The Good News and the Bad News

The Good News: We believe well over 100,000 people tried to log on last night—on either American Family Radio’s website or AiG’s website—to view our special  “The State of the Nation” address.

The Bad News: So many people tried to log on it overwhelmed the technology!

The Good News: Those listening on AFR radio heard the address very clearly.

The Bad News: Thousands of those trying to watch/listen via the web either couldn’t get on or had difficulties viewing. AiG’s hosting service reported our server crashed twice—the problems with technology. Now, for the many people who logged in very early, they were able to watch most of the webcast.

More Good News: Later today (perhaps as early as 2:00 p.m. this afternoon Eastern Time), the “State of the Nation” address will available to view direct from the AiG website (and later today it will also be available on the American Family Association website). AiG’s video crew filmed the presentation using high quality digital cameras.

We do apologize for the web problems last night—actually, it is a good problem to have when so many people want to view such an address. Obviously, hosting live webcasts still has limitations in regard to our technology, but this first-ever broadcast attempt will enable us to work out many of the bugs for next time. Our live studio audience gave rave reviews of the evening.

Check the AiG website throughout the day—as soon as our tech team has encoded the video presentation, it will be available for you to view. We will also be making a way for you to purchase a download and eventually buy a DVD of the presentation.

By the way, this “State of the Nation” webcast was held inside our Creation Museum, and today we will be welcoming our 750,000th museum visitor since we opened 25 months ago!

Two AiG Books in Short List for Awards

We found out this week to two of our books (Kids Answers Book 1 and Noah’s Ark: Thinking Outside The Box) published by Master Books are on the short list for a possible award.

On the Association for Christian Retailing website, we read:

Christian retailers have chosen the finalists in the 2009 Retailers Choice Awards, sponsored by Christian Retailing magazine (Strang). The finalists among the 250-plus products nominated in 30 categories are listed below. Winners will be announced during the International Christian Retail Show in Denver.

You can view the finalists here.

Churches Responding to Already Gone

Our book Already Gone has quickly become a bestseller. A typical response we are seeing from pastors is similar to what this pastor wrote to the leaders in his church:

Recently several of us have read Already Gone, a powerful and challenging book by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer. The subject is “Why our kids are quitting church and how we can get them back.” Soon a copy of this book will be made available to our Sunday school teachers and deacons without charge, and I believe it will be a tremendous help to all of us in understanding why so many young people brought up in church eventually leave it behind, and what we, as leaders, can do to prevent it.

This book has the potential, if the Lord so allows and blesses, to have a tremendous impact on the church (and the church of course to have an impact on the culture).

You can purchase this book in single copies or discounted in packs of 10 or case lots of 48 from AiG’s online bookstore.

Devotion

Vast superiority

(2 Corinthians 3:12) Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:

The vast superiority of the hope that is in the gospel of the Lord Jesus impels us to make it crystal clear and plain for both toddler and 100-year-old to understand.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken