...it's beginning to look like this to us...

We’ve been looking at our site for about 6 months now.  It has moved through three distinct incarnations and the version that you see now has been revised almost daily for the past month… Looking at your own webpage is like looking at a picture of your baby:  all you see is the cute baby… all anyone else can see is the huge booger in her nose.

So, we took a long hard look at our baby this morning and found some boogers that need… um… picking.  We thought we’d share this info with our readers, so you won’t just abandon us in our infantcy.

So, here are the items that we’ve identified for immediate improvement:

1.) The social networking links in the top feature bar look really wonky on IE7… We didn’t realize, because we don’t use IE7.  But the bar itself is badly designed and detracts from the overall appearance of the site. That entire bar is going to be replaced by an iconic interface located at the top of the sidebar.

2.) We’ve tried to use open source plugins for the Featured Artist and Flickr Friday slide shows.  We found one that works great, but doesn’t look good on the light background that we’re using.  We found another one that gives us all sorts of design latitude, but requires the user to click the images to advance… We’ve bee told that this is “janky” and that sounds bad, so we’re going to be working on developing new code for our own custom app.

3.) We decided that the advertising that we’re using makes the site look gratuitously commercial.  Gone.  We will begin inserting relevant and useful ads for resources that benefit our readers as we become aware of them.

We want WorshipOnPurpose.com to be the best site on the web for encouraging artists to use their gifts in ministry…

Any other suggestions?

I wonder if we’re asking the right questions…

What forms of artistic expression can be used to worship and minister?  Are the limitations biblical, cultural or just negligent?

What is the purpose of an artistic gift?  How are these abilities different from our spiritual gifts?  How are the two similar?

How can the church encourage artists to maximize the impact of their ministry?  Do artistic gifts have a purpose in advancing Christ’s kingdom?

I’ve wanted to create a venue for encouraging these discussions, sharing resources and establishing community…. This is the beginning.

In the weeks ahead, I hope to begin linking this site to resources for biblical artistic worship.  If you have resources like original music, drama or photographs, drop me a note so that I can get you added.

As the site develops, look for news, featured artists and ministry helps.  If you are an independent artist, band or writer, contact me to be included.