What you think matters is the blog of the Newfrontiers Theology Forum and I’ve been consistently impressed by the wit and sharpness of the writing and the helpfulness of the content. Here are some examples that stood out for me:
So whether you agree with what they say or not, I’d urge you to subscribe to and engage with this blog for the building up of your theological faculties.
10. Bill Walker.
9. Peter Kirk
8. Mike Print
5. Mark Heath
4. Matt Hosier
3. Dave Bish
2. Breathe
My most popular ten links were
10. Steve Holmes on congregational church government
9. Tim Keller’s article on the importance of hell
8. The pay in megachurch infographic
7. This early review of Love Wins
6. John Piper’s article, how willingly do people go to hell?
5. My friends at Barnabas Community Church
4. The wonderful Breathe Network
3. Justin Taylor’s interview with David Platt
2. A talk from 2010 TOAM, but I can’t get the link to work!
1. My old church, Hope Church
10. Book Review: Consumer Detox this was my book of the year.
9. Book Review: The Great Divorce by CS Lewis proved popular as a result of the hell debate
8. The new reformed: the sound of arid logic chopping reflected on the often dull presentation of the new reformed movement
7. Should a church be excellent? was a comment on the value of excellence in church life
6. Book Review: Losing my religion? another book review and one that gained a bit of attention
5. Book Review: Crazy Love this review from 2010 remains well-read
4. Political issues: Afghanistan and Defence oddly enough this post from April 2010 remains one of the most popular.
3. Pay in a megachurch: can this be right? this comment on the pay of megachurch pastors, gained some traction
2. Why David Platt and James McDonald are both wrong was another reflection on the issue of money in the church
1. Do Rob Bell, Tim Keller and CS Lewis agree on hell? was by far and away the most read post I’ve written in six plus years of blogging, and if I want more traffic I know what to write about. It gained almost as many views as the other nine put together and explains why March was my most popular month. It does what it says on the tin.
At the very least that shows up a character weakness, perhaps I should write something regardless of whether anyone else thinks I should!
I’ll list the top posts of the past 12 months and repost them (I think this is a Biblical principle Mt 13:12 and all that). I’ll also list the top book reviews and the top themes and reflect on those and a collection of other stats that WordPress churns out for you.
I’ll also list my unfinished series and put up a poll and you can let me know if you’d like me to make the effort to return to them.
In the middle of all this there is some pretty big news (at least it’s big news for me) and I’m not talking about Christmas (which isn’t really ‘news’ but is pretty important all the same!).
So I hope with all of that, the past few weeks of nothing but links will be forgotten and you’ll be repaid for sticking with me, for which I’m profoundly grateful.
I’ve added four videos to the home page. They were created by Breathe for the Conspiracy of Freedom initiative. They’re excellent resources you can use in your small groups to initiate a conversation on living well in a consumer culture. If you’re reading this in a RSS reader you’ll need to click through to the blog to see them.
I’ve also added a feed from the Breathe blog and a drop down archive menu to the home page.
Paternity leave is over in a few days and I’ll be back to more regular blogging soon.
I’ve made the switch to WordPress and you can find the new blog at http://www.thesimplepastor.co.uk/ and if you’ve been using a RSS feed you’ll need to update it to http://www.thesimplepastor.co.uk/feed/
See you there
Other blogs like Justin Taylor’s have very little original and are full of links to other people’s content as he happily admits. Some you think is the one but ends up being the other, for example Adrian Warnock’s popular blog – he recently listed his top 20 posts of the year the vast majority are links or interviews with other people. I guess that will change now he’s finished the book he’s been writing.
I read a lot, and come across many things that interest me from all over the place so I’m happy to link to book reviews and interesting posts and links. But that’s not much of a creative outlet for me, so I need to find some way of balancing the two sorts of content. I guess the aspiration here is to shoot for something a bit more like Challies blog, with regular links to others and regular writing from me. So in line with a few other challenges to find another level of personal discipline in managing the various projects I’m involved with, I’ll aim to give some fresh impetus to the ‘original’ (and I use that word advisedly) content here on this blog.
As this unfolds over the next few weeks and months, I’d really appreciate any feedback you can give me on posts you appreciate (or not) and whether the links to other content is helpful and useful to you.
Because I’m an idiot I did this in December 2008, May 2008 and July 2007 and some other times as well. This is now at least the 5th new look in 3 years. Anyway it’s done now and hopefully it will last a year before I get bored and start messing around again. Here are some previous looks as the blog has evolved from standard blogger basics to the fine art you see today!
Comments? Which look did you like best?
But sometimes you can get caught up in all, number of readers, number of visits, number of comments or links. Well I can anyway, and it’s easy to play to the gallery. Which can be OK as long as you don’t score any own goals in the process. Which no doubt I’ve done.
Recently I met with a friend and mentor, he cautioned me back to the path of wisdom and humility when it comes to blogging. A helpful reminder that people actually read what I say, so I need to choose my words with care.
Its nice to know that people consider your thoughts worth reading and perhaps thinking about it but with that (just as with all communication) comes the responsibility to do it well and honour Christ in it. It was pointed out to me perhaps a couple of places where I didn’t do that as well as I could have. I appreciate people that care enough to point that out to me, to challenge me to do better, to think it through.
It’s too easy to be careless in the virtual worlds of blogs, twitters and facebook – yet every publicly accessible comment, link, tweet becomes a testimony to my witness (or lack of it) to Christ. It’s just as important in these virtual worlds that virtues such as integrity, honesty, graciousness, purity, accountability and wisdom are held just as they should be in the off-line world.
I’m grateful for the reminder to blog wisely.
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“George Whitefield (1714–1770) began preaching at the age of twenty-four and is the greatest preacher America has ever produced.”
I was just about to fire off a blog blast pointing out Whitefield’s Britishness (like it matters in the Kingdom of God) when I read this on the actual Resurgence post;
“George Whitefield (1714–1770) began preaching at the age of twenty-four and is the greatest preacher America has ever seen.”
A significant change that saved Driscoll from factual errors and saved me from demonstrating undignified nationalism and general ranting. Note to self: Take time to think before you blog.
So a question. What techniques, ideas, hints and tips do you have for reading and managing your blog reading list to stop it becoming unmanageable? And as I’m curious to know, my new poll will be on this question: How many blogs do you regularly read? (I’m currently subscribing to 48!!!)
A new blog I’ve added and trying out is Life Together and two posts that immediately caught my eye was The Recession – A revealer of true community and Home is a Small Group for Mission
In the meantime have a read of these:
The theme of Sabbath continues to crop up time and time again. This rediscovery of rest is vital to living more richly and more simply, so on this theme we have Christine Sine reflecting on how she uses the Sabbath to find refreshment, while Mark Driscoll lays out some basic teaching about Sabbath and my friend Andy describes Sabbath as ‘one of God’s best ideas’. Related is Tim Chester’s series on the rhythms of his church, today was ‘eat’, while on the other side of the pond Todd Hiestand thinks about the rule of Benedict in suburban life.
Other mini convergences were this post from Dave Bish added to this from Douglas Wilson mentioning his visit to Oxford, and both mention the federal vision, which was a focus on theology that I haven’t paid much attention to, but have done a bit more today!!
Another mini convergence was some more recession linked posts: Luke asks Credit Crunch: How Can The Church Help? while Christine Sine thinks about the Tough Choices for the Hungry.
Interestingly, can you name the country with 10% of its population currently needing food help from their governement? No, not Zimbabwe, or any country in Africa, no its the US. Unbelievable and also true.
So yesterday we had the most read posts and today we have the 10 most commented on posts. Interestingly they’re not the same. So here they are counting down and yes you should feel free to add to them:
10. -Why I’m happy to lead a Newfrontiers Church (5 Comments) and Newfrontiers Weaknesses? (5 comments)
9. – Breaking News (6 comments)
8. – What’s a Pastor of Technology? (6 comments)
7. – Worship Experiences (6 comments)
6. – Yancey on Blogging (7 comments)
5. – Generous Living means Generous Giving (7 comments)
4. – Revival or Jesus? (8 comments)
3. – Book Review: Business for the Glory of God (8 comments)
2. – Supporting Christian Bookshops (8 comments)
1. – Called out: how ecumenical am I? (10 comments)
It’s also grown – at the beginning you’re excited if anyone other than your wife reads the blog and now, according to Google Analytics I have nearly 600 unique visitors every month and apparently 5561 different people have visited in the last two years, I find that pretty amazing. Although perhaps not too surprisingly nearly half of them have never come back! Anyway, thanks for being unique.
So what’s been the most read posts or topics?
Christians seem quite fond of blogging – writing thoughts in an online diary that everyone can read. What do you think of that phenomenon?
I am pretty removed from that whole block of culture. I don’t read single blog; I don’t think I’ve ever read a blog actually, unless maybe someone has forwarded one to me. I write long books by and large; publishers keep looking for shorter books and I tend to write longer ones. It just seems to me that there is a place for books that take time and effort.
So these blogs…I can’t imagine anything of worth coming out of something that was just spun off as soon as you got up in the morning. I guess the question for me is what will it look like in 50 or 100 years? As I age my question is; ‘what do I want to leave behind after I’m gone?’ If I have a collection of 3000 blog posts, then I’ve basically left nothing because no one is going to be reading them in 50 years’ time. My faith has been formed largely by people who are dead; Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gandhi, Chesterton, CS Lewis and Henri Nouwen. Their lives live on in their writing and I can learn from them; be moved by them.”
I found this interesting because a) I often write posts in the morning b) my blog is probably more important to me than it should be c) Adrian Warnock reviewed his blog and hit 3000 posts
in March (although to be fair he is also trying to write a book) d) Yancey has some points about bloggings weaknesses but he misses blogging strengths.
But before I say what I think Yancey misses, what do you think?
6 months ago I wrote
“OK, you may have noticed that I’ve changed the look of my blog. I got bored and was putting off real work and yes I had the same experience as when I wrote this and when I’ve changed my blog before. Just stupid. Anyway done now, hope you like it, let me know what you think or even if you really want the camels back.”
Virtually everything still applies. If you’re mystified by the reference to camels, you must be new here. Welcome and don’t worry about it.
(HT: Tim Challies)
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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