What We've Been Up To (And What's Coming Next)

 

Introduction

Some of our regular readers may have noticed that we have not posted in a few months. There is a reason for that and, as readers, I believe that you deserve to know what has been happening. In 2023, I accepted a position as Senior Pastor of the Georgetown Church of the Nazarene in Georgetown, Ohio. I have served there for two years, and we have seen great things. We have discipled people of all ages, from senior adults to toddlers. We have seen people get excited about studying the Bible. We have celebrated baptisms. We have seen 8 people come to faith in Jesus through our work at the Georgetown Church of the Nazarene over the past 2 years. We have seen more than one person rededicate their life to Christ. We have received members into the church. We have celebrated what God has done among us.

For those who have done pastoral work in the past, you understand how hectic it can be much of the time. For those who haven't, there may not be a perfect way to describe the busy-ness that comes with pastoral work. For my part, I was the only pastor on staff, and as a result, there was quite a bit that fell on my shoulders. I blame no one for this. It is just the reality of doing pastoral work in a small church. In the past year, I worked an average of 60-70 hours per week for the church. I love what I do, and seeing people come to faith in Christ makes everything worth it. As a result, I had to step back from Nazarene Caffeine at times. When I had to make a choice between those who were in my immediate pastoral care and those who would read my articles online, I must prioritize those who are in my immediate pastoral care. I hope that everyone understands.

The fact that I sometimes had to step away doesn't mean that nothing has happened in the background, however. In fact, even though I have not had much time to write a full article of late, I have been working on several projects for Nazarene Caffeine in the background. Some of these projects are still in production, but I believe will help Nazarene Caffeine accomplish its mission. 

Nazarene Caffeine began as a small blog where I would share my thoughts on various topics from a Wesleyan (and specifically, a Nazarene) perspective. As the website has evolved, it has become more and more focused on transformation through Jesus rather than simply the transfer of information. After 5 years of working on Nazarene Caffeine, I believe it is time to double-down on our work to transform lives through the power of the Gospel. This involves providing helpful articles as before. It also involves intentional discipleship. Over the past 7 months, several updates have been happening silently in the background to help us meet our goal of being not only a information hub, but a means by which the lives of people are transformed. Several of the updates that have taken place over the past 7 months include, but are not limited to, the following.

A Monthly Email Newsletter

Some of you may have been asked to sign up for our email newsletter when you visited the website. Subscribers to our monthly newsletter will receive information about our most recent articles, updates, and real-world ministry impacts. We want to keep you, our readers, updated on the impact that Nazarene Caffeine is having not only online, but in the everyday, day-to-day work of ministry. Our monthly newsletter will be our primary way of communicating with our subscribers.

The monthly newsletter from Nazarene Caffeine also provides you with highlights, book recommendations, and ways that you, our subscribers, can help us continue to have a real-world impact by reaching people with the message of the Gospel. It is a way of helping us disciple you as we reach others. We hope that you will subscribe and see what Nazarene Caffeine is all about!

New Support System

When Nazarene Caffeine began, I (Travis) funded everything out of my own pocket. I believe that this is a ministry effort worth investing in. To this day, all of the funding for Nazarene Caffeine comes out of my own pocket, including but not limited to domain registrations, payments for technical improvements on the website, research materials for the articles that are written, and so on. The fees involved in these projects are not generally incredibly high, but they do add up.

For this reason, a few years ago I thought it would be a good idea to allow Google to run advertisements on the website. I limited the ads to those that were family friendly, doing everything that I could to avoid any ads that were not appropriate for general audiences from appearing. My decision to run ads was to, hopefully, set the conditions by which the website could fund itself. It seemed like a win-win: Nazarene Caffeine would stay up and reach more people. At the same time, I would not need to continue to come out of my own pocket to keep things going. I also attempted to limit the ads that I ran to the locations on the website where the ads would be the least annoying. Google did not always cooperate with me in this, but an attempt was made.

Because I made the choice to only use family-friendly ads, the income generated by these ads were minimal. Generally speaking, ads that are not family friendly have a higher cpm (cost per milli), which, in short, means that they pay far more for the same number of views. I believe it was the right things for me to do to avoid even the risk that something inappropriate would appear in an ad on this website, and in doing so, I sacrificed a larger paycheck. In fact, I have not seen a single check from Google for any of the ads that have run on Nazarene Caffeine in the past 5 years. In 5 years, I have not met the minimum threshold of $100, which is what Google requires before they issue a payment. In short, the plan to have the website fund itself has not worked out.

With all of this in mind, I want the website and real-world ministry efforts to be largely self-sustaining. I will continue to invest in Nazarene Caffeine, both in terms of finance and in terms of effort. I would ask that you do, as well. Going forward, the ads that are shown on Nazarene Caffeine will be phased out. In their place is the option for individuals to support the mission of Nazarene Caffeine by donating through Buy Me A Coffee. Supporters can donate by clicking on the orange "Buy Me A Coffee" button on the left side of the webpage. Those using mobile devices may need to click the menu icon to open up the left side menu in order to access the button. One-time donations can be made, or you may select the option to make a monthly donation.

All funds from Buy Me A Coffee will go to advance Nazarene Caffeine's efforts to evangelize and disciple as many people as possible. In short, the ads on Nazarene Caffeine will be phased out in the next couple of months, but you can start donating via Buy Me A Coffee today! I appreciate all of your support.

Guest Posts

In the last few months, I have been working on opportunities for others to guest post on Nazarene Caffeine. There are several scenarios in which a guest post can benefit both Nazarene Caffeine and the person who guest posts on this website. Several of you may have noticed an option to provide a guest post or a guest review on the left-side menu. If you are interested in providing a guest post, please click on these links to see the requirements to guest post. If you believe that your article would be a good fit for Nazarene Caffeine, please don't hesitate to submit it using the prompts located on the guest post page.

Layout

Speaking of the guest post button, some of you may have also noticed that the layout of Nazarene Caffeine looks a little different. Perhaps the biggest change is that much of the navigation now happens on the left sidebar rather than at the top of the page. This layout change is necessitated by the way we are expanding. Going forward, some of the more important or urgent links will be located at the top, but because of space limitations in Nazarene Caffeine's header, most of the navigation links had to be relocated. The good news is that a relocation to the left sidebar leaves plenty of room for expansion at a later date.

SEO/Technical Updates

Perhaps the most time-consuming work that has been done behind the scenes is SEO work. For those who do not know what SEO means, it stands for Search Engine Optimization, and is the means by which Google and other search engines find the pages of a website. I had not updated any SEO in almost 5 years. As a result, I was essentially doing 5 years' worth of SEO work in a few months. The bad news is that it can be time-consuming. The good news is that it will help people hear the message of Jesus through our work at Nazarene Caffeine. Since I began working on SEO around late January of this year, we have seen an increase in traffic from approximately 3,000 visitors per month to approximately 10,000-12,000 visitors per month. This work, while not seen on the surface, was really important. From this point on, I will keep up with the SEO work as I release articles instead of waiting for later.

More Is Coming!

There are more updates coming in the near future. Each of these updates will help us be more efficient in reaching people with the good news of Jesus, not only online, but also in the real world. What updates do we have in mind? Subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates. I don't want to spoil the future updates now, but I think they are really good.

As we look to the future, we ask you to join us as we seek to reach people with the message about Jesus. With your prayer and support, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we hope that we can be a force for life transformation, and not just the transfer of information.

Yours in Christ,

Travis Stockelman