Goodsearch Works!

Goodsearch

An update on Goodsearch. Some of you may remember that in March I blogged about Goodsearch - an organization that donates 1 cent ($.01) to your favorite charity for every search you make on the internet using Goodsearch.

Like many of you, I tend to be a little skeptical of things like this, but I decided to try it out first and then I posted about it and encouraged some others to try it out.

I can now report that Goodsearch actually does what it says it will do!! In December, our church received a check from Goodsearch as promised! The check was in the amount of $49.71. You may think this is nothing to write home about (or blog about), but for a small church like us, this will help us to be able to purchase Sunday School materials for about one quarter - for people doing nothing different that what they already do. (If you look at the "Amount Raised" button, you will see that it says we have raised over $70. According to Goodsearch's website, checks are issued every December for the amount raised through September 30th of the year, so we already have over $20 towards next year.)

For those of you unfamiliar with Goodsearch, it is a search engine that gets paid by advertisers and passes on part of that money to charities. A charity has to register with Goodsearch before being able to received donations and must accumulate at least $20.00 in a year in order to receive donations (which are paid on a yearly basis).

The search engine is powered by Yahoo!, so it works fine as a search engine. Goodsearch also has a toolbar feature that can be downloaded (while I use Internet Explorer, the toolbar is also available in Firefox for you Firefox fans) and allows you to search from any internet page and still benefit your charity. (This is how I usually search, whereas my wife tends to search from Goodsearch's home page.)

SO, here is my comments and my plea. If you want to set it up for your church, go for it. I can vouch for it that it actually does pay as it says it will. If your church does not use Goodsearch, would you consider using Goodsearch as your search engine and designating Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury (Salisbury, MD) as your charity. (There is a pre-populated link on the right hand column of this blog to make it easy - or you can click here.)

If 10 people searched 10 times a day using Goodsearch, that would be $365 at the end of the year - not a huge amount to a lot of churches, but we could buy a lot of God's Bridge to Eternal Life tracts with that :) .

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Some Blogging Quick Hits

Today I think I am ready to start back into blogging. This last month has been kind of awkward for me. Things have been pretty busy around here and blogging has had to take a significant back seat. In the middle of that, I had some computer issues and was not able to be online for an extended period of time. After fixing that problem, I have only stepped back in to the online world for occassional comments in a few places.

I have still read some blogs (mostly via Bloglines) and have even commented on a couple of posts in other locations, but I have been looking at the questions from Don and thinking that I should wait until I have sat down to answer them all before I start blogging again and, since I have not been able to sit down and think through them as much as I would like, I have not posted anything.

I have decided, however, that I am going to go ahead and post some things anyway and get to Don's questions as I have time and inclination, rather than holding up all posting until I am prepared to answer them all. (BTW, the wife of a former voice teacher of mine who has left Fundamentalism took a shot at the questions the other day and attempted to answer them regarding Fundamentalism and her answers reveal her own lack of understanding of Fundamentalim in the first place - a fact that may have contributed to their leaving Fundamentalism.)

Anyway, a couple of quick hits will have to suffice for Today's Post.

1. Dr. Kevin Bauder has recently begun a series of articles on Fundamentalism and scholarship in Central Baptist Theological Seminary's little newsletter, In the Nick of Time. SI has also posted these articles. I will probably wait until the series is complete before commenting much, but since we had a pretty good discussion regarding Fundamentalism and Scholarship here at A Thinking Man's Thoughts not too long ago, I thought I would mention it. I will say that I most likely will disagree with Dr. Bauder on this topic - since I significantly disagree with his definition of "scholar".

2. Yesterday (January 22) marked the 35th anniversary of a travesty in American jurisprudence - the infamous Roe v. Wade decision from the ????-led U.S. Supreme Court. Approximately 50 million dead babies later and America still allows this murderous blight of abortion to be practiced and championed. May God have mercy on our nation! (I have previously posted on this topic - here.)

3. The political scene is getting interesting. If Guiliani can win Florida (with 57 delegates in a winner-take-all format), his strategy may prove to be viewed as brilliant, since California (173 delegates) and New York (110 winner-take-all delegates) will likely go his way if he shows he can win in Florida (I know that polls show McCain currently in the lead in California, but I predict a Guiliani win in Florida would also result in a California win for Guiliani). I am not looking forward to this as the outcome, but it could be interesting to watch. Thompson's hit upon Mike Huckabee in the SC debate may have been a fatal blow. It likely cost Huckabee a SC win (and Huckabee was within three points of McCain), which would have been huge for Huckabee as it would have shown that he could continue to compete and he would have likely drawn more of the social conservatives over to his side (including a number of social conservative who have been left without a candidate now that Thompson is withrawing). Instead, Thomspson's slam on Huckabee will almost guarantee that very few of his former supporters go Huckabee's direction and his second place finish in SC (instead of a win) will likely keep a number of the "I like Mike, but don't think he can win" voters from voting for him - and thus, turn them into self-fulfilling prophets.

Just my quick thoughts,

Frank