Unless the Lord builds the house...

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
Staff member
I spent a few hours today updating various accounts for Tribe of Judah and the experience drove home just how little I've contributed to the community lately. Activity (the quantity, not the quality!) in both ToJ and the CGA has declined in the last year. I'm currently in a season of life where work and family responsibilities leave very little time for recreation or administrative duties and I doubt that will change in the near future. Calls for help have gone largely unanswered, in large part because many of our active members also have other responsibilities.

If this sounds like old news, then I pray you'll afford me some grace and read on.

Psalms 127:1 says, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain."

I can try to press on in my own strength, but that has not worked very well.

I still believe there's a place and a need for communities like ToJ and the CGA, but I want to take an opportunity to stop (which is unexpectedly difficult for me since I have a tendency to fixate once I get started and feel guilty when I don't accomplish all I set out to do) and pray.

I covet your prayers over the next 30 days. Please pray that the Lord would make His will regarding ToJ and the CGA clear to me. I can decide a course and plunge right in, but, again, if the Lord is not blessing the effort, it's all in vain.

Come November 1, we'll likely scale forums, servers, and chapters back based on current activity levels. Examples of possible changes are closing and archiving inactive forums, canceling game server subscriptions, and closing inactive Tribe of Judah chapters.

But first and foremost, please join me in prayer during October regarding the future of the Christian Gamers Alliance and Tribe of Judah.
 
If things have to be closed I understand Tek.

Whatever happens there are a couple things I've mentioned several times we still need fixed. First the Toj donation link on toj.cc. Secondly the TF2 server needs a slot dropped to 24 even if you decide to cancel it. As far as I know I cannot drop the slot as I've never had access to the money section of NFO but if you want to give me access to toj.cc I can try to fix the donation link. I had access to the old toj website but never the new one. Honestly I don't like doing anything having to do with money, I don't trust my competence, but I'm willing to try and fix the link.

Will pray regardless.
 
Just wanted to check in and say that I have not forgotten about this thread. Far from it.

The recent outage left me with about 12 hours (from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Central, when @BananaGirl messaged to say the forums were back up) to think long and hard about the Christian Gamers Alliance--its history, its current state, and if and how it could be of significant use as a ministry to glorify God and assist in equipping followers of Christ to serve Him.

There are still some matters I need to give more thought, but I'll share those things that are abundantly clear:

I can not do this on my own. If the CGA is to continue, I'll need help. Specifically, I'll need volunteers to help update and moderate the forums, post content to our social media accounts, and manage and moderate our chat servers (TeamSpeak, Discord, or both). In the past, I've posted public calls for open staff positions, but that has not been very effective. I'm not ruling out using that same method again, but I'll likely instead approach capable and trusted individuals directly to ask for their help.

The most pressing issue right now is setting up off-site backups, but that's a fairly complicated process and will require an off-site server. I could definitely use help on that front.

We should scale back. We're not seeing the same level of activity we did a few years ago and it's time to streamline our forums. I don't plan on deleting any forums, but I may close some and move them to our archives, which are still accessible as read-only forums. If we see an increase in activity, we can always add more forums if and when there's demand.

There's also a very good chance that we'll close the TeamSpeak server in favor of the new Discord server unless someone volunteers to take over updating and managing the TeamSpeak server. If we drop the TeamSpeak server, we should have the option to moving to less expensive hosting next year.

I want to shift my focus from the administrative to the personal. I am by no means abandoning administrative duties, but I want to spend less time on "patching up the house" and more time just talking with and playing games with you all. I do still want to choose, purchase, and install a new theme for the forums, but I want to take a break from maintenance work beyond that--at least, for a while. I'm at a point where I just want to reconnect with the people who made and make this a great community.

We should make our vision and mission abundantly clear. As President, I drive the vision. That's my responsibility. But I also want our community members to be involved with and "own" that vision with me. And even though vision and mission are vital, it may serve us better to be quiet for a short time, listen for what God would tell us, and take time to discuss these subjects rather than just start belting out a rough draft.

No matter what, we're paid up until next summer, so I want to make the most of it. I desperately want the CGA to be useful to the Lord. I'm really hoping that God says "Yes" to that petition. If not, well, then I'm confident that all those in the community will find a place to serve, both online and offline, where they can bring glory to God and effective ministry to others. I just want the CGA to be that place.
 
I just think times are changing just a bit. People don't connect via forums as much as they used too. TBH, ive said more on CGA discord in the last few days than I have on CGA forums in the last few months.
 
yeah, i think... its been interesting to watch.

I've seen very few active communities on forums too. Linus Tech Tips amazes me as a huge community, but even the strongest communities are becoming more "nomadic" as it were. using more discord, curse, twitch, etc.

The problem with that is fragmentation. But I'm not too bothered by it. If you have read the "next christian" i think we're seeing the outgrowth of individualized ministry, not large / massive groups.
 
I rarely seen anyone on TS anymore. I've been using a different TS since I opted to join a much more active GW2 Christian guild a couple of years ago. If TS is not being used and it's costing us money, it should be shut down.

I signed up for Discord but haven't really used it yet. It seems like a great product. I definitely like it better than Mumble or Vent.
 
The dad in me agrees with Aleron, shut down the TS if not being used. Our eve corp uses Discord and with 20ppl it still sounds good.
 
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