Well, it's been another year here at Disciples Connect. A new year always brings in fresh changes and new possibilities.

The big news is that I am "graduating" off of the Young Adult Commission. I served for about three years faithfully with this great team of young adults and staff from HELM and DHM. Good people - good ideas. We faced a truly daunting task of trying to begin forming a new young adult ministry for Disciples. This meant stuff at GA and coordinating stronger connections through the internet and stuff. We've made progress, but there is still always more to do.

As for Disciples Connect, I plugged the site in my latest article in the ever excellent Disciples World, but man, it's still such a small niche. I bet very few Disciples actually regularly search out blogs to read - they probably use the internet for news, comedy sites, Youtube videos, and MySpace like the rest of the world. I still feel like D-Connect is too complicated to join up for anybody but the young at heart. I could be wrong though... our community has ebbed more recently as I've been preoccupied with married life and trying to finish seminary.

So, the writing may be on the wall. For young adults, the Disciple Young Adult email list is tremendously nice. MySpace and Facebook may be better communities that already exist to tap into. A central bog site like this may just not really have an audience or group anymore. We'll see though.

One idea I had was to transition DisciplesConnect into a center of resources, information, and services for congregations. I could keep a core blogging community going but also expand it with specific articles and resources to help congregations utilize the internet more effectively. This means some wiki-like tools, hosting services, web design services, and so on. I'm kicking this idea around - we'll see if it takes root.

I hope you have a blessed New Year!