Dear Gush Community,

It is with some regret that I'm writing to let you know that, after over 10 years, the gushTEAM have decided to close the forums at gush.com.au

In due course, we'll get the forums back up in a skeleton, read-only form to allow you all to log back in and save any content that you may wish to keep. We will also create a thread for you to post your own "Goodbye Gush" message that we'll probably keep on the gush.com.au homepage for a while to come. I'd also like to ask you to take the opportunity to send some final PMs or post some messages to the wonderful mods team that has served you all so faithfully over the last decade.

We plan to have a "last hurrah" meet-up at some stage during mid-2012 in Melbourne. We'll make sure that we give you plenty of notice but suggest that you "Like" our page on Facebook for further details.

We have reached the decision to close the forums for a number of reasons:

1. The web has moved on
The internet is a very different place to the one where we started our humble little forum. Once the domain of awesomely nerdy kids with dialup modems and introverted personalities, we now find ourselves in a mobile-device driven social media environment. This has, at least in the view of some, contributed to a decline in the quality of the interactions on our forum.

2. The Gush community has moved on
Most of us started this adventure as teenagers or young adults and were privileged enough to enjoy each others' insights as we made the journey from school life into adulthood. This new stage of life finds almost all of us centred primarily in other contexts, which has, without regret, definitely reduced the need for the Gush community to exist in its own right, especially given that most of us are somewhat interconnected through other social networking platforms for the purposes of keeping in touch.

So, now what?

Many of us remain very much committed to the idea of continuing to provide a space like Gush to the 'next generation' of young aussie Christians, so that they can benefit from the same kind of inspiring community experience that we have all enjoyed. If you or anyone you know would like to chat about this with the gushTEAM, we have lots of lessons learned that we would love to share. Please drop me an email on paul@gush.com.au if you hear of anything happening along those lines.

Things we have learned from being a part of Gush that we'd like you to take with you into the future:

1. Jesus Christ, the most inspiring man to have ever walked on this earth, is God. No story is as powerful and no mission or legacy is as compelling as the one which He enables those who trust and serve him to know.

2. You are designed to follow Jesus in community with others who want to follow him as well. If you're not currently part of some kind of community that has its identity in Christ, its mind seeking His truth through the study of the Bible and its efforts directed to seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness, then you're probably not living out the "life to the full" that He came to give you. We implore you to seek out a community like this. When you find yourself noticing that it is an imperfect one, we encourage you to give of yourself for the good of others.

3. Arguing about things on the Internet doesn't really help anybody. (Even though it can be a lot of fun.) We encourage you to all to remember the impact of the written word and how readily it can provoke divisive reactions rather than considered responses. Be the salt of the earth and the light of the world as you interact with others. Extend grace, bring truth, love your neighbour as yourself.


Now for the fun bit. We'd like to thank the following people:
Gush's Top 5 Trolls of all time:
5. Lethal Vertical (ties for 5th place with godiswatching14)
4. Friar Spam
3. Kandy
2. Sir Troll of Blahwell
1. clamup clammy (not to be confused with 'clammy' himself)

Gush's most frequent reporter of posts:
1. belovedgirl

Gush's most frequent cause of reported posts:
1. belovedgirl

The honour roll (in no particular order, for no particular reason):
Age
oziii
anonamous
Glover
The Chairman
Burkie
Tij
Prowdy
[jas]
auran
Bee
Clammy
Kangrus
Malcol
Betherboop
Bethers
Nay
special_girl
cragv
carls
HaVeFuN
Steve
Meika-mod
Jezika_Rae
Cathy
Tonks
Vogon Poets
hamburger
tumbleweed
Paul2 (from WA)

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"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ." (Colossians 2:8 NIV)

-Paul.