About
What is Stepping Stones?
Stepping Stones is a free hosting service for Christian discipleship content, featuring blogs and articles provided as a public resource by Stepping Stones International Ministry (also called SSIM, a state of California non-profit, based in the USA).
We welcome readers of all backgrounds, creeds, faiths, and non-faiths, regardless of whether they agree to our Statement of Faith or not.
Any users of our service can "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" to an individual writer (also called a “publisher”). This allows users to see the content of only the writers they want to see in their news feed, much like a social media feed, but with blogs and articles. This gives a reader something unique, not like other websites. Users can check back often to see what new content contributors have published.
Our service is a free platform for writers of many Christian denominations and backgrounds who adhere within our ground rules laid out in our Statement of Faith and Community Guidelines. We encourage writers to produce their own Christian articles and blog posts focused on furthering the gospel around the world to strengthen and equip the faith of Christians (and future Christians) everywhere.
Our service provides 125+ topics found across the Bible that a writer’s content can be tagged with. This allows anyone searching by topic to find and learn more about any specific Christian topic they may be interested in. We believe that one of the hardest parts for a new Christian is first learning “what they don’t know”. Providing a rigid list of topics is a good place to start for them to explore.
Writers are optionally able to include information, like what denomination or historical branch of Christianity someone comes from on their profile and in their content signature (e.g.: Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, etc.). This helps readers know what perspectives different content may come from. For instance, someone writing from a Reformed background may differ a lot on some topics from a Pentecostal background. A writer is able to make that known in their profile or content signature themselves entirely at their own discretion.
Users are at liberty to subscribe and unsubscribe from content they want to see or no longer see. This allows a writer to promote their own content freely without directly infringing on others, while still growing the Stepping Stones user-base as a whole. Users will only see content they have not subscribed to when searching by topic.
Why was Stepping Stones Started?
Due to the lack of gospel content on the internet for non-western languages, SSIM is created as a platform to encourage Christians in the west to write discipleship content geared towards the Spiritual growth of Christians worldwide.
According to studies we found online, 55% of the entire internet is in English and 5% is in Spanish, the remaining almost 40% of the internet is made up of smaller segments less than 2%. The majority of Christian content online is in English and Spanish.
At the time when Stepping Stones began, we searched the web using multiple different languages and search engines using languages like Arabic, Farsi, or Urdu and multiple others. We used generic search terms like what someone seeking to know about Jesus or Christianity might use. Rather than finding useful websites with generic and truthful information about Jesus and Christianity, we found different Christian cult groups at the top of the lists. This means that the representation of Christianity many people are getting in other countries is a false one.
We realized that web traffic that cult groups produced in western countries made them an authority in languages other than English. Search engine optimization (SEO) is driven by popularity, not truth. As soon as you search for keywords outside of English, helpful truthful websites that share genuine content about Christianity and Jesus disappeared.
No one has ever seemingly set out to make a platform that benefits non-western languages. In our digital world, whenever someone shares their faith, usually a person on a private chat or text message will share a video or a written article from somewhere with the other person as a means to continue their conversation and to talk about spiritual things.
We want to make our service a discipleship tool, hopefully enabling thousands to spread the Gospel by means of providing “stepping stones” toward faith in Jesus.
What Are Our Goals?
Our goal is to take Christian content produced in western nations and make it available to other languages by first providing a place where publishers can freely and easily publish content, and where readers enjoy reading and learning about God, Jesus and Christian topics.
Once content is able to be published and consumed easily, we will begin working on the ability to easily translate content, by opening up translation to the public and providing a pipeline where an authority figure for that language can act as an editor. Those producing translations can be rewarded with reputation points or some other helpful mechanism to encourage translation, and will be given the ability to see the far reach of their own efforts.
The more that the world gains access to the internet through smart phones and other kinds of devices, we aim to be a resource that helps the church worldwide. We want to have content readily available for teaching and equipping gospel workers and Christians in as many languages as possible.
One of the largest reasons there is not as much Christian content in some of these other languages is because of the persecution people face by producing them in their own native countries. These limitations do not currently exist in the west — we are free to produce this content — so it is imperative that we use our freedoms to do so. As Christians, we need to be actively engaged in equipping and sending gospel workers all over the world.
Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)
'Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”'
It is far easier to translate content in written form than media such as audio and video. For this reason we only host content such as articles and blogs. We encourage users of our platform to avoid embedding videos and text based photos so your content can be meaningfully translated and go farther.
We also provide analytics mechanisms on our platform so publishers and translators can see the impact of their efforts and help with motivation. By choosing to publish and consume content on Stepping Stones, you are accomplishing a much greater mission – helping the gospel potentially reach millions in languages that would have never otherwise had the ability.
