Hello! Just stopping by to leave some feedback; admittedly I'm not really a religious person, but I was brought up as such so hopefully I'll be able to help out.
Preface: None of what I'm about to say is a must-do, nor should you take anything I have to say personally. Ultimately, you know you, your forum, and your intended audience the best; take what you can use, and disregard anything else. If you need me to dive deeper into something I've said here, just let me know!
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First Impressions: I am, admittedly, a bit overwhelmed by the background to the point of distraction. It's really bold and highly saturated, which can work in certain circumstances, but in this particular case I am of the opinion it's distracting. If I approach this from the perspective of a hypothetical "potential member", I would most likely give this forum a pass immediately without reading the content because of the strain on my eyes.
- Suggestion: It might be beneficial to edit your background image so that the colours are faded or otherwise more desaturated, to prevent the background from competing with the content.
Other than that, it's kind of plain. It's still pretty much the default PB theme with some colour swaps; that isn't bad in and of itself, but there's nothing delivering any sort of "wow" factor. No real suggestions here, because I don't think that having a plain, default board layout is inherently negative, but I personally don't care for it.
- Notes: It takes anywhere from 10-30 seconds for a user to decide whether or not a website is worth perusing further. Aesthetics do strongly impact that decision, so your "elevator pitch" as it were should be something that sells a user on the forum within that time frame, at least so they read into your content.
First Time User Experience (FTUE): As mentioned, when I review a forum I always do so from the perspective of being a hypothetical potential user. This covers basically the flow from
load the forum > review the content > register new account. While I sort of get what the forum's topic is (it's very apparent that this is a forum
for Christians who wish to discuss Christianity and the impact of it in their lives) I don't really understand if this forum has a goal or a target demographic beyond people who are already Christian. There's nothing here to really give me an overview of the forum, or anything I need to know jumping in. I can see that your first category/board has a lot of onboarding content, which is great! But going back to that 10-30 seconds, someone shouldn't have to dive into your boards (and subboards, it looks like) in order to understand if the forum is the right fit for them.
- Suggestion: A table or some other sort of container that draws people's eye as "special content", rather than just another board, placed above the boards but below the banner that welcomes people and gives a broad outline of what people should expect from the forum and the type of community you wish to foster would help users better determine if the forum is right for them and their needs within a very short time frame if you want them to make the decision to look over your content further.
Content Review: Broadly speaking, I think the majority of your content is OK. I see a lot of content that I would expect out of a forum of this nature. There are a lot of threads by the person that appears to be the admin/forum owner (I presume that is you), which
potentially could be off-putting since there seem to be a couple thousand threads on a forum that only has 39 members which would make me wonder if the forum cared more about quantity of discussion than quality of discussion; that however, is not inherently a deterrent for all users.
With that said, I think the way your new/potential member content is phrased in a way that is very aggressive and in my opinion detrimental to growing your membership.
Example: Your rules thread reads, in all caps, BEHAVE YOURSELVES. The opening post outlines some pretty standard rules that I would expect from forums as a whole, and some more specific rules that fit a forum of this topic. You end this post with a statement of wanting to be a "fun" community without "unpleasant drama", which I can respect. However, your immediate follow up contradicts that entirely with the last line: "In today's clown world, society wants everyone to believe right is wrong and bad is good. We aren't so open minded in this forum." To me, as a hypothetical potential member, this phrasing seems judgmental and incredibly un-Christianly. While I get the
point of what you're saying, surely there is a way to phrase it so that you can get your point across without sounding so aggressive?
You're also very contradictory. Another thread entitled "You are welcome here" opens with a statement saying that you don't care about religious denomination or sexual orientation or gender identity and that "everyone is allowed to be here". But, your rules at the very top explicitly say that certain denominations are disallowed from being used in any discussion here, which really tells me as a visitor that not
everyone is welcome here.
Ultimately, I get what you're trying to say. But I think that the way you phrase it assumes that the person reading what you have written is going to try and be a jerk or a nuisance on your forum, which, were I actually looking to find an online home with other Christians, would make me leave entirely and find another place — and I have seen plenty of faith-based forums on ProBoards, so I have a decent number of options.
If you're looking to have a forum's membership increase, you have to be appealing to your core demographic (in this case, Christians are your core demographic, it's just others with a handful of exceptions are welcome as well). You need to tell your audience, through your actions and the way you present information for new and potential members, why they should join
your forum and not someone else's. So far, between a very distracting background, a setup that necessitates a guest to devote additional time to perusing the forum before they can get a feel for the community, and "new member" content that is rather combative, if I were in the market for a new forum for this topic I would spend my time elsewhere. I don't feel
welcome here, because right off the rip the person running the forum is taking pre-emptive shots under the assumption that new members would be inclined to start fights.
Final Thoughts: I can tell that you are very passionate about your faith and that is something I can respect as a concept. Religion is an important aspect in many people's lives, and there are plenty of people who — regardless of personal beliefs — wouldn't mind engaging with a faith-oriented community in a fun and positive way. But some of that passion is manifesting in pre-emptive anger or distrust; that is, of course, entirely your prerogative, but if you're wanting to build a larger community based on your faith, honey catches more flies than vinegar. To sum up my feelings, I direct you to one of my favourite passages in the bible: Luke 18:9-14 (NKJV), the Parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee. The way you phrase your introductions to new members feels a lot like the latter. I do not say this to chastise you as an individual because I do believe you have the best of intentions, but gently suggest that perhaps wording your new member content would be more fruitful if you approached it from a place of humility and grace as opposed to pre-emptive aggression against the assumption of bad actors.