I don't usually post on The Point Blog in my official capacity -- Internet Director for Prison Fellowship Ministries -- but I'll do so today. I'd like to tip my hat to our Breakpoint editor, Travis McSherley; our editor for The Point Blog, Gina Dalfonzo; and our developers, Metalake LLC, and Alliant Studios.

The new blog platform you are using today is very exciting. It is much more than just a blog. It is a custom-built dynamic content engine, which can (and will) be used for many types of content across the family of web sites that make up Prison Fellowship, Breakpoint and The Colson Center. It is designed to help build community around great ideas and compelling stories. Besides having much better formatting and style, this module offers two great tools I know you are going to love.

First there is the archive component. This is the real power engine of the blog. If you click on the Blog Archives link at the top of the left column (when on the individual post) you will come to a page that allows you to matrix your search by author, time periods and topics. Try some combinations -- you'll love it. You can also add in a wildcard search for a word or words that you might be looking for in the blog. The combinations are endless.

Then, if you still get a long list of results, you can click at the top of the columns and sort by author, date or title. Try some, and get an idea of the tremendous flexibility it offers.

The second major component is the search, which is quite good. Here is the best part: The search function is limited to this blog (in this case, The Point, with over 6000 posts). You are not searching the entire site, but just this blog, over its entire history. If you remember a particular discussion about a certain subject that took place a year ago, you can probably find it pretty quickly now by searching for a word that would have been used in the post. Use it also to do extended searching for keyword-directed topics. Discover new authors who wrote on those topics and then follow them. Read the comments that came into their discussions, preserved along with the posts.

When you use these tools together, you will find a great way to research trends, topics, or angles of thought relating to Christian worldview and culture. You can also follow favorite authors and topics and study how the discussion has evolved over time.

There are a lot of other benefits to our new module. Once you have registered, you can rate posts as well as comment on them. Feel free to do so! This spurs the writers on. You can also go to your My Account page and see a list of the posts you have commented on. There are also many useful features for authors and editors that will help us get your comments posted faster and get the discussions rolling more vigorously.

Other improvements will be coming as well. Since we built this module from the ground up, it will be easier to customize it for you, our audience, and the unique subject matter we discuss together.

Stay tuned!