2020 has undoubtedly been a rough year, but thanks be to God and to you for helping make it a great one.
A lot of bad things have happened this year: I, along with thousands of others, have had to quit/ lose jobs because of coronavirus, hundreds of thousands of people have died, the country has been divided over politics, and we've had to have some very important discussions on race relations under extraordinarily unfortunate circumstances.
But a lot of good has happened as well: Cayden was born on my birthday, and I've enjoyed watching him grow up so much! I've also gotten back into writing more, and my website has gotten more traffic this year than it ever has by more than 2,000 views (more stats below). Below are some highlights from the year along with my plans for 2021 based upon this years performance, schedule, and statistics.
Today marks my 100th day in a row of posting articles, videos, and audios.
Since I've been posting so much, I thought you might enjoy some of the highlights, so here is a short list!
The Millennium and the Short Time
Dr. Dallas Burdette is in the process of releasing many of his books for free
I released my Thessalonians commentary for free on PDF
I did a quick audio study on Resurrection, Land, Kingdom
I appeared on a podcast to be interviewed about preterism (2 parts)
Lengthy Series on Resurrection
New Website and Podcast: The Future of Preterism
Romans 8 Commentary (Free PDF)
Some Site Statistics
We now have 600 followers on labornotinvain.com. That's 32 on WordPress, 102 on Email, and 465 on Social Media. This year I have typed around 96,304 words not including the PDF studies such as my commentary on Romans or my article on the Millennium. This year, I've had over 18,000 views and around 7,900 visitors to the site.
On YouTube, I have gained 123 subscribers this year (418 total), have had 16.1k views, and have around 2,700 hours of watch time.
My goals for 2021:
- Continue to post everyday
- Have a book published (not self-published) or at least start a conversation with a publishing company
- Hit 25,000 views on my site
- Add another 200 YouTube subscribers
- Gain an additional 100 blog followers
- Publish 30 podcast episodes
- Create more free/ “pay what you want” content (audio studies, PDFs, and even videos)
- Publish twelve short videos (less than 5 minutes)
- Read the Bible through Three Times
How I Will Hit Each Goal
- Stick to my schedule of daily reading which produces daily writing
- Continue to work on a book that's been in the making for almost two years and present it to as many people as possible.
- Continue to publicize my articles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Also, have more of you use the “share” option to help me out 🙂
- Stick to my LiveStream schedule and try to gain followers and subscribers from social media
- Continue daily posting to gain followers organically.
- Try to record a podcast every week with the occasional exception
- Take a little extra time to create exclusive content when I feel the spark
- Commit to coming up with creative videos that are easy to watch, easy to share, and high in quality
- Use my reading plans to continue reading the Bible in 90-day intervals and invite you along for the ride.
What I ask of you
What I need from you are prayers and encouragement to stick to the above schedule. It is basically what I've been doing already, so it shouldn't be hard to maintain. However, after the school year is over for Laura, we would both prefer that she stay home with Cayden. This means one of several things: 1) I find a job away from home, 2) I find a way to work from home, or 3) Laura continues to work.
Number 3 doesn't need to happen, and number 1 would pull me away from my ministry, so my goal is to find a creative solution to number 2. I've been reading books on freelance writing (copywriting), SEO, and website design, so hopefully I can find something within that field or create my own thing. I'm also considering finishing my bachelors in software engineering. Any suggestions on any of the above would be great.
Thank you so much for your prayers, and God bless. I hope we have a great 2021 together! Enjoy some Christmas pictures! Cayden turns one on our shared birthday: January 6th!
Daniel, I am praying that God will continue to use you to promote a more accurate reading of God’s written Revelation. I highly encourage your readers to apply the principle of interpretation on how to read each of the 27 books of the New Testament–read the whole book in order to understand any individual text. For one to interpret an isolated text, one must consider the “immediate” context as well as the “remote” context, which is the entire book. If you have not purchased a book on “hermeneutics,” I strongly urge everyone to obtain a copy and read. I wish everyone a Happy New Year. Dallas Burdette
Well, here’s for a new year and new messages!