Some changes had to come…

I must say that I learned a kajillion things at the last A Woman Inspired Conference (Ministry: Online). If you haven’t gotten the downloads you should go now or just hang out and continue reading to see how you can win the downloads for free. They talked about stuff that I had never even heard of like blog branding and color ministry. It was so interesting to hear and of course, ya know me, I had to dig deeper and do more research about it so I could apply what I should to our online ministries.

I also heard lots of talk about whether one should advertise on their blog. I told everyone that I usually send would be advertisers of my blog to one of our ministries and have them advertise there. I was asked about my BlogHer ads and I let everyone know that they had been good to me and that I preferred using them because they were no maintenance for me. Someone even emailed me after the conference and I explained my position about ads.

…then I felt convicted.

I thought about how many I have turned away because of my “maintenance free” policy. God told me I wasn’t serving anyone that way. DISCLAIMER: Please note this is a personal conviction to me from God. It may not be applicable to everyone.

So, I removed the BlogHer ads and will now start accepting ads from great mom/pop online shops. If you want to pay then send me an offer or inquire but… a better way for us all would be for you to just send me some of your great products in exchange for that advertising. I might even review it if I love it! I have a new reviews/ads page here if you want to have a look.

In the midst of that I decided to redesign my blog. I mean, Darcy did it and Sprittibee did it. And what is that saying… blogger see, blogger do? Yeah, that’s it!

So here are my new digs. Look all around. Do you like it?

I find it is more soothing, clean, and still slightly modern.

You can see from my graphic up there that I highlighted some areas of interest. The blue arrow is showing you where you can connect with me. Friend me on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Flickr, and email me if you dare. You can also subscribe to my blog feed from there or you can add my URL: http://www.amybayliss.com to the blog feed widget (element) and have it show up on your blog so that you never forget about me. That is how I have mine set up. I call them “my peeps.” Or you could also follow me. I just get all giddy when someone new follows me. I actually hate the term “follows” but for the sake of all sanity I’ll stick with what everyone knows. I did change the title of course, I titled it, “I Heart Them.” You don’t have to heart me but I’ll heart you if you follow me.

As you can see by that green arrow up there I have added some cool new promotional features to each post. If you like a particular post then you can share it with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, StumbledUpon, and others simply by clicking on the appropriate icon. I would be so happy if you would do that. You can start with this post: Competition In Ministry.

Where that red arrow is you can find a list of my most popular posts. That is in case you are new here. It gives you a place to start. The regular post will always be in the area that is circled. And, as always, I love when others respond so if you have something to say, something to add, or just want to say hi, then leave me a response or comment. But… if you do, please put your email address in their so I can respond to you. If you don’t put your email in there and I try to respond then it will just go to some ghost email at Blogger which does us no dadgum good. I’m not sure what dadgum is but I’m sure my grandma does.

Now, if you want to win downloads to the Ministry: Online conference or if you want to win tickets to an upcoming A Woman Inspired conference then just do one of these things:

• sign up for my feed
• friend me on Facebook, Twitter, or any of those other place
• Retweet, of forward this link, stumble it or any of those other cool social networking things up there
• Follow me on Blogger
• tell me what you think of my new blog design

You get one entry for each thing that you do. Leave me a comment letting me know what you’ve done and I’ll randomly pick some winners.

Now I’m off to write a book. Okay so just finish a chapter or two so I can take it to She Speaks when I meet with a publisher there. Y’all pray for me mmmkay? My little nerves are slightly rattled.

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