As a Christian author, and with help from www.wordpress.com, I taught myself how to create websites. Though I still have a lot to learn, I have found this to be a reasonably priced means for promoting the books I’ve written and a way to share God’s message with people all over the world. Even though I have not yet learned SEO and the other tricks to connect my websites to many of the search engines, I spread the news about them to other pages (like my Facebook page) and people are gradually finding them.
When I first began, Heart to heart: A Discipleship and Mentoring Plan came out, and I had to get an Idaho Seller’s Permit to sell my books. Before the book launching, I made and sold craft items at bazaars and craft fairs, so I decided to combine both hobbies and made an assumed business name “Robin’s Creative Expressions.” I also used that name for my first website.
Eventually, the Lord began dealing with me and showing me that, unless the crafts were something done and used for the kingdom of God, there was no eternal value in the items or the hours I spent crafting. So, I gave up crafting except for projects for Children’s ministry, fundraising for church, or an occasional break from my daily routine.
Since God had called me to write, I began reading books about authoring, writing, and promoting your books so I could learn how to get established and get my books out in front of people. Afterall, if you’re going to share the gospel with people, you need to get your writing into their hands or speak with them directly. The books I read instructed me to get a website to share about my books and some information about myself as the readers wanted to also know about the author-writer of the work. They recommended making “About Me” or “About the Author” pages on the website.
Soon many Christians began judging me saying, “You are trying to promote yourself rather than God.” I admit, especially in sharing personal testimonies about God’s work in my life, I wrote using a lot of “I” words. But how do you write about your personal encounters with God without using a few “I” words? My main purpose was to show ‘how God worked in my life’ in each situation. But apparently some people just can’t see past the ‘I’ to learn the true lesson of ‘what God did’ in the story.
My first website www.robinscreativeexpressions.com was truly a learning experience. As I continued to write more, adding websites and the writing categories grew, I finally decided to theme some of the websites according to the topics I wrote about most. As time goes by, each website is changing according to what God puts on my heart to write. I am now redoing them and moving related stories onto the appropriate website. It is a long, slow process as I also continue to work on more book projects.
Now www.robinscreativeexpressions.com will be changing because I have changed my assumed business name to simply, ‘Robin Ulbredtch, Christian Author.’ The crafts side of the business is going away, and I am sticking only with the writing. This website will contain some of the same information about my books and me but will be constructed of creative writing projects like poetry and articles.
Now www.robinulbredtch.com will be changing into the main hub for communication about me, my books, directing people to places to purchase my books, information about my websites, and news and upcoming events. It will contain most of my blogs, unless they fall into the category of the theme of one of the other websites.
My website www.christianeducationstation.com will be the website of interest for people who want to find about Bible educational topics. The website will include some testimonies, tips, and tidbits of things I learned in my years of working in Children’s ministry, small group bible studies, and personal one-on-one studies with people in the community. It will also have things I learned from tutoring, craft and lesson ideas, games, and other suggestions for Bible-learning activities.
My website www.testimoniestipstidbits.com will be the home of my personal testimonies about God’s work in my life. I will share stories about my life, my Christian walk, and even secular stories from which I learned lessons in life. The main theme is for people to see how God has worked throughout my life, not to focus on me and not to brag about myself. I believe we can learn many lessons from the lives of others and avoid making some of the bad choices they made.
www.seedsofchristianfaith.com will be used for items and writing pieces that do not fall into the categories of the other themed websites. It will be a potpourri of topics and information. It will be like the Sower who goes out with a bunch of wildflower seeds. Though the Sower does not know which seeds will bring forth which flowers, he/she has hope that beautiful flowers will come forth from the seeds that were planted. The Sower plants the seeds, but God brings forth the results of the planting.
www.christiancreationstation.com will be coming down the road. It will be the home of crafts, patterns, templates and other items that can be freely used for whatever needs they can be used for, except for creating products for resale. For example, I hope to create samples of greeting cards, personal and office stationery, lists for grocery shopping, etc.
My late husband, Steve, left behind a beautiful collection of floral photographs he took, and I believe they can also be used for generic greeting cards or wall decorations, etc. I hope to be able to share many of these photos as well.
I know that copyright-free artwork and designs are becoming harder to find. Copyright laws bind up these designs so that people are forced to pay high prices for using the artwork. I hope to help alleviate some of that, especially for use in the kingdom of God.
I am working to create websites that will provide education, encouragement, faith, hope, Godly inspiration, and share the gospel will all who read them. God has taken my broken heart and life, healed me of many things, turned it around, and used me for His glory by allowing me to minister and teach His word to others who are hopeless and hurting. My God, Yahweh, the three-in-one God of the Bible has done this miracle! Only God can do something like this. My God is an Awesome God!
I hope as you read some of these stories and see what God has done for me, you will open your hearts and minds to receive God’s free gifts of forgiveness, deliverance, grace, healing, love and mercy. These are free to those who call upon His name and receive Him into their hearts to be their Lord and Savior. I know God can restore your heart and life because He has done it for me.
God loves people and He wants them to come to Him and freely love Him back. Yet God allows us to make the choice because to try to force us to love Him is not love, and God’s nature is love. God gives us free will to make our choices, but we must also take the consequences of the choices we make. God alone has the answers and the power to do the miraculous work needed to help us overcome the overwhelming struggles we face in life. He is the source of life, and He gives eternal life to those who put their lives in His hands. Praise to the three-in-one God of the Bible for all He did, is doing, and will do in the future!
Robin Ulbredtch, Christian Author 