This Yom Kippur traffic is not the usual traffic one would expect to see on the streets of a big city. Hard as it may be to imagine, this traffic is even more chaotic than the usual traffic. The majority of these drivers have no license. They obey no rules. They even completely disregard which side of the street they should drive on.

You see, with the exception of emergency vehicles (and the occasional vehicle from a nearby Arab village), this traffic is composed almost entirely of children. On tricycles and bicycles, rollerblades and skates, in strollers and on foot, the children of the city take to the streets - an incredible sight to see.

You can watch this transformation of the streets on our webcam, where you'll see Jaffa St. - one of the busiest streets in Jerusalem - become empty of cars and buses. You probably won't be able to see the children playing in the street, since the webcam is 17 stories above ground level, but the lack of vehicles should be easy to see. Go take a peek!

1. For those of you in Israel, remember that Daylight Savings Time ends during the night of Saturday-Sunday (Oct. 4th-5th). You get an extra hour to sleep that night, since at 2am Sunday morning, the clocks get turned back to 1am again.
   
2. Additionally, on that Sunday (Oct. 5th), the worship service will be held at noon. This is to accomodate the Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem, which will be held at 4pm that day at the Promenade.

It's been quite a while since our previous site launched - 3 years to the day, actually. In that time, much has changed. We've found ourselves using our previous site differently from how we initially envisioned - but that's not a bad thing. We initially launched with audio sermons and a hope to start doing video sermons as well. But sooner than we thought, we found ourselves using streaming video not just for sermons, but for Torah Portions, music videos recorded live, news and prayer updates, and more recently, on-location teachings. However, we were pushing the limits of what could be done with the previous website, and the time had come to do something about it.

Behind the Scenes

Once websites reach a certain size, it is no longer feasible to run and maintain them as static files on a server. The need for a simple way to add content and an easy way for webmasters to maintain the sites resulted in the creation of Content Management Systems (CMS). These systems are what nearly all medium and large website use to power their site. The CMS manages content separately from design, thus allowing new content to be simply and dynamically inserted into an existing page, or existing pages to be given complete visual overhauls without affecting the content they display.

The CMS we chose to use for our previous website was a fairly simple system, without much in the way of extra features. Its simplicity was one of elegance, however, not plainness, and it served us well for the time we were using it. However, as time went on, and as we generated more and more different types of content, its one-size-fits-all approach became quite limiting.

After researching our options, we decided upon a different CMS that would give us nearly endless flexibility, allowing us to properly manage virtually any kind of content we would need to deal with. This new system also has a number of additional features built-in, such as Tags, Comments, User Accounts, Discussion Forums, Photo Galleries, and more. Although most of these have not been made ready for the launch of the new website, the Tag system has, and we will be working on integrating many of the other features as time goes on.

Tags

The new Tags system is an exciting way of finding content on a topic you're interested it. If you've used any similar systems, such as Gmail's Labels, you might have an idea of the benefits that the Tags system has to offer. With Gmail's labels, instead of filing emails in the one folder that suits them the best, you can apply as many labels as you want to that email. So instead of figuring out whether that email from your children's school acknowledging their receipt of the yearly tuition should be filed under "Financial" or "School", you can apply "Financial" and "School" labels to the same email, making it appear in both categories at once.

Tags is the same thing, except instead of emails, we tag content. Articles, sermons, Torah Portions, videos, news posts - anything can be tagged! We think you'll find the system to be an enormous aid in finding whatever it is you're looking for - and you'll probably end up finding things you didn't even know existed, too. So far, we've focused our tagging efforts primarily on our archive of sermons, but we will constantly be working on tagging the rest of our content as time goes on. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Design

Not only did we decide to redo the CMS that powered the website - but we wanted to give the site a complete visual overhaul as well. As technology had progressed, certain design limitations that we had needed to take into account with the previous site were no longer as relevant.

Screen Resolutions

One such example was the screen resolution of our visitors. Three years ago, visitors using computers with resolutions of 800x600 accounted for nearly 25% of our total visitors. Thus, the previous site was designed to be viewable at screen resolutions as low as 800x600. Today, less than 7% of our visitors still use such low resolutions - and that number is dropping steadily. Therefore, our new website design has been expanded horizontally beyond what 800x600 would allow. This has given us more room to present our content in what we hope is a simple, clean manner.

Browsers

Another example of how the progression of technology has enabled us to move beyond certain limitations is in the area of web browsers. In late 2005, over 92% of our visitors were using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) to view our site. This browser, which was first released as part of Windows XP on August 27th, 2001, was over 4 years old at the time of our previous website launch. In those 4+ years, there was a severe lack of real competition in the browser arena, and Microsoft basically stopped improving its browser, despite the rapid and constant innovation in web-based technologies. IE6, while still the dominant web browser in use, became rapidly outdated. Soon, more and more bugs and security vulnerabilities were discovered in the browser, and web developers - trying to build modern, standards-based websites - discovered that their sites needed drastic adjustments in order to be usable in IE6.

Since that time, and facing increasing pressure from competition by modern, standards-based browsers (such as Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and Opera Software's Opera), Microsoft resumed development on its browser, and over 5 years after the previous version, Internet Explorer 7 was released for Windows XP and Vista, on October 18th, 2006. This browser, while not anywhere near perfect, was a huge improvement over IE6, and due to being bundled with Windows Vista, has become the primary browser in use on the Internet today. IE6, once in use by over 92% of our visitors, has declined to merely 22% as of this past month.

What this means for our new website is that we have decided to support IE6 only partially. If you want to view the site as it was intended to be seen, you'll need to use a modern browser (see the above paragraph for suggestions). If you are using IE6, you will still be able to use the website and view all our content, but things may look ugly or out of place.

Onward

Websites are never finished. Just like a rocket heading to space, they are launched. A tremendous amount of work is put in to get them to the launch point, but it's only after the launch that the real work begins. So take a few minutes and explore the site. If you find anything amiss, please let us know about it, and we'll do what we can to set it straight. After all, the real work is only beginning.

They have been in Jerusalem for some time already - Ryan working with "Grafted" - the Young Adults program at the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, and Ana finishing her Theological degree at Israel College of the Bible, KKCJ's "baby," which has grown up to be the main leadership training institution in the Land.

Ryan hails from Durban, South Africa, and Ana from Brazil by way of Florida, and they met here. With a background in avionics engineering and the airforce in S. Africa, as well as contract avionics work in England, Ryan comes to us with a unique skill set! Ana studied at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary that she went to in US: and both have an anointing to lead and impart God's heart to the KKCJ Youth.

In addition to the Youth ministry, Ryan will be working behind the scenes with the Jerusalem Praise Experience, bringing pilgrims from all over the world to an evening of celebrant praise led by gifted worshipers in both Hebrew and English. Another component to Ryan's role on the team will be in the Pavilion Prayer Tower where his talent on the guitar and heart for worship will be exercised, as he leads intercessors to meet with God.

The Lord has blessed us with a rich and diversified mix of heritage & gifting on our Ministry Team & we are truly grateful. We are looking forward to more of the Lord's goodness as we continue in this Celebrate! 25 year!!

10:05am: Currently, Marty Goetz has finished a few opening songs and is introducing Joel Rosenberg, the man whose near-prophetic books – based upon his personal understanding of Biblical prophecy – have gained him widespread recognition throughout not only the Christian world, but in secular circles as well.

10:15am: Joel has completed his opening remarks, including reading an apology from Prime Minister Olmert’s office which said that the PM would not be able to deliver the keynote address today, and has introduced Pastor Skip Heitzig, who is speaking from Ezekiel 36-37.

10:34am: Pastor Heitzig’s message is titled “Why Christians Love Israel”. He’s presented some interesting statistics. For example, the population of Jewish people in the world is less than one-tenth of one percent, and yet one-third of Nobel prizes have gone to Jews; Israel is fourth in the world in citrus exports; she is third in the world for export of flowers.

10:52am: Joel Rosenberg has now introduced Pastor David Ortiz, the father of Ami Ortiz, the 15-year-old boy who was seriously injured when a bomb disguised as a Purim gift package exploded in his hands. David Ortiz, after humbly receiving a standing ovation, is now giving us a moving first-hand account of the ordeal his family has been – and is still – going through.

11:05am: David Ortiz said that one of the main things he and his wife have been saying to everyone is that they need to forgive those people who attacked his son. This after 18 days (and counting) of around 4 hours of sleep a night. Keep praying into this situation.

Now Joel Rosenberg is introducing the next speaker, Pastor Chuck Smith, who is on his 36th trip to Israel and has held conferences in Israel for decades, including one he co-hosted with then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

11:29am: Pastor Chuck Smith’s message covered Ezekiel 38-39, touching on things such as an alliance between Russia and Iran, radioactive devastation on the armies coming against Israel, and other happy thoughts.

Next up, a (video) interview with former CIA Director Porter Goss.

11:58 Joel is now giving an overview of his novels, relating events in them to real events that took place in the world shortly after the novels were written.

12:15pm: Now Joel is going over the results of the poll of 1000 American Christians on their opinions relating to Israel.

12:30pm: Lunch break.

2:00pm: We’re back. Marty Goetz is leading us in the song that apparently they sang yesterday in – of all things – American Idol: Shout to the Lord.

2:15pm: Joel is welcoming us back, and briefing us on what to expect or the remainder of the day: a more in-depth look at the specifics of the state of the epicenter; also a disappointment in that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be able to join us at the conference. Instead, we are now being shown a video of an interview Joel had with Netanyahu recently.

2:25pm: Netanyahu mainly addressed the risks not only to the USA and Israel, but to the rest of the world – including Russia – if Iran obtains nuclear weapon. He also emphasized the importance of the relationship between evangelical Christians and Israel over the past 150 years.

Joel is now introducing Lt. General (ret.) Jerry Boykin.

3:16pm: Jerry Boykin was straightforward and clear about the threat of radical Islam today. Now he’s switching hats; the retired general hat is getting replaced by the evangelical Christian hat. He’s still equally clear and concise in his warnings about the dangers of radical Islam.

3:34pm: Joel is now speaking on how and why we can practically support the needy in Israel.

3:48pm: After sharing about the Joshua Fund, Joel just announced Operation Epicenter, with the objective to raise 120 million dollars of humanitarian relief. An example of an area with need is the Barzilai Medical Center, the only hospital serving the 500,000 Israelis living near the Gaza Strip as well as Palestinian casualties from collateral damage.

4:06pm: Coffee break until 4:45pm.

4:50pm: Ok, we’re back. Joel Rosenberg is introducing Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Gideon Sa’ar.

5:02pm: Gideon Sa’ar is giving very good examples of what has happened every time Israel conceded land for “peace”; kidnapped soldiers, missile & mortar bombardments, war.

5:11pm: Gideon Sa’ar is reporting that the smuggling of weapons and ammunition into the Gaza Strip has increased by 700% since Israeli military forces withdrew from the Philadelphi Strip, which lies between the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. This despite allowing increased Egyptian security forces along the Sinai-Israeli/Gaza border.

5:40pm: Marty Goetz is back with a closing song.

6:00pm: That’s it, folks – thanks for reading!

When Reuven, Yanit and Adriana joined our team several weeks ago, we inherited the above title – “Father Heart of God”. This team of three who care and nurture others are serving a much needed Kingdom purpose in our kehilah (congregation).

Reuven and Yanit served on our team over 18 years ago and we are delighted to have them back now. They will be with us until mid May and are waiting on the Lord for His direction regarding the future.

We are truly thankful for this Godly team. Please remember to pray for them as they carry on doing His will.

Reuven, Yanit and Adriana are engaged in leadership training through character development by helping God’s people to embrace deeper levels of commitment, godliness and sanctification. This is a fundamental aspect of true discipleship; We all need to grow in godly character where God’s Kingdom rule is manifested through our lives. The Rosses have produced discipleship materials that they are using to equip Believers to teach and care for others in the faith.

The Covenant is a breathtaking musical drama that recounts the remarkable story of the Jewish people from the calling of Abraham until the establishment of the State of Israel. King of Kings is honored to have many of its community participate as part of the cast and crew, and indeed, the writers & directors of the musical, Robert and Elizabeth Muren, call KKCJ their home congregation. Their hearts are to spread this simple message to Israel: “We love you, you are not alone and God has not forgotten you.”

With tours to Europe and North America, The Covenant has impacted thousands, but the piece de resistance has been the Israeli circuit with the multinational volunteer cast performing solely in Hebrew! The late Israel Prize winner, Ehud Manor, a beloved songwriter and poet, translated The Covenant, and for three seasons Israelis laughed, wept, and cheered as they experienced first-hand, the stories that shaped the history of their nation.

This year The Covenant is being performed exclusively in Jerusalem – the city God calls His own. Presented in English for the benefit of the many pilgrims journeying up to Jerusalem, the response continues to be one of awe and delight and a greater understanding of our covenant-keeping God. “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven” – and The Covenant demonstrates that word loud and clear – that His faithfulness continues to all generations!

“….count the stars if you are able to number them……. so shall your descendants be. And I will establish My covenant between Me & you & your descendants for an everlasting covenant to be Your God & you My people……..”?