The words displayed in start.praying.it's background image are: "for God so loved the world wide web" and are to be understood with reference to the oft quoted Bible verse: John 3:16. The web is a part of the "world" God loves and, in Christ, came to save. Let these words be a helpful reminder that our calling as Christians relates to the web world as much as the physical world.

The praying.it banner encourages you to pray - to ensure your surfing activities are aligned with the will of the Father and to reflect upon the places you encounter - and those you avoid - that His authority will be witnessed : "Your kingdom come".

The prayer "Your will be done online as it is in heaven" is displayed as the title of your browser window. The words and placing of this prayer, along with the prominent position of the prayer banner, reflect the prominent position God should have in our online activities so that His will is our guide and His light reigns over darkness John 1:5

The internet makes it so easy to travel from place to place - just click a button and you're there! But many links encourage people to go to a darker place and then a darker place still. Danger! Surfing can be dangerous, especially when you're surfing alone! There is great value in starting the journey with a Christlike focus.

Clicking on the prayer banner (on the homepage - and also the one on this page) directs you to the praying.it website where you'll find more information and the latest details about At Hand's praying.it initiative.

Directly beneath the banner is the About this homepage link. Clicking on the link brings you to this page where you can learn how things work and why they exist - as you are doing now!

Above the search box are the words "Seek first the kingdom of God" from Matthew 6:33 The connection between this command of Christ and the things we seek online brings an appropriate challenge and inspiration to let God's rule govern what is typed into the search box and what links are clicked on as a result.

Typing text into the Search Box then pressing the enter key will do a Google search but, if you Click on the appropriate button, you can preform different searches using the same text:

• Google Images will find pictures rather than text
• Bible Search will find words and phrases even if they're not in the Bible, such as 'trinity'. You can also type in Bible references such as 'John 3:16'. The Bible Gateway service enables you to quickly access a huge range of Bible versions and types, having a huge effect on the speed and depth of your Bible studies.

Enhanced Editing
The Search Box, along with other Input Boxes on the start.praying.it site, has extra functionality built into it so you can input text more easily and more quickly:

1. Move your mouse pointer over the Box and it automatically gains focus, ready for you to type
2. Double-click inside the Box to empty it ready for a new search
3. Click again and the text returns, highlighted - so three quick clicks will select all your input text

Back home
To the top left of the Search Results, you'll notice a Back a page link. Clicking on it will step you back a page!
To return to your start.praying.it homepage, Click on your browser's Home icon or hold down

They're a handy thing to have at hand! : Snip.its are snippets of text that can easily be popped into your Input Boxes. No more tedious retyping and annoying mistyping of words you're likely to use regularly - no more typing 'cruch' instead of 'church'!

There are three groups of snip.its on the start.praying.it homepage:

1. The top row provides words commonly used by Christians: Christians oftern start searches with the word 'Christian', for example.
2. To the left of the bottom row, five useful Google search commands are listed. These commands can be popped into your Search Box, followed by appropriate text or web site address. A brief explanation of a command's usage is displayed if you hold your mouse pointer over it. Here are some examples of their use:
   • define:evangelistic : finds a definition of the word 'evangelistic'
   • intitle:Church of England : finds all pages with 'Church of England' in their title
   • inurl:Bible : find websites with 'Bible' in their address (URL)
   • related:uk.alpha.org : finds sites related to the Alpha Course
   • site:www.athand.org frog : finds a frog on the www.athand.org website
3. To the right of the bottom row, eight extra snip.its are left for you to configure as you choose: Click on the 'configure your homepage' button to get started and define the snip.its that work for you.
   for configuration help
4. Although there are only three groups of snip.its, site captions also act as snip.its - which may or may not be of value!

When you place your mouse pointer over a snip.it, the pointer changes to show that you are able to access the snip.it. On most modern browsers you can hold down the mouse button and drag the snip.it to its required position in the Input Box, then release the mouse button to drop the snip.it into place. On other browsers, including 'Opera' and 'Internet Explorer version 6', drag & drop is not possible: Instead, you can Right-Click then Copy snip.its ready to paste into your Input Box.

Search boxes are a very convenient way of finding what you want online but they don't just search in wholesome, healthy places: Your search results can throw up some rather inappropriate sites that Christians would choose to avoid.

start.praying.it's Search Box activates the highest level of filters for all Google text and image searches so that explicit sexual content is avoided in your search results.

NB: there is no equivalent filter activated for the Bible search!

Start sites can be visited with a single Click on their logo or Thumbshot, providing fast access to the sites you choose to use. But ease of use isn't the only benefit of this top-down design: it makes for safer surfing

Have you ever had a web address scribbled down somewhere and you're not 100% sure it's quite right?!

Have you ever done a web search and found a good lead that turned out to be infuriatingly misleading?!

Have you ever simply typed a web address in wrongly?!

So when you access a site by typing in its address or doing a quick search, there's a risk you'll end up in the wrong place. As a result you may gather misinformation or inappropriately biassed details from an unofficial source. You may even be deliberately misguided by a spoof site set up to look like the site you wanted. You're at risk of unknowingly providing confidential details to criminals.

start.praying.it's top-down approach to web access is much safer because you start with the official sites and follow official links: nothing can get wrongly typed or erroneously clicked - and you can always trace your steps back up to the official source.

The ten initial Start Sites on start.praying.it include some of the most popular web links and some links that are of particular interest and value to Christians:

You can configure all ten sites and provide an appropriate site caption for each: You'll still have access to the Initial Start Sites using the two buttons to the lower right of the homepage: Switch between the Initial Start Sites and My Start Sites.