On the basis of that, channel management would like to give our guests the opportunity to "listen" to preaching from a range of different Christian speakers on a broad spectrum of subjects, on a regular basis.

By preaching is meant the presentation of gospel principles, and the application of them to every-day life.

"Getting real" if you like. <grin>

We are still working through the logistics (how to do it), and are open to your input as someone interested in what we are doing.

You see, #Christian isn't a one-man band, it is a community - not a democracy (because God doesn't work that way) but a "theocracy" - where those who we prayerfully appointed to leadership come up with ideas which we are then asked to support.

If we are to mould ourselves into a real (on-line) community, we are going to need more than just having email addresses at the same "club"... and the web board will be very handy there - an important step in that direction.

But we also feel that "real time" teaching is also needed.

Those who will be invited to contribute may not come into channel for the teaching, relying on channel staff to present their message for them.

That is fine. A good teacher of The Word is not necessarily skilled at Internet Chat - lol

The preachers (speakers) will come from a range of backgrounds, and while some denominational bias may sneak in, we are totally confident that the teaching will approach the gospel message from a purely biblical stance.

In practical terms, we have devised a format which will allow a minimum of difficulty to those operating it, and those "listening".

• The day of the week will need to be decided in advance, if this is to become a regular occurrence.

• Because we have guests from every continent and most time-zones round the world, we believe that each period of devotions would need to be presented three times, spaced approximately 8 hours apart.

  That means the actual times will need to be adjusted to suit on-line staff's hours.

• We also need to ensure that there aren't interruptions, so we shall moderate the channel without voices during devotions.

  We will need staff to be on-hand to notify everyone joining of what is going on. That can be done using "on-join" messages which are normally discouraged in channel.

  The channel's topic will also be reset to reflect what is going on.

• A period of discussion will happen afterwards, before the channel returns to its normal haphazard state.

  We believe that this should work out well, but of course we need everybody's co-operation. We are sure we shall have yours.

  This format is very similar to the training courses that used to be run by Undernet's ChannelService and ZeroTolerance staff - the only difference being that we shall not put the channel on invite only mode (+i).

• We have tried the concept out several times, using a vacant channel, and have determined what seems to be the optimum length of a post, and the timing between posts.

• For those who choose not to be in channel at such times, we have the use of a sister channel which also has a channel service bot and a bible bot.

• We have tried the concept out several times, using a vacant channel, and have determined what seems to be the optimum and maximum lengths of a post, and the timing that should elapse between posts.

  On that basis, we feel fairly confident that most folk will have little difficulty.

• A point that needs to be considered is the difficulty we may encounter in presenting three such sessions in our channel on starlink-irc.org - here we may have to have only one or two presentations of the devotions session instead of three.

  However that hurdle will be addressed when we meet it.

And finally, for this to work, we need your prayerful support as we plan - and then go through the first few, eliminating any teething problems we have overlooked.

Now, if you would like to make any suggestions, we would be very happy to receive an email.