Back in March I filled everyone in on the Beyond Project at Trinity Church.  Our church went through a long season of raising commitments from our church families to build into the future with new facilities.  Much of the project is devoted to new spaces for the Next Generations in Lubbock.  When our family was praying about what we could give as a family we picked a dollar figure that we would commit to give over the next three years.  However, this number was above what we could afford to give on a monthly basis.  So what were we thinking?  We wanted to put ourselves in a position to find other more creative ways to meet our commitment.

We began to pray for opportunities to make additional contributions and vowed that all money above our normal monthly income would be given to the Beyond Project at Trinity..  And then it happened.  We began to receive unexpected rebate checks, insurance payment refunds, and my own kids (with help from their mother) organized a family garage sale.  At about this same time, I was approached by some different sponsors offering to pay for ad space here at www.jonathancliff.com.  As you might have guessed, if you read this blog I have accepted their offers.  I’m working with the Beacon Ad network to make sure that my ads are of high quality content, and so far my experience with them has been positive.

It’s my hope that the sponsors we have here at www.jonathancliff.com will reflect something of interest to my readers.  I know that some might seem more interesting than others, but I ask that you take the time to visit each and every one as they are added over in the right sidebar.  I will also from time to time be doing product reviews, and I promise that I will not accept payment from anyone in exchange for a positive review; honesty will rule the reviews!  You can ready my entire advertising philosophy over on the advertise page HERE.

In this spirit let me introduce you to two of my newest sponsors:

• Christianity Cove is run by Mary Kate Warner and you can visit all that is happening at the cove at http://www.christianitycove.com.  Her blog has been up and running since 2006 with hundreds of pages of free content to help Sunday School teachers, home schooling parents, children’s pastors, etc. pull together fun lessons, games, activities, etc.  I know that you will find many of her resources worth looking at!
• Ministry-to-Children.com has also joined as a partner.  MTC is a fantastic resource for anyone associated in any form whatsoever with Children’s Ministry.  I cannot more highly recommend the A+ content put out on this site. Specifically you will find a link to their coloring page catalog.  Good Stuff.  Tony Kummer, and his group of writers at MTC have long been an important part of the online Kidmin community.  Go there now and say hello!

Thank you so much for being a faithful reader, and as we enter this new adventure together I hope that I can bring advertisers that can enrich your experience!  Feel free to email me with any questions if you ever feel your trust has been compromised by an ad that you see at jonathancliff.com.

Do you see it?  The new jonathancliff.com is being released today.  I want to apologize in advance for those of you that will miss the old website, and loved that little blue bird up at the top.  I’m sorry.  (You can visit the Wayback Machine and look at old posts in their original format whenever you want!)

I’ve moved over to the Standard Theme, and it is still a work in progress.  I’ll be tweaking things here and there, so I would appreciate your feedback throughout this process.  You can reach me at jc@jonathancliff (dot) com.  I promise, you can’t hurt my feelings.

Let me answer the big question.  Why would I change?

I wanted a change because the template that I was using was buggy.  I know that many of you liked it, and I received compliments on it often.  However, it was extremely hard to get things to fit in the sidebar, and the main post section was always giving me problems.  It was also not a great SEO-optimized platform, and there were very little customizations allowed in it’s design.  It was great while it lasted, but for a free Skinpress.com WordPress theme it was limited.

So here we are with the new jonathancliff.com.  Along with the new design, I will also be making a few subtle changes to what I write about.  You can expect more of what you like, but I’m going to be expanding into more product reviews, sharing more examples of the behind the scenes way we do things in my current positions, and sharing some new voices from in and around my world.

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
~W.S. Merwin, “Separation”

Have you noticed, I’ve been missing from this blog in the past two weeks?  The combination of Orange Conference over-posting, and a busy personal life has created a vacant blog schedule.  Sure I knocked out something on Mother’s Day, and you saw an already scheduled update of our newest Kidsplace Promo video…but really nothing about me.  That’s why I have this blog, right?  Because there are people out there that want to know about me!

If you’re still reading, then let’s hope that you know my tounge is planted firmly in my cheek.  It’s not all about me, and being at the Orange Conference reminded me of that.  I met so many of you guys that read this lame website, that I feel obligated to fill you in on much of what has been occupying my world lately.  Can I share what’s up in my Ministry life?

• I’ve hired a new Early Childhood Coordinator at Trinity!  About three months ago I made a staffing change, and my entire team and I have been scrambling ever since.  I’m real excited to have Deborah Winkler on our team in this role, but hiring her has created a new opening.  Now I’m hiring an Administrative Assistant!
• When I get my Admin Assistant hired, it will finally complete my 6 person team for the first time since early this year.  It’s stinks to be operating at full throttle, with less than a complete staffing team!  Whew!
• I smell a curriculum change coming!  In our Elementary areas we have used Elevate! for almost 3 years.  It’s been an overall good experience, but some recent changes in the creation of Elevate! have rendered it unusable for us.  (Send me an email, and I’ll explain in private.)  In August of 2010 we will transition to 252 Basics in Elementary, and are looking closely at starting First Look in our Early Childhood environments.
• Since we are moving to 252 Basics in August, we were in search of something to get us through the summer months of programming and have settled on BIG by Hillsong Kids.  We’re one week into the BIG experience, and so far so good.  I love it’s flexibility, and long 13 week (with 3 segments) schedule.  We’re using the Follow You package through BIG, and the kids are loving it right now.
• The Summer events are starting at the end of this month.  We will be continuing are Family Fun Day events from last year, along with a couple of “drop the kids” events squeezed in between.  We will also run a special 4 night event that will run in conjunction with our Holy Spirit Inspire church conference (we like to think of this as our VBS-alternative.)  We have also created a special over-night bonding event for our 4th and 5th graders that will happen in late July.  We’ve designed it so that the Jr. High leaders can be involved in getting to know the kids that will be in their areas in August, and the year after.  This is a first-time event for us, so fingers are crossed!

That covers most of the ministry things happening in my life.  Now, admit it.  You feel like you know me better, right?

Since May of 2009, I’ve been self-hosting this little web presence with Dreamhost using the WordPress platform.  First of all, I stand to benefit financially from you signing up from Dreamhost, but I can’t more highly recommend them.  Why?  It’s cheap, and it’s novice-friendly setup for WordPress users is perfect for newbies like me.  Seriously, cheap and easy.  If you’re interested hit that Dreamhost badge over to your right, or just click HERE.

If you’re not currently on WordPress, then make it happen for yourself.  It’s so much easier and tweakable than any other platform.  And the added bonus of using WordPress is that you instantly join a community of people willing to help and offer input.  Collaboration at it’s WordPress best!

The plugin feature of WordPress has been my favorite part of the experience.  In that spirit, here are a few plugins that I’ve found to be highly beneficial since moving over to WordPress:

All in One SEO Pack
This little plugin easily ties SEO data into each blog post.  As a newbie, I didn’t quite get it’s benefit at first; but now I see that it really makes my posts easier to find through search engines.  I took the time to add SEO data to old posts, and it even drove traffic to those lost and lonely post from years pasts.

W3 Total Cache
I don’t totally understand this plugin, but I know that since I moved from WP_Super Cache to this my load times have been lightning fast.  Fast is good in the web world, right?

Amazon Associate Filter
This little plugin is magic.  It automatically ties in all Amazon links to my Amazon Affiliate ID.  Cha-Ching!

I moved over from a Blogger platform to WordPress, and I found these three plugins to be life-savers:

Batch Categories
When I migrated over to WordPress, I spent hours changing my categories and working to make old posts easier to find. Then I found this tool and did what had taken me hours in about 10 minutes. It allows you to do what the name of it is. Change categories of posts in a batch, instead of individually.

Blogger To WordPress Redirection
This is a great plugin that automatically moves old blogger permalinks to your new wordpress permalinks. This was important for me, because I changed my naming setup when I moved to WordPress.

Maintain Blogger Permalinks
This works in conjunction with the other plugin, and maintains all those original http://littlepastor.blogspot.com (Don’t ask!) links that exists in the Internets.

There are other plugins I use, like Askimet, Feedburner, Woopra, Google Analytics, and other WordPress tool plugins.  It wouldn’t be an adequate WordPress blog help post, if I didn’t mention the help that John has provided at www.human3rror.com and www.churchcrunch.com.  It was even from his site that I picked up the cool toolbar over on the right side of my blog!

I’d love to know what you’re using.  What am I missing out on?

I’ve been absent from this site for a few weeks.  But I’m still here!  No worries.  Today I’d like to share some of what’s been going on in and around my reading over the past few weeks.  From books to blogs to magazines:

BLOG: If you’ve ever worked with curriculum of any sorts (good or bad), then you need to add your two cents to the discussion happening at www.childrensministryonline.com Listen as Kenny rails against the system, or the man, or the whatever you want to call it… It’s blogging at it’s best.  An Open letter to Curriculum Publishers. In true Kenny Conley fashion, it’s about 10 posts long; but worth every minute of reading.

BOOK: I’m not sure how this has slipped my reading over the years, but somehow I’ve just now found myself reading through The Fabulous Reinvention of Sunday School by Aaron Reynolds.  This book is blowing my little teaching mind right now.   At risk of sounding like a total tool, I’ll say that I’m a pretty comfortable storyteller and public speaker; but Aaron’s book has been really challenging my setup and structure for teaching kids the Bible.  I’m reading through it right now with my Elementary Ministry Coordinator, and it’s really been fantastic!

BLOG: Sam Luce and I have a little ministry secret.  I’ll let the cat out of the bag…we’re both recovering Pentecostals.  That being said, he might have some Holy Spirit blogging gold on his hands with some new posts on the Holy Spirit this week.  Check it out:
The Role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Child
What is the Holy Spirit’s role in Children’s Ministry

MAGAZINE: I electronically opted out of the swimsuit issue in Sports Illustrated.  I didn’t tell my wife, but when she got the card telling us that we would be missing this issue; it turned into a great gift that she still talks about today.  Do it guys, just do it.

BOOK & BLOG: Henry has hosted a special Think Orange blogging tour over the past week.  Go to www.ElementalCM.com and see what everyone else is saying about what I’ve already said a ton about!

BLOG: Warning: Shameless Self-Promotion!!!!   My wife is the editor for our church’s women’s ministry blog.  Anyways, she wrote something nice about me and my daughter for Valentines Week.  The Love of a Father

I’m out.  Now go back to something more important.