Welcome to Baptist Basics!  This website is a personal web ministry of Matthew B. Gage, and is dedicated to providing solid, yet simple, information and resources to believers everywhere.  The goal of this website is to keep truth alive, preserving it and passing it on to the next generation.  This site is unashamedly Independent, Fundamental Baptist in its doctrine and philosophy.

     Baptist Basics is not a site that will offer recycled, retread information and resources.  The utmost care will be taken to offer fresh and useful information.  

     The information provided here is also not up for debate.  Baptist Basics does not, and will not, provide a forum for debates and arguments.  If you do not agree with what Baptist Basics stands for or promotes, then find a website you agree with and don't waste your time on this one.  This does not mean that the resources provided are perfect and do not have room for improvement.  If you feel that something is incorrect or inadequate, feel free to contact me with written out reasons and evidence and I will consider making necessary changes.

     I was saved at about the age of four, and called to preach when I was in the third grade.  I graduated from Commonwealth Baptist College in 2005 with a Bachelor's degree in Bible and Pastoral Theology.  I received a Master of Divinity degree from Southern Indiana Baptist College in 2008. I am hoping to continue my education and work toward a Doctorate, probably through Baptist College of America.

     I am married, and have two sons.  We currently reside in Decatur, Texas.  We are members of Immanuel Baptist Church in Decatur.  I currently teach the 7th and 8th grade Sunday School class, play the piano for services, lead Master Club, serve as a deacon, work on the church website, and other miscellaneous tasks.  I occasionally also have an opportunity to preach on Wednesday nights.

     The Baptist Basics concept is something I have played around with since I was in college.  It has troubled me that it is so difficult to find solid resources and study helps today.  What I have wanted to do is provide such things at little or no cost under one "umbrella" with a reputation you can trust.  My hope and prayer is that this website is will be a blessing and help to others, and also be a foundation to offer more and better resources.

     The site is built the old fashioned way using a text editor. I have used various applications in the past, but have found to get exactly what I wanted I had to do it all myself from the ground up. Before I switched to a Mac, I used Notepad++ for almost all the design work. Since switching the the Mac, I have been using a program called Smultron

     I made the switch from HTML to PHP to help simplify my design work. Basically the only function of php that I use in the include function. The great thing about this function is that it allows you to create a file for different sections of your pages that you want to be uniform and then "include" that file into your individual pages. All this work is done on the server and visitors cannot tell the difference. The best part is that I can tweak something like the header area in one file that is included across the site and not have to edit fifty files to make the change across the site. Everything esle about the design is just in standard HTML. I haven't got the hang of CSS yet, so I keep the design pretty basic.

     Graphic design is not my strength, so most of the graphics are created using Script-Fu extensions in GIMP. It takes a lot of trial and error on my part to get things to look right, but I have been pleased with the results. The color palette of my design was created using Color Scheme Designer.