Thanks so much to those of you who prayed for me for this latest trip to Normandy. We met with the growing network of people who are building with us for the events we are creating over there this year as we seek to establish a bridgehead for the Gospel and for the church into Northern France, the scene of a previous bridgehead of liberation in the dark days of the Second World War. Our vision is to create a platform for the Gospel of Christ in those places that carry a spiritual imprint caused by a catastrophic loss of life.

Over these first three months of 2010 we are running the PLUTO Fund appeal to raise the funds to cover the costs of creating these events and getting our Mainstage and Mobilestage ready. PLUTO or ‘Pipe Line Under The Ocean’ is a breathtaking historical account. In the wake of the D-Day Landings in 1944 the Allies faced the toughest of logistical challenges of getting millions of gallons of petrol over to the European Mainland from the south coast of England at a time when all the French ports where occupied and tankers were continually falling foul of attacks in the English Channel. Some courageous engineers were laughed out of the room as they suggested an audacious plan to sink an unbroken 100 mile long flexible fuel pipe under the sea from Shanklin on the Isle of Wight to the Cherbourg Peninsula, but it worked! It laid there undetected by the enemy until it was too late.

In one single night two cable laying merchant ships commissioned by the Royal Navy as HMS Ridley and HMS Latimer carried out the task right under the nose of the enemy. These two ships were named after the two Bishops who famously burnt at the stake in Oxford. As they died for the Gospel, Latimer shouted across to Ridley. “Be of good cheer for today by God’s grace we will light a candle in England that will never be extinguished. That inscription was welded to the hulls of those two ships and it became the war cry of the innovators and the implementers Operation PLUTO. As the liberators moved further into Europe the pipelines were extended over land and eventually crossed the Rhine into Germany itself.

With this as the backdrop we have launched the PLUTO Fund within Miracle Street to create a conduit for those who want to help us light a candle in England for the Gospel into Mainland Europe.

If you see this post it means that BlogEngine.NET 1.6.0 is running and the hard part of creating your own blog is done. There is only a few things left to do.

Write Permissions

To be able to log in to the blog and writing posts, you need to enable write permissions on the App_Data folder. If you’re blog is hosted at a hosting provider, you can either log into your account’s admin page or call the support. You need write permissions on the App_Data folder because all posts, comments, and blog attachments are saved as XML files and placed in the App_Data folder. 

If you wish to use a database to to store your blog data, we still encourage you to enable this write access for an images you may wish to store for your blog posts.  If you are interested in using Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, VistaDB, or other databases, please see the BlogEngine wiki to get started.

Security

When you've got write permissions to the App_Data folder, you need to change the username and password. Find the sign-in link located either at the bottom or top of the page depending on your current theme and click it. Now enter "admin" in both the username and password fields and click the button. You will now see an admin menu appear. It has a link to the "Users" admin page. From there you can change the username and password.  Passwords are hashed by default so if you lose your password, please see the BlogEngine wiki for information on recovery.

Configuration and Profile

Now that you have your blog secured, take a look through the settings and give your new blog a title.  BlogEngine.NET 1.4 is set up to take full advantage of of many semantic formats and technologies such as FOAF, SIOC and APML. It means that the content stored in your BlogEngine.NET installation will be fully portable and auto-discoverable.  Be sure to fill in your author profile to take better advantage of this.

Themes and Widgets

One last thing to consider is customizing the look of your blog.  We have a few themes available right out of the box including two fully setup to use our new widget framework.  The widget framework allows drop and drag placement on your side bar as well as editing and configuration right in the widget while you are logged in.  Be sure to check out our home page for more theme choices and downloadable widgets to add to your blog.

On the web

You can find BlogEngine.NET on the official website. Here you'll find tutorials, documentation, tips and tricks and much more. The ongoing development of BlogEngine.NET can be followed at CodePlex where the daily builds will be published for anyone to download.

Good luck and happy writing.

The BlogEngine.NET team

While up in Leeds visiting Dayspring Church, I went to the outdoor amphitheatre that was the scene of 4 huge family events we created in 1994 and 1995. I remember so clearly looking out at the crowd and realising that we had the chance to create dynamic outdoor events that could draw many people to experience the love of God and life of his church. I was already heavily involved in presenting the Gospel on the streets but the Leeds events were the start of what became Miracle Street in many ways.

This weekend in Leeds was fantastic. Ian Mayhew and I spent 24 hours with 12 of the guys and girls in their 20’s and 30’s and took them through my InsideOut training and mentoring programme. It was a great privilege to get in on the stories that God is writing in their lives and he was powerfully at work. Dayspring is a church I worked extensively with in the 1990’s and it was awesome to be back with old friends. I also visited the brilliant Kids Club that is now city wide with double decker buses collecting kids from all over Leeds. I remember being part of the discussions at the very beginning alongside Berni and Graham Fell who paid a huge price to chase the vision and have made it what it is today.

Next weekend I return again to Normandy with Tim Archer and Gary Stupple to meet with the team that is now really emerging to oversee the plans to run a Mainstage festival and two months of outreach across Normandy. We are seeking, alongside Francis and Diane Dognon, to establish once again a bridgehead in Normandy that will ultimately touch the rest of France and beyond with the Gospel. The amazing story of the PLUTO fuel line (Pipe Line Under The Ocean) is the backdrop God has given us to raise the funds and the resources we need for the job. More about that next week!