I am currently planning some lessons for next years sermon series, so the ideas are rampant and scary. I believe the beginning of the year will bring a study in 1 and 2nd Timothy in the sermon series with a study of “Fruit of the Spirit” in the afternoon Bible class. Several years ago I began planning lessons based upon a four to five week series, but sometimes I extend those series a bit longer depending on the topic. The current series, “Five Views from the Cross,” is getting a nice amount of feedback. Hopefully and prayerfully, those lessons are making an impact on the way each of us views the sacrifice of Jesus.
Around 11:00 am, it was time to pick up the girls. Their school released early and the girls were coming home to finish our homework before we headed off to Mount Pleasant for some Christmas shopping. After the girls got home, we feasted on various food (candy, chips, more candy, sweet tea and more) and decided to call it “lunch.”
The afternoon brought a variety of things floating around the desk and through my mind. Over the past week I have not made it to my normal schedule of usually what I plan during the day. Typically I try to do four things each day: (1) Write, (2) Read, (3) Encourage and (4) Apply. I have adapted my list from listening to John Maxwell. Dr. Maxwell is “America’s Leadership Expert” and I figure his experience is worth noting.
My Daily Four:
- Write – As I mentioned before I try to write each day. It does not matter if it is a rough draft or a final copy, I try to write. Many times my final drafts all come at once. I mentioned that I experience writer’s block too much, but that never stops me from brainstorming various articles, sermons, projects and charts. Writing helps me to release thoughts onto a computer screen to get an overall look at them later.
- Read – I try to read something each day; magazines, books, blogs, newsletters and anything else to make me “create a better day today for a better life tomorrow.” I wrote an article back in October called “Reading – My Personal Confession.” Take a moment and give it a quick read to see my views on reading. Also, take a moment and check out my 11 Books (Outside of the Bible) I Recommend.
- Encourage – Every day I seek to encourage someone, outside of my family, and it does not matter who. Every day, throughout the day, I encourage my family and I seek to expand that encouragement to others. Take time and write someone in your congregation a small note and do not sign the card. As humans, we want to be thanked, but encourage someone without them knowing. Send an email to someone and thank them for being a friend or for the work they do. Encouraging someone only takes a second but the benefits are unending.
- Apply – The hardest part of the day comes in the application. The days can become so busy that the application of what was learned during the day can be put off until the next day, but to really make the best use of your knowledge, apply it today. It you have to create an opportunity to apply it, create that opportunity!
The afternoon continued to bring more idea generation and brainstorming for the upcoming sermons and Bible Classes as well as my lessons for this coming Sunday. I am guest speaking at another congregation, so I am making a compilation lesson.
We headed to Mount Pleasant a little early for some Christmas shopping. While I cannot give you too much information, because my family does actually read this and the gifts are for some of them. I can show you some pictures:
While Carrie and the girls and the boy were Christmas shopping, I got some “church related” items done in Mount Pleasant. After getting the church mail from the Post Office box, I found a letter and this picture in the mail – Does anyone know him?
After shopping and errands, the family sat down for a fantastic Chinese take-out dinner of Teriyaki Chicken, Sweet and Sour Chicken and Steamed Chicken with mixed vegetables, we began our Bible study with our Small Group in Mount Pleasant. Our Bible topic is one that I am going to save for a post later, I promise.
When Bible study and our fellowship time came to a close, we packed up in the car a headed home. As we arrived home, more email and phone calls awaited before closing my eyes as the Spurs and Mavericks battled to put a little ball in a basket. ( I really do not watch basketball, but David Robinson is my favorite player of all time.)
Final Thoughts on Wednesday:
I felt like I gained knowledge and accomplished a nice amount of writing on Wednesday. Usually Tuesdays is my writing day, but over the past month the schedule is changing to a Writing Wednesday. The fruit of Wednesday’s efforts will not be seen at once, rather it will be seen over the next week and even into the next year and hopefully into the everlasting life.
Whatever you do, please remember, a preacher’s work does not begin at 8:00 am and end at 4:00 pm, if it did not much would be accomplished. Also, a preacher’s life is a light of life to the world, not a light on a desk in an office.
Just my thoughts,
Chris
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