How did you discover our web ministry?
Personal contact 15%
Forwarded email 27%
Search engine 29% (the site is usually ranked well using "encouragement")
Link from other site/surfing 10%
Print advertisement 2%
Conference or church service 2
Heard about from friend or relative 9%
Ministry card 1
TV show 1
Can't recall 4

Note: Essentially this means nearly 70% of referrals are from technology.

Demographics
Majority are from US but many other countries represented as well.

Connections
57% high speed
18% modem
25% didn't know!
Note: the 25% "don't know" intrigues me. I would assume at least 1/2 of these would be highspeed.  Photos may load slow on a modem (although only one reported using the older 28.8 Kbps type)

Time familiar with ministry
Less than a month 2%
Within the last year 36%
Within the last 5 years 47%
Over 5 years 15%

Usage
Daily email list 92%
Weekly email 2%
Website 9%
Podcast 2%

Frequency of reading
Normally daily 89% (That's great!)
Every couple of days 10%
Periodically 1%

Where received
Home 67
Work 38
(Some people apparently read at both)
Note: I am thankful that many receive it at work and can get an encouragement "lift" during a break or lunch. We do not desire that our material be disruptive of work.

Features used
97% read the Scripture text always or often. Great, that's the most important part!
98% read the main message always or often.
88% read Brooksyne's prayer always or often.
96% enjoy the photos always or often.
21% enjoy the musical supplements always or often. Several noted they could not get music on their computers and/or internet connections. Of course others receive it in a place they cannot listen to the music such as at work. Although I would have been pleased to see more using these resources that's the great thing about optional materials placed following the message which is available to any who may be interested w/o using resources (except a couple of lines of text and links) for those who aren't. Several wanted more music and we will continue to do this as we come across music that is suitable and we feel would be a blessing.
78% read the footnotes always or often.
19% use the website for additional resources.

Sharing (these results were most gratifying)
91% often or sometimes forward helpful messages. Thank you, I request  that always select your forwards individually and add a personal note. Noet above how many come accross the materials based on a forwarded email.
50% often or sometimes send links to the website.
61% print out the message and pass along often or sometimes.
18% sometimes use the messages in bulletins or newsletters. (Of course this type of use would be limited to those in leadership or church secretaries.)
64% often or sometimes use the material for study preparation. I am gratified to hear directly from pastors and teachers that use the material.

Additional comments (names removed) I thank each of you who shared a comment and several had specific questions which I respond to in green typeface.

• I appreciate your ministry and once in a while use some of your devotional thoughts for our radio program (HCJB).
• Your ministry has been a blessing to me.
• Stephen and Brooksyne and Cactus? I pray for God's abundant blessings and goodness to continue to flow into and through your lives.
• I don't know what link led me to your website but I was researching my dad's illness (which became terminal) but somehow that day I subscribed for your messages. They supported me through the difficult time following my dad's death. Thank you.
• I really enjoy the Daily Encouragement. Thanks for all you hard work. It is appreciated by myself and I know many others.
• I look forward to the messages that are sent and always feel encouraged and more determined to do my best for others. I can not get the music but when I could I enjoyed it so very much. I need some repairs.
• I think you are both doing a wonderful job through this ministry. There are days when I especially need it. I have had so many deaths within the last year within my family, that I need everything I can get. But, I know that God is good and he will always bring me through. I really appreciate both of you.
• I look for the message the first thing when I go on line and find it so God centered and wonderful and I am so grateful to have it to read---thank you.
• I really enjoy receiving them.
• Keep on keeping on!!
• Keep up the good work. It is always great to know that even when things get a bit crazy there is something positive like the daily encouragement ministry. Unfortunately too man y others just face daily discouragement. Thanks for being who you are Friend, Pastor, Encourager, Brother & Sister
• Your devotionals minister to me daily - I look forward to getting them each day!!
• I believe it is very inspiring and a good way to be "grounded" in a religious environment.
• Thank you for this ministry. It has a huge positive impact on my life.
• I am not able to open the songs. I would listen to them sometimes if I could, but they don't come on for me. Also, I have other devotionals that come on e-mail daily, and I appreciate yours because it is personal and makes me feel like part of your family. I like to hear about the area you live in, the family you see, and your pets, and your love for each other. I also very much appreciate your genuine truth when talking about yourselves, you are very honest and even use examples of your shortcomings and mistakes to help deliver the message. You are not self-deprecating, but you are honest and I like that a lot. Thank you for all that you do.
• I especially appreciate the manner in which you open a window into your personal life. This makes your messages believable and meaningful. Thank you for sharing the joys as well as the struggles.
• We enjoy "keeping in touch" with you and your family via the Daily Devotional.
• Please continue this ministry. Encouragements regarding others testimonies and evangelism are always of interest to me. They often help build up my own strength as a Christian.
• Ever since I came to Pittsburgh (from Zambia Africa), I have not been reading the encouragement regularly but then with increased study of the word in my life and preparations to go into Sunday school and also the enrichment of my family life, I was purposing to read the messages and footnotes more. I also intend to use the links more regularly. I have been reading the Daily Encouragement since 2001 and it has gone through several changes but since I used to do it more so at work, I simply read the daily scripture and main message, a few times I explored some sites but time to do that at work is always limited. However, I do notice the potential of the work you are doing. It would be nice to have a chat linked to it so that we as Christians can share and encourage one another from the messages we read and the way they bless us especially that handling responses can be quite involving for the two of you.  A Christian chat room would be a wonderful thing - a chat room or list that posts such reflections and sharings like I have seen on the internet on other forums. I believe it would extend the blessings miles!!!!!!!!!! Be blessed. (I don't know how to set this up and don't feel it's my call but I do know there are forums like this available. Thanks for the comment!)
• Your ministry has been a great blessing to me. Thank You.
• Your work is a blessing and I thank God for it and for you two.
• As a chaplain in an acute care hospital, I sometimes use your message with patients or in our departmental daily devotions Thank you. May God richly and continuously bless you.
• Keep up the good work!!!
• You'll never know, this side of heaven, how this ministries touches the lives of so many people on a regular basis. I'm not one to comment often but your ministry is a blessing! Thank you for all that you do! My prayers are with you & your family.
• This ministry has been very helpful to me as a chronically ill and disabled individual who is bedridden/housebound and needs encouragement to make it through each day. Thank you and God bless. (Knowing the messages are used in a manner like this is especially meaningful to us. May the Lord deeply encourage you and assure you of His love!)
• Always find helpful & enjoy the personal touch - feel like I know the family without having met.
• I love what you are doing for the Lord. Keep trusting the Lord. I pray that one day the Lord would have our paths to cross. God's blessings on you and your loved ones brother.
• Thank you for doing this. I really enjoy it.
• I very much like and enjoy the fact that you use yourself, Brooksyne, and Ester in your messages. Please don't stop.
• Only to pray that you keep up this valuable work.
• There are times when your message is right on with what I have been studying or with what is going on in my life.
• I enjoy your down to earth, simply family approach and values. Your daily encouragements are easy to read and come at the point when I need them (dealing with death and aging was purely inspirational). I often listen to your music attachments. You have led me to some wonderful sites I otherwise would have never found. Your photos add a lovely touch. I have enjoyed your comments and photos regarding the Amish people.
• Keep on pressing on! God will make a way through the pathway that is, at times, dark. It is His work and you are co-laborers with Jesus--quite an awesome truth! Because of your faithfulness...an untold number of Christians are growing from bud to bloom! Deut. 31:8.
• Keep up the good work!! They are very encouraging.
• Really enjoy personal notes and the beautiful pictures of landscape and flowers.
• Nothing right now. Just keep up the good work.
• I find it very interesting the way you are doing it now. It is like Home Town news, which makes it very interesting. (That's an interesting perspective and indeed our goal is to express life in the home, neighborhood, workplace and local church. Something we all have in common.)
• Keep up the great ministry! 1 Cor. 15:58 In Christ
• You all do a wonderful job and I'm encouraged every day by your messages. I love your sense of humor. God bless you both and Ester.
• I truly believe each message to be a Daily Encouragement as personal to me as if the Spirit of the LORD had intended it specifically for me. Often the messages address some issue I'm experiencing. I love encouragement. It is the best teacher of all!
• You speak a heavenly message in a down-to-earth way. You bless us every day. I'm sorry I've been ignoring that little voice urging me to pay! i.e., "contribute to this ministry." A donation from me may at least help buy film for those exquisite nature photos I appreciate. THANK YOU.
• I enjoy both the message and Brooksyne's prayer.
• I pray for the Lord to keep you all because I think that this is a wonderful thing that you are doing because some days I can feel like I am at my lowest point and sometimes when I read the daily encouragements they are just what I need. Be blessed.
• I look forward to your messages. And I appreciate the time put into this every day.
• I pray for all of you and your wonderful ministry. Peace and blessings,
• Keep up the great work!! I eagerly anticipate reading the Daily Encouragement every day and am continually blessed and encouraged by it.
• I love Brooksyne's prayers - they are such a nice compliment to the message!
• Yes More Music if possible God Bless
• You both are AWESOME!!!
• I feel that a picture of your family should be sent out if people request it. However I like the mystery of not knowing who is sending out the daily emails so that I have an unbiased view on the subjects at hand. Thank you for this service! God Bless. (A small photo is in the lower footer of each email and on the website.) Or click here!
• Keep up the terrific work. I found your listserv by doing a Google search on the word "encouragement" in 2002 and have been reading it ever since. I cannot always play the music since I am at work in an office, but I usually forward those emails to myself at home and listen from home. Thank you and God bless you.
• I really enjoy your daily messages. I look forward to them every morning. If I don't receive it by noon I start to worry about you two! Every day I forward them to my boyfriend and then we print it off and read it in the car on the way home (we car-pool to work). We love the pictures. It makes us wish we did not live in the big city. Thanks for the daily encouragement! It is a blessing every day!
• Thank you so much for your ministry. Your daily messages are definitely an encouragement to me!
• It's a great blessing to me and I miss it on those days that it is not available.
• I truly appreciate everything you do! I have enjoyed reading your Daily Encouragements for several years. When I am gone from work, I really miss reading your messages. I know you both invest a lot of time, energy and prayer into the daily preparations and it is much appreciated! Blessings to you Stephen, Brooksyne and Ester!
• Keep up the great work. The daily email has been more than several times a very uplifting part of my day. Thanks again....
• You are shining God's light. I pray that He will enable you to continue in this ministry. You daily encouragement is a blessing to me.
• Love the pictures!
• Thank you for all you do to further the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. I greatly enjoy each message and all that it entails. You make a great team.
• Great work by both of you! Thank You and God Bless.
• I just thank the Lord for both of you in my life, even though I do not see you face to face, I still feel close to you through this ministry.
• I can't help being a bit nervous that you are putting out a survey, as it suggests that you are considering revising your format. One of my favorite websites revised their format and the results were horrible!!! Please don't change a thing! IF IT AIN'T BROKEN, DON'T FIX IT!!!
• Wonderful, always relevant, very inspirational. Thank you both for always being a blessing to me and I know countless others.
• I try to read daily, however my work schedule doesn't always permit that. If I get behind reading them online, I print them all out and read them on the train or at home. I feel like something is missing if I skip one!
• I try to read it every day but at times I can't get it on my computer. So I just wait a day and catch up. But I do read all of them.
• I so look forward to this email and most times read it as soon as it arrives.
• Keep up the good work. We are blessed by your ministry.
• I really look forward to the Daily Encouragement devotionals and miss them when they're late or if my computer isn't working right. Both of you are a blessing and I enjoy the way you open up your hearts to us and openly share of your lives with us. I also would like to come to see the Amish country and visit with you both for a while some day. Readers are welcome to visit our area and we would love to meet you. Several have already done so.
• Keep up the good work. I donate part of my time to missions in Peru, and when traveling, do not always read them every day, but will always catch up with them. I also enjoy and have used testimonies you used such as "eternal perspective" and used it to encourage believers who are going through tough times to never give up. Seldom have I ever told this story where most of the people have not been really moved and touched, or where there is a dry eye at the end of the story. Your very own encouragement has at times been sent at just the right time for when I needed it. The Lord has allowed me to go through a deep valley in recent years and has made a different person out of me. Thank you for alowing God to use you to encourge me in this journey. You are blessed to be a blessing. A number of my friends are receiving your encouragement because I had told them about you and your ministries. If you are ever interested in more info as to what I do, what has shaped my life in the last 5 to 6 years, I would be happy to share that in order to encourage you and or others, to give all the glory to God, and not because of who I am. Partly, we live for the sake of other people so that God might get a greater glory because of our obeydience to Him. We enjoy reading testimonies from readers and welcome them. 
• Keep up the good work. Thanks.
• Keep up the good work, and thank you for letting God use you in such a productive way to help others.
• Be cautious that you remain working for God's purpose & edification, not to tell your own life story. Some days it "appears" can go either way. It is okay to draw on your life experience, but do not let satan tempt you to cross that fine gray line. Thanks for the concern and it really is a hard balance. We purposefully draw on our own life experiences for most of our illustrative material in an attempt to connect with our readers rather than using stories and illustrations from others. This is one our distinctives. Each message has a daily Scripture verse and exposition as well as the illustrative material. Some readers may choose to merely read this part.
• It is a source of blessing for me; may it return to you multiplied.
• It is refreshing to have an encouraging word coming to my email since there are so many "worldly" things that arrive via email. Thank you for your ministry.
  

Personal Mission Statement: "I am created by God to bring Him glory. Through God's Son Jesus Christ I have been redeemed and I make it my life's goal to please the Lord. My mission in life is to honor God through my faith and obedience and to prepare myself and all whom I may influence for eternity."

© Copyright 2006 Stephen C. Weber - All Rights Reserved

Daily Encouragement Net - Mount Joy, PA 17552