Calvin Student Builds High-Traffic Bible Web Site

December 5, 2007 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: A Calvin College student's religious Web site, begun when he was in
middle school, has hundreds of thousands of visitors a year from around the
world.

Full story, including JPG and links, see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2007-08/christ-notes-org.htm

A Bible research Web site created by a Calvin senior is reaching a worldwide
audience.

Nathan Beach, a 21-year old computer science major from Ann Arbor, Mich.,
receives more than 1.3 million page views per month on his site,
www.ChristNotes.org. A quarter of those come from people living outside the
U.S. in places such as South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and more than
a hundred other countries.

"I love the fact that it’s a way for me to bless people all over the world
-- people I've never met and probably never will meet," said Beach, who began
building Christ Notes when he was in the eighth grade as a way to learn about
Web sites.

Since its modest beginnings, the site has grown into a multipurpose Bible
study tool.

Two features of his Web site which receive a lot of traffic are the Daily
Bible Verse and Weekly Wisdom features, both of which he also makes available
in e-mail to subscribers. Currently, more than 75,000 people subscribe to both
the Daily Bible Verse and Weekly Wisdom e-mails.

Maintenance on ChristNotes takes up approximately 10 hours of Beach's average
week. Every Monday, he posts two new Weekly Wisdoms, which are devotionals
offering a Bible-based perspective on living a God-centered life.

"Doing that has helped me grow a lot in the faith," he said, "because I need
to do research and read Scripture in order to write the Weekly Wisdoms."

His tendency toward innovation makes Beach stands out among computer science
majors, said CS professor and department chair Keith Vander Linden.

"He's unique in that he's a very strong student in computer science, yet he's
also interested in business and entrepreneurship. I think it's remarkable that
he produced something as significant as Christ Notes so soon and largely on his
own effort. That's a hallmark of an excellent student in computing."

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Received on Wed Dec 5 09:42:12 2007