Orientation and Member privileges

[HelenaZF]

You've made it to the New Members forum...congratulations! Here are some things that will help you orient yourself to the way the forums operate here.



We've established this board as a public forum, so that people looking for a place like this can find it and see what ZionFireFriends has to offer. Guests (non-registered viewers) can read in all forums except the ones marked <COLOR color="crimson">ZFF MEMBERS ONLY FORUM</COLOR>. Guests may not post. Guests cannot view members avatars, and cannot PM or e-mail members. So that affords us quite a bit of protection in the public forums, and prevents spamming of the board and of our member list. However, guests CAN view any pictures you've inserted in your post texts, so please be careful about posting personal pictures in the public forums---especially of your children. We also allow guests to view your signature and see any links or pictures you put there in order to give you that advertising opportunity.



FYI.....and we think y'all will like this.....



We also want our members to have more private forums to interact with each other, so the Levite's Lounge, Prayer Box, ShoutBox, King David's Railing Wall, and ZFF Member Journals only appear to registered members. New members will gain access to the final two after making 10 posts or being promoted to the Friends member group.



Also, if your board e-mail and Personal Message privileges have not yet activated, you may contact us privately by using the Contact Us link found in the navigation bars at the top & bottom of the board. We will e-mail a quick response to you.



Member groups: You'll see these colors represented in the active user list names in the Board Statistics area of the index page, and above your avatar on each post. Here is what they mean:

<COLOR color="darkgoldenrod">Acquaintances</COLOR>: Registered members that haven't posted in the forums yet. First post may be moderated.

<COLOR color="teal">New Friends</COLOR>: You are promoted into this group after your second post and now have full access to the board. You may now edit your profile and signature, but you may not have PM or email privileges yet.

<COLOR color="cornflowerblue">Friends</COLOR>: You are promoted into this group after 10 posts. You will now have full contact privileges and access to the blog and rants forums.

<COLOR color="cornflowerblue">Friends</COLOR>: This is an identifier given to our members who are pastors. It allows us to honor them and also to glean from their wisdom in a deeper way when we see that it comes from in-the-trenches experience.

<COLOR color="purple">Hosts</COLOR> This would be Dean and me, as we are the admins of this site. Sorry no amount of posting will promote you into this group.



The groups are set up so that new members do not have access to other ZFFriends or the more personal forums until we've gotten to know you a bit. This is mostly for protection from any spammers that might slip through the validation process. And hey, you might get promoted early if we already know something about you.



We hope that these measures help everyone feel comfortable and safe posting here.



Please take advantage of the personalizing bells & whistles this site has to offer. If you have any trouble figuring that stuff out, or have any kind of difficulties getting around the message board, check the HELP!& Tech Tools forum and ask for any other help there that you might need.



Don't forget to bookmark our site so you can click in often!

[HelenaZF]

Our hope is that you, our ZionFireFriends, consider this YOUR board. Please welcome newcomers, contribute suggestions, and give advice and comments when people post their issues. We all have great experiences and history to share with each other. The only forum Dean and I will treat as a ZionFire panel discussion is the ZF Ministry and FAQ's, which we are assuming will be mostly topics addressed to one of us. The rest are up for grabs! So please jump in.



Also, if you have any ideas for making this a friendlier place, or find anything confusing and think you might have a solution....PLEASE talk to us about it in the <URL url="http://zionfirefriends.com/index.php?showforum=40">Suggestions/Feedback forum. We'll adjust the site to meet the needs of our members as much as possible.

[flaglady]

Hope you soon get lots of new members to come and chat! I feel a good discussion coming on!

[Margolit]

Hi, Helena and flaglady! I'm looking forward to more interaction with everyone here. It's a great idea Helena, and I hope it takes off!



Margolit

[przdance]

HI Helena,

My name is Fran and I am over our dance ministry at All Nations Community Church. I spoke with you a couple of month's ago through a class that Jocelyn Richard conducted. I was the one that told you that our church had gone through a split and we use to have beautiful banners in the corners of our church. When our church split I was told that our banners were thrown away in the garbage. That was a couple of years ago. Last friday night at our dance preparation, I was given a garbage bag, IT WAS ALL THE BANNERS! You prayed that the banners would be found and restored. I have the banners in my home to be restored. Please keep me in prayer as I take on this privledged task. Thank you for your prayer. We serve a prayer answering God. Once restored, I will send you pictures.

[HelenaZF]

Yes, I remember! I felt a hit in the gut when you talked about the banners being disposed of as garbage. What an amazing turn of events. I rejoice with you and join you in giving thanks for answered prayer. yay!



I will look forward to those pictures. Thank you so much for writing.