The Internet is one of the most important things we do when it comes to preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom.
We found that the old Church websites, ucg.org, gnmagazine.org were just to cumbersome for people.
The Web has evolved in the past 15 years. UCG came out with a website right off the bat and it was on the cutting
edge when the Internet was in its infancy.
In the past we organized our websites around our publications, in many respects around the Good News magazine, around
World News and Prophecy around Vertical Thought. But now, we are organizing our website around topics
and subjects. So that users can go to the site and have it customized for what they are interested in reading about.
The new site is a complete rebuild from the foundation. The programming is different. We are using new technology. We
are using a database driven site.
If someone is doing a search on a topic like the Sabbath they will see results where that topic is being mentioned
in the Good News magazine, perhaps in Vertical Thought, Beyond Today. So there will be video clips related
to that subject.They'll see results from blogs in the past. And so, not just will they go to the gnmagazine.org
website and just see Good News magazine content on that subject, they will now see content across the
board from all of our publications and efforts.
When you register for an account and give profile information, the site can recommend articles and
sermons and audio.
You can tell us basically what you like as far as topics. If you like prophecy, do you like Biblical archaeology,
do you like finances. Based on those topics and then based on maybe your occupation or your hobbies we'll
be able to recommend to you articles that we have within our site or videos that might be of interest to you.
We have over 20,000 pages including audio, video, sermons, articles, blogs, commentaries bringing
them all under one site, under one advanced search engine to help you find new content and what you are
looking for is such a powerful tool because it's going to give the user exactly what they need when they need
it.
And so we have had a number of people where their only job was to go back and read our material and decide
what category it fit in, decide what keywords were best assigned to that article or that material. So
that down the line its part of a vast database so when people search on that topic that article will come
to the fore.
Our goal with this site is kind of two fold. One we want you to build a relationship with God. And through
the material on there will help you personally to build that relationship. The second aspect is that
we want you to build relationships with others of like mind who believe the same thing you do.
Connecting with friends is so important. There's other people out there who live the way you do or starting
to understand things you are starting to understand. And if you can walk together with somebody else throughout
this and send messages to each other and encourage each other it's going to be so valuable for people.
So every author on the site, everybody that's produced videos, blogs or commentaries will have a bio page
so you can see a face. You can know a little bit more about that author. You can connect with that person and
become friends with them.So if you have a question about their article or if you want something clarified
you can chat with them live on the site in realtime. And get instant feedback. Its connecting users to
content producers immediately.
We hope that the members will feel proud of the website. They'll feel, "Hey this is some thing I can share with
others. If I know a family member. If I know a friend who is suffering because of an illness, because of
a death or grieving." Then I can feel, "Hey our Church's website will help you. It's easy to use. It's got lots
of information on it.Go to the site.Go to ucg.org."
We've created a website that's not just about the organization any more. Now it's about the end user.
It's going to connect with people where they are in their walk.
We encourage each of you to go try out the new site at UCG.org. We believe it will be a wonderful experience
for you.A lot of work has gone in to it. We encourage you to explore, to search, to sign up, make an account
and become a user and start to interact and build relationships yourself at UCG.org.