Hey, folks. A couple of administrivia items.

First, a reminder that commenters are expected to abide by the code of conduct. In short: Play nice. Don't spam. This isn't a place for unending arguments. Present your points, clarify if necessary, link to a place for further discussion, and then move on. Yes, I know there's no link and checkbox when you post comments saying you agree to abide by the code; however, you're still expected to do so.

Second, it's been the quiet season for posts around here. I've mostly been making notes on scraps of paper in my Bible and being too lazy to transfer them over here. If you have a certain topic you'd like me to cover (one that I haven't gone over before, mostly), please let me know.

Third, if you need to email me, you'll need to create an account on the site to access the mail form. I was getting a few hundred spam emails from placing my email on the site, so I created a form for contact and removed the email. However, it's currently only for registered users until I have the time to move the captcha over to the public side.

Hope this note finds everyone well.

As you can see, I've been away from the blog for a few weeks. The bad news is that I'll probably continue to be away throughout February.

Work is partly to blame; we're in the throes of getting our $10m piece of software up on the web. I've also had to take over the high school Bible class in place of another who has spent the past month in the hospital, most of it in ICU (please pray for him; it's not looking good). I've also been trying to ready a new web site for the church here by June, including writing all-new software for it. And then there's the usual family life: wife, kids, mother-in-law who's just moved nearby, etc.

Lots of swirl, not much time, less energy. Your patience and prayers are always appreciated. In the mean time, check out Jim Jonas' site; he's posted an incredible amount of useful material, including a look at the history of churches of Christ since WWII and a great series on parenting (sorry, you'll have to search for that one).

The blog is now 80% complete, with a functional RSS feed, comments by both registered users and visitors allowed, several modules (calendar, recent comments, etc.) to the right, and Bible verse text popups. If you want to read a verse, you can either mouse over for a quick read or click on the verse to "lock" the popup; click the upper-right X to close it. I've also started going through the old blog posts and updating any links to this site that might be broken.

Next on my list is to re-enable the old "series" function. After that, I start working on code for the studies from the other site. I'm open for any suggestions or recommendations, though. What would you like to see? What would make the site better for you?

Looks like the backbone functionality is up and running on the new server. We'll be slowly rolling out our remaining capabilities over the next few days and weeks as we get the platform more stable. Here's what you can expect:

• Increased blog capabilities, including comments re-enabled.
• The blog posts beautified in general, as they're converted to the new site template.
• Verse text popups like so: Ephesians 4:15
• More graphics added to the site.
• Local resources (handouts, sermons, etc.) uploaded and available.

Keep checking back for more details. In the meantime, take a look around and let us know what you think!

The site will be taken down for maintenance starting this Thursday morning (July 24). It should be down for a couple of days, a week at the most. You'll notice some changes when Truth in Love comes back up.

Truth in Love began several years ago as an experiment in use of e-learning in Bible study. It consisted of a lot of home-grown software which has long since exceeded its useful life, despite a couple of overhauls. I've decided to migrate to an open source content management system (CMS) to handle a lot of the heavy lifting, allowing me to retire some of the creaky old software that's been running the site.

However, the server and operating system we're running on are antiquated, dating back to the beginning of the site. In order to use the CMS, my account has to be wiped and moved to another server. Phase 1 will be Thursday, a bit of creative destruction as we change servers.

My plan is for TIL to initially return as little more than this blog starting early next week. I'm currently testing some software to handle the studies for me; if this works out, it will take some time to migrate my existing material (and let's be honest; most of that material could use a rewrite). It will also cost a bit to purchase the e-learning software, so I want to be sure before I shell out any money.

The downside for this is that user accounts and studies will be lost; everyone will have to re-register. I've looked into transitioning the existing accounts to the CMS, but it's a horrific amount of work. Better to have a clean break, in my estimation.

It's a painful process, but a necessary one. I'd like to ease the burden of technical maintenance of the site so I can devote more time to sharing God's Word - the actual reason this site exists. Your patience, prayers, and advice are, as always, appreciated.

May marks two years of blogging and five years of truth-in-love.com existing. It's been a great time so far, and I hope I've done some good in furthering the the gospel. By my best guesstimate, we've had around 50,000 visitors in the past five years. Not bad for what was originally a weekend project.

I've come to a decision about the site's future. Beginning later this year (probably fall), we'll make another software switch. I wrote the backbone of the site myself, but I've been spending more time in recent months hunting down bugs than in creating content (studies, blogs, etc.). Now that open source platforms like Joomla! are catching up, I can switch over to software that someone else maintains. It's going to be some work on the front end, but it should let me be more of a Mary than a Martha.

Onward and upward!