GraceBook - A Showcase of Grace

I am putting my writing on hold while I get back to my old fascination with the Internet.
I am in the process of conceptualising a huge new idea. If you are familiar with FaceBook then you know what I am planning – except it will be for supporters of Christian's whose full-time occupation is related to the furtherance or the Gospel of Christ.

Thanks to a new initiative from Google, I can design a Web Site and host it on the Google Resources for low start-up cost (other than my time of course).

My plan is that I will design Web Sites for Christian workers. I want to link these and other web sites, blogs etc., that I or others could design into a loose network around my own central website to form a hub and I will support the web sites I designed, for a year or so, more or less if necessary until the owner can come up to speed to manage it alone.

OK I’m rambling. Here are the principles:

• The community of websites will link to back to the central GraceBook Site. This will have a Social Networking structure like facebook.com or maybe more like twitter.com where supporters can network with one another in a Christian atmosphere, share (or tweet about,) pictures and stories, celebrate birthdays of the Christian workers and discuss, vote, select or suggest which are the best of the photos / stories / articles from individual web sites to showcase.
  
• The individual web sites will be owned by the Christian Worker (or by their Support Group if politics require anonymity.)This is for donation collection purposes which will go straight to the owner or a delegate.
• Technical support for the Website is open for anyone and controlled by the owner who will have all source code.
• Ultimately the running of the Network can be done by the community if it gets to big for me alone.
• The latest newsletter, videos and photo's will be clicked open from the Home Page. Previous docs will be available in an archive. This will keep the web sites alive and interesting and we will have something to discuss in the GraceBook Site.
  
• The primary purpose of the individual sites will be as a Showcase of Grace.
• The secondary purposes will be:

1. To keep in touch with mission contacts
2. To give feed back to supporters.
3. To win new supporters.
4. To stay real to supporters by sharing family photos, videos and events.
5. To provide an easy access to make donations.
6. To incorporate (share) other forms of Internet communication – e-mail, newsletters, blogs, tweets and important links.There is an API (computer programmer mechanisms to connect to twitter.com and Google Gadgets and applications) for just about everything we need.
   

• The central GraceBook site may also collect donations – Initially I would support the under supported individual sites – and if I need the support one day, I’ll keep a tithe for myself and give the rest away.
• My aim will be to use the latest technology by keeping the whole thing powered by Google. There will be no limit to where it can go.
• Finally, thanks to Google, there will be no infrastructure costs to start-up and before any charges start to accrue the owner should be able easily meet them from the income that the community will provide or else decide to close the site.

Well that is the vision. Please let me have your comments. It is a big project. I may need to get the help of others but the beauty is that it can start small.