Hello everyone,

I wanted to share some personal news with all of you: I have been accepted at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology! Studying at seminary has been a life-long dream of mine. I hope to serve the Church in whatever way God reveals to my heart when the time comes. God-willing, we will be moving from our little bungalow in San Jose to live on campus in Brookline, Massachussets in a couple of months.

As you may know, I have been operating OrthodoxCircle with the help of our many volunteers for several years now. It's been a blessing to be able to provide this service to all of you. I hope to continue to do so during my time at seminary. In fact, I was thinking of using this blog to post stories about my experience, perhaps to provide some insight for anyone else out there who has dreamed about going to seminary.

I ask for your prayers at this time as we prepare to move across the country but even more for the spiritual struggles that will arise.

Thanks for being on the Circle. Please pray for me and my family.

Yours in Christ,
Ninos

Dear Friends,

As a kind reminder, please refrain from posting blogs or forum threads that are political in nature. OrthodoXCircle was created to be a platform for sharing our beloved faith and making new Orthodox friends around the world. 

All over the world, there are unimaginable atrocities occuring while I write this. We must pray even more fervently for mercy and intercession. OrthodoXCircle is a prayer circle, not a political circle. Instead of posting your opinion about politics, be it Israel, Obama or whatever, it would be more beneficial to you, to us, and to the world, if you would inspire us to prayer. 

You can waste hours and days on the blogs and forums here trying to prove a point. In reality, you will gain nothing except the ire of other members who didn't join this site to read about politics. In fact, we have had members leave the site because of these kinds of posts. That's where I draw the line.

Politics will go on as usual, with or without you, and you will have lost the opportunity to connect with a brother or sister in Christ. We all watch the news. We know what's going on. We all care and are deeply saddened by the murder of the innocent be it in America, Israel,  Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan, Afhganistan...everywhere!

"Let us pray to the Lord."

Christ is Risen! (and as my friend Fr. John Moses says, "Nothing else matters!")

So here's whats going on:

The Circle is still growing and I feel very blessed to have had this opportunity to provide this service for Orthodox faithful. I'm also amazed at how popular the site has become. I see it mentioned on so many websites our there and many of you have been so supportive of our work. So again, THANK YOU.

If you haven't yet spread the word, it's not too late. Tell your priest and friends at church about OC. If you have a website or blog, add our banner. We'd be happy to link to your site as well! Just let me know.

New Homepage Coming

The time has come to retire our old homepage design. I figured Pascha was a good time to do so. Rigth now, I'm working on a new front end that will feature a lot more content, links, updates and other good stuff. I'll post a preview soon.

New Mission

Up to now, OC has been a great way to connect with other Orthodox Christians, share photos, chat, post blogs and more. But I believe that as a Christian ministry, we have a responsibility to also do something for God once we've all come together. OC is preparing to become a social networking site with a purpose. Stay tuned for more details soon.

And now...I leave you with some snapshots of life at OC Headquarters:

Isaak - 7 months

 Natalie and Isaak

My wife Tina, Natalie, Fr. Gregory, me and Isaak. Agape Sunday at St.Basil the Great in San Jose.

Hello friends,

My late new years resolution (I guess I'm off to a bad start already) is to keep up this blog as a way to let all of you know the latest behind the scenes developments of our ever-growing Circle. I'll try and not bore you with the technical details and instead take advantage of your undivided attention to rant about all the cute stuff my kids (Natalie and Isaak) are doing to keep me smiling these days ;0)

So where do I begin. OC is nearly two years old now and we welcome an average of 50 new members per week. About 1000 of you login everyday.  In the past couple of months, we've made some cosmetic updates to the site. The new navigation bar is meant to make all the various areas of the site easier to access. We added some new things like the Toolbar, RETURN ezine and a special tab called OC that has a link to this blog, OC news and "The Five P's of OC".

I had been searching for an icon to use on our homepage for some time and was glad to recently discover a beautiful rectangular icon courtesy of Orthodox Images with Christ at the center and a host of saints on either side. I feel that this wonderful icon represents not only the centrality of Christ in our lives as Orthodox Christians but also specifically the mission of this ministry. Here it is.

There's still a lot to do. Since there is so much content and so many features, making sure everything is easy to get to and not overwhelming is an ongoing effort. As always, I welcome your feedback and suggestions on how to improve the look and usability of the site.

Getting along

The internet is a busy place. I often feel like I have the attention span of a hummingbird when I'm online, clicking around frantically. I want OC to be a refuge from all the noise. Somewhere we can all gather and maybe be reminded of, oh I don't know, CHRIST? Yes, I'm being facetious. But seriously, I've been thinking a lot about the opportunity this platform provides all of us beyond the social networking aspect. As a spiritual infant, I need to be nourished on a daily basis to survive. But I am lazy and often make excuses for not going to weekday services. I'm always in a hurry or late to something. My prayer life is a rollercoaster, eyes closed, screaming, trying to break through the noise. 

There's a great song by the Christian band Switchfoot that goes, "if we're adding to the noise, turn of this song". I want OC to be a place that doesn't add to the noise. We're all human beings, the last time I checked. And, whenever people get together, their personalities, ego's, sensitivities, experiences and personal views come together as well. And, as in any group setting, sometimes there are clashes. But what I hope is that all of us can benefit not only from the positive fellowship that this site provides but also, as in your daily life in the real world, use challenging situations and clashes as an opportunity for charity and love.

For example, every member of our community is able to start a Blog just like this where one can express their thoughts, concerns, dreams, plans, insights, news, and anything else you think our readers might find interesting. However, unlike general blog sites like Blogger.com, MySpace Blogs, Blogspirit.com, etc., it's important that we all remember the audience of OC blogs. Every post has a privacy option that let's you select how your blog will be published. You can share it with the world, meaning everyone here in the Circle, or you can keep it private. So whenever you post something that you want to share with the world, please remember your audience and make sure what your posting helps to keep the peace instead of adding to the noise.

Stuff I'm working on

I'm working on figuring out ways to provide more content and resources for all of us to enjoy. With the help and guidance of various clergy, I want to grow OC into a platform for enriching our understanding of the Faith, kind of like an online sunday school for grown ups. I figure that since we're all spending time here, some more than others, why not take the opportunity and learn something? RETURN ezine is a first step in this direction. What really excites me are all the opportunities in multimedia learning that the internet makes possible.

I'm also working on establishing more contacts with other Orthodox ministries and promoting the site in general. We're offering free listings in our Business Directory for any non-profit Orthodox ministry. So if you know someone at such an organization, please let them know.

Speaking of the business directory, we are about to announce a terrific new fundraising opportunity for Orthodox parishes and other non-profit ministries. Stay tuned for more soon.

I had a great conversation with John Maddex at Ancient Faith Radio yesterday. We've been working on co-promoting our respective ministries since the beginning. One of things we talked about is being able to listen to Orthodox radio while your logged-on to OC. What we're hoping to do is have a radio station that streams AFR programming but includes updates, news and announcements about OrthodoxCircle. I would also like to start an OrthodoxCircle Podcast on AFR and would love to hear some ideas from all of you. Oh, we also just added a bunch of new podcasts to the Orthodox Toolbar.

I'm also happy to report that I finally will have the opportunity and honor to present OrthodoxCircle to my bishop, His Emminence Gerasimos of San Francisco. I plan on doing a demo of the site and sharing my long-term vision for this ministry and how, I believe, it can benefit the faithful here in the US and around the world. I pray that with his support and that of his counterparts in the other jurisdictions, we can take OC to a much more visible level. 

Let me take a moment to say THANK YOU to our wonderful staff. Wynn (OC/Thimios) has been doing a great job as community manager. Thank you also to our moderators who play a huge role in keeping OC a safe and positive environment. It's a lot of work and I am grateful for their time and dedication.

Also, a big thank you to our RETURN eZine associate editors, Kristina Roth-George and Isaak Scott Cairns for their wonderful work on managing the ezine. Bravo to our talented writers! If you're interested in writing for RETURN please contact Kristina I hope you've been enjoying  the articles as much as I have. More good stuff to come. Stay tuned!

Yours in Christ,

Ninos

Dear Friends,

Christ is in our midst!

Last week we announced that beginning on November 1^st, OrthodoXCircle would become a subscription based service. I was personally contacted by many members who supported the move to subscriptions. At the same time, I received a lot of feedback from those of you who were angry, offended, disappointed or simply broken-hearted about this new plan. I considered all your reasons to be valid and recognized them as very real and emotional responses regarding a website that you have come to love. 

A Community of Christians

I am humbled by the love and care shown for this ministry by those of you who supported the new plan and those who cared enough to voice your opinion against it. Many of you mobilized and joined the “Keep OC Free” group to generate ideas and alternatives to the subscription plan. I joined it as well, hoping to learn more about why you felt so strongly opposed to subscriptions. I learned a lot. I learned that many of you were offended at being treated like consumers who are forced to pay for a commodity instead of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are the essence of the Circle. I learned that you felt subscriptions would cheapen our sacred fellowship. I learned that some of you simply cannot afford the monthly amount and were concerned for others, especially current and future members outside the US and Canada that would potentially be shut out of the Circle.

Therefore, I have decided that we will not implement the subscription plan and instead keep the Circle open to all current and future members with no mandatory monthly access fee.

The Need for Financial Support

The subscription plan offered a practical way for us to generate a consistent monthly operating budget in order to sustain our operations and future growth. OrthodoXCircle is an online ministry service for the Church. Like a parish, it welcomes all. But also like a parish, it requires the support of its members. By God’s grace, we have grown in the past year from a handful of members to over 5,000. But with the growth in members has come a growth in expenses, as well as in the time required simply to keep the site running. I now spend 3-4 hours per day working on the site and each of these hours is an hour I don’t spend on my paying job. My dream is to continue making the Circle the best it can be, but I need financial support to help cover the necessary operational costs. In addition to time and labor, these include technology costs required to keep the site running smoothly. And as we work to add new features and content, there are other individuals that we want to compensate. While the Circle is an Orthodox ministry, it receives no stipend from an archdiocese or jurisdiction. Up to now, I have paid the expenses of the Circle out of my own pocket. And while this has been a labor of love for me, I must now turn to you, the members, for your help.

Join the Pledge Circle!

Instead of requiring a mandatory monthly fee to access the site, I am asking you to show your love and support for this ministry by joining the Pledge Circle. To those who were concerned about keeping the Circle accessible for members with financial limitations, this is your opportunity to ensure they too can participate. To those who were willing to support us with subscriptions, I trust that you will also support us with your monthly pledge. To those who never intended to support us financially, I hope you will consider helping us in other ways that we will make available.

By joining the Pledge Circle, you will pledge a monthly donation of any amount that will go towards our operational expenses. But more importantly, your pledge will ensure that the future of this ministry is safeguarded. We in turn will now begin to take the necessary steps to become a non-profit organization which will allow us to seek funding from other sources.

If for some reason you cannot join at this time, we understand. Please keep us in your prayers, and if by God’s grace your situation improves, please remember to support our ministry. And most of all, stay active in the Circle! Tell your friends about it. Spread the word. Volunteer to help us in another way – there are many opportunities. It is the members who make this community what it is and we don’t want to lose a single one of you.

The Centrality of Christ

At the center of our logo are the letters ‘XC’ which when transposed to the Greek alphabet become the acronym for ‘Christ’. Therefore, as the letters are at the center of our ministry’s name, so is Christ at the center of our mission. And our mission is to serve Him in each and everyone one of you as well as to provide you with the opportunity to do the same for each other through the fellowship that the Circle makes possible.

With God’s help, OrthodoXCircle will always remain open to all our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. But we need your help too! Please join the Pledge Circle and help us continue to empower the Church with new tools for communication, fellowship and unity!

Your brother in Christ,
Ninos