Top 20 Youth Ministry Blogs of 2010
By YS on June 08 2010
For the last few years we've been wondering who was who in the youth ministry blogger landscape. Not knowing how else to keep track and only having lists like Kent Shaffer's list of the top 100 church bloggers, we started indexing youth ministry blogs and keeping track of their publicly available statistics.
Though this is the first time we've published our list, this is our second year of maintaining the rankings. The first year we looked purely at stats stats. (Alexa, Technorati, Google Page Rank, things like that) This year, we've added a bit of subjectivity by making 33% of the ranking weighted on a poll we did of our top 50 bloggers influence on youth ministry. Going forward we will invite the previous years top 20 to participate in the influence ranking. (Those who voted this year are in the top 50 of 2010.)
Without further introduction, here is our list of the top 20 youth ministry blogs of 2010.
Don't see your blog? Or don't see your favorite youth ministry blog? We're currently indexing a little over 100 youth ministry blogs so there is a good chance it is on our radar and just didn't make the top 20. If you think a blog has a shot to make the top 20, email adam (at) youthspecialties.com and we'll add it to the index for 2011. (Serious submissions only)
Follow them all on Twitter, we've created a list.
The hope & challenge of youth ministry bloggers. The heart behind these rankings is to expose you to some of the great minds out there blogging on the topic of youth ministry. (7 of the top 20 are not published authors or established speakers at conferences) We also hope that by publishing this rankings it will act as a challenge and encourgage our fellow bloggers.
The challenge is simple-- Write great content, do the basics of blogging well, and you will earn your way onto our list.
Editorial note: Yes, it is weird that our blog is in the #1 spot. We feel weird about it, too. You can see that in 2009 we were ranked #12 and we worked hard over the last year to improve the YS Blog by adding new contributors and better integrating the blog into the YS site. When we finished tabulating all of the statistics and the influence rank, it was clear the YS Blog belonged in the #1 spot.
Comments
From Karen on June 09, 2010
A tad heavy on the guy side, wouldn’t you say? All the youthworker ladies, all the youthworker ladies (I’m picturing a video here..)
From YS on June 09, 2010
@karen- we agree! We’d love to see more female voices. Kara is 50% of the Fuller blog (#13) and obviously Tash is #16 overall. There are many more female bloggers indexed, they just didn’t make it to the top 20.
From Scott Smith on June 09, 2010
Thanks for the list! Will have to spend some time digging thru these…. :)
From Brit Windel on June 09, 2010
I would agree with Karen as well…
very blown away to see my Buddy Matt Cleaver on there… and that he hasn’t blogged in a LONG TIME :-) you guys should motivate him to get in gear
From YS on June 09, 2010
@brit- Matt is right on the edge… almost inactive. I’m hoping he gets more active again. I love reading his blog and miss the regular updates.
Consistency is one of the frustrating things about YM bloggers.
@paul- All I’m going to say is, you’re indexed. :)
From Tim Schmoyer on June 09, 2010
Thanks for including me!
I’m curious: is this list of blogs about youth ministry or youth workers who blog? Or both?
From YS on June 09, 2010
@tim- great question. It’s a little fuzzy, right? I think the best answer is that we’re indexing both blogs about youth ministry and youth workers who blog.
It’s notable that we exclude blogs youth workers read but aren’t really about youth ministry… ever. (Which would include people on Kent’s list.)
From Tim Schmoyer on June 09, 2010
Yeah, it is fuzzy because there are some blogs (not necessarily on this list) where a youth worker just blogs about their life and obviously that sometimes just includes a post here or there about youth ministry. I would imagine all blogs have an element of that to one degree or another, though. I know mine does.
Oh, and does the ranking consider factors like user engagement by sharing links via social media, comments, and backlinks? Not sure how you’d be able to track all that, unless you use a service like https://analytics.postrank.com/
From Matt Cleaver on June 09, 2010
@Brit - I’m pretty blown away, too. Maybe it will motivate me. Time will tell.
From jeremy zach on June 09, 2010
@tim—i think that as youth ministry blogging evolves we will see more and more committed and dedicated youth ministry bloggers who really only blog about youth ministry stuff. although we may not. it seems like ym blogging is like survival of the fittest. you just cannot compete with a ym blogger who releases a clothing line.
it is interesting just to reflect on how ym blogging has changed/shifted/evolved in the past three years. it will be fasincating to see how the ym blogging world takes shape in the next three years.
by the way do you think your new clothing line helped you in the rankings?
@adam—thanks for doing conducting the ratings. i hope both current ym bloggers and new-future (female) ym bloggers can find inspiration to constantly contribute to the ym blogging world.
@matt—i am mad at you. get off your lazy butt and start writing again. make it a priority. you are a ym blogging tease.
From Tim Schmoyer on June 09, 2010
@Jeremy: Dude, my clothing line did nothing compared to the clothing line Adam McLane released for me! ;)
From Stevan Sheets on June 09, 2010
While I’m honored to make the list, I’d be even MORE honored if you spelled my name right! :) (the link is correctly spelled, just my name on the left-column…. details, details..)
From Angela Rines on June 09, 2010
Hmmm Perhaps it is time for me to start blogging? :)
I’ve thought about it for awhile!
Gotta start representing the ladies!
From YS on June 09, 2010
@angela- Come on with it! I’d love to see more female voices on the list.
From chad swanzy on June 09, 2010
I wish more student pastors would write. There really aren’t that many out there that post weekly and relevancy. Just saying.
From Jerry Watts on June 09, 2010
Thanks for the list, it’s great to expand our vision on who is writing what. Would you ever consider posting the list of all the ym in your index, it would be a great resource. Thanks!
@matt we’re all waiting for your next post!
From Kara clark on June 09, 2010
Way to go Matt!!! Well deserved recognition! I agree with Jerry, please share the whole list with us!
From Angela Rines on June 09, 2010
The gauntlet has been thrown and I’ve decided to jump in!
come check out my blog if you would like!
Excited to see where this journey leads…
From Jonathan McKee on June 10, 2010
Thanks Adam… I’ll have to check some of these out… like that Youth Specialties blog. Hmmmm… never heard of em.’ ;)
From Ray Deck III on June 10, 2010
Interesting list. There’s a lot on here that I don’t know & a few that I read all the time. Thanks for putting this together.
Check out up-and-comer: http://nathanshoultz.wol.org/blog/shoultz
He just started blogging, but his content is awesome.
From Mike King on June 10, 2010
Hey Adam,
You guys are awesome thanks for tracking this. I’m fortunate enough to be with #16 (Tash McGill) right now in her native paradise of New Zealand.
Peace,
Mike
From Tash McGill on June 10, 2010
@tim i think it’s tough to define that line or should i say, both those lines!
In terms of interaction - i know my blog is read by people from a variety of places who interact with the ideas in a variety of ways - FB, Twitter & from a professional development aspect re: adolescent dev. ideas for teachers/marketers etc, as well as youth workers etc.
How’s that for an awful sentence?
But hey - I’m totally blown away to be on the list. And honoured and motivated to keep writing. Or write more consistently and specifically.
Plus, it’s given me a great reason to re-design the blog. With like, flowers and cute animals, polka dots and pink tones to exert the feminine influence i’m having on this list! Ha!
From JG on June 10, 2010
Great list and idea! GREAT blogs on the list.
I read these youth ministry blogs (that didn’t make the top 20) every day:
http://www.coachshef.com/
http://joshherndon.com/
http://terracecrawford.blogspot.com/
http://johnnysboy.blogspot.com/
http://un-blog-evable.blogspot.com/
http://www.marriedtoayouthpastor.com/
http://100ormore.org/
http://andydisher.wordpress.com/
http://www.bradcooper.us/
http://www.currystew.org/
JG
From Jenny Baker on June 11, 2010
Adam, thanks for this list - really interesting.
It looks like you’ve started with a list of people you consider to be influential youth ministry bloggers and have then looked at their rankings to see who comes out top.
If that’s right, can I ask how you came up with your original list and how many female bloggers there are on it? From my experience here in the UK, women in youth ministry can often be a bit invisible - not because they’re doing insignificant things, but because they’re not part of the mainly male networks that build up and so they’re just not known. It takes a bit of digging to find them, so I’d encourage you to be intentional about that.
Tash - your blog looks great. Don’t succumb to the pink!
From Chris Kidd on June 11, 2010
I agree with some of the others, without not necessarily having them in numbered order I’d be really interested to see the wider list - I love widening my reading so not fussed about the number, just want to develop the diversity of voices I listen to.
As well as seeing more female voices, it’d be great to see more voices from different contexts and continents - it’s very Western suburban middle class Christianity at the moment.
From Adam Walker Cleaveland on June 11, 2010
This is a great list - but I’m a little bit shocked that my ranking last year was #1?!?! I guess I fall into the group that blogs about a variety of things and probably hits up a youth ministry post every now and then.
Guess this means I need to start blogging more about youth ministry!
Very fun to be part of such a great top 20!
From Erik Ullestad on June 11, 2010
While I appreciate you providing a list of top youth ministry blogs, do you really need to rank them? What does that accomplish, other than feeding people’s unhealthy need to identify “winners and losers”?
From Scott on June 11, 2010
How did pomomusings make this list?? There have been more blog posts about his dog this past year than anything having to do with youth ministry. It used to be a very interesting blog, but quite frankly, now it is boring.
From YS on June 11, 2010
Loving the discussion here. We’ve got thick skin, poke holes in our method all you want. 66% of the ranking is a composite of publicly available stats. 33% is an influence rank. That’s why I’m so comfortable with the top 20. I’m looking forward to the rankings continuing to try to perfect the methodology. We already had a big leap from 2009 to 2010.
@josh- looks like our site held your comment because it had a bunch of links. I’ve published the comment, sorry about that. Many of the ones you listed are on our index, some weren’t and have been added.
Just a reminder: As I said above, if you think a blog can make the top 20, please email it to me. (Don’t post it on my facebook or leave it as a comment, please email the URL to me so I can respond.)
And no Jenny, I will not be publishing all of the blogs indexed. The reality is that the list would never be wide enough. If I had indexed 500 to get a top 20, there would still be people who thought they should be there. We’ll just go with a top 20 for now.
As I’ve said in the comments before, I’d love to have more women on the list. It’s not that we’re somehow biased against women.
Please re-read the hope and challenge for publishing the rankings which I posted above.
From neely on June 11, 2010
I am lady.
I am in youth ministry.
And i blog about working with teen girls.
Just saying..
From justin on June 11, 2010
not looking to get put on a list - but wanting to say THANKS for compiling the list and spreading the youth ministry love. also, the influential evaluator was genius. bravo.
what i want to know is: how can my blog average a “grip” of visitors (somewhere between a couple and a few) and only get like, point two (.2) comments on the posts - are people actually too busy to comment? haha. it makes me reconsider my blog format…anyways, sorry, rabbit trail.
thanks for the list YS! now, off to check out the unfamiliar ones…
From Brant on June 11, 2010
A strange list as some of these folks haven’t blogged in months and several only ocassionaly write about youth ministry. Of course, there are several great ones on the list but there are some excellent blogs out there that write about nothing but youth minsitry that were not included. It seems strange that we in the church are judging quality based on popularity rankings rather than the quality of the work and the usefulness of the blog to those of us in youth ministry. Perhaps instead of declaring these as the offical top 20 you could have just offered them as 20 blogs you recommend.
Finally, there is not much diversity on the list. Why not more women, more mainline/progressive bloggers, non-white bloggers, etc.? Just some thoughts for the next time around.
From justin on June 11, 2010
so. i just got back from dabbling in these blogs, and to my surprise, i have to agree with brant up there…some of the blogs are really outdated (as far as blogs today go) and he really is right about a general lack of diversity.
still, i am thankful for the list - but not so sure it should carry the whole “TOP 20” label…?
on the upside, the twitter list is a great resource - way to be!
From Walt Mueller on June 11, 2010
Adam - thanks for including me in this! I’m flattered. Pressure’s on me now. . . .
From David Grant on June 12, 2010
Hey Adam. curious. How many of these bloggers are youth pastors? If not youth pastors, how many are hands on in student ministry (with kids)? BTW, this isn’t a comment disguised as a question, I was just curious.
From YS on June 12, 2010
Looking at the top 20, all of them are either or in some combination of, FT youth workers at churches, employees in leadership at youth ministry organizations, professors of youth ministry, youth ministry consultants, or youth ministry speakers/authors.
All of the top 50 are in the same categories. A quick glance at the rest we indexed, I don’t know all of them personally, but it looks pretty heavily that they are church youth workers.
Since the YM profession tends to be a bit fluid, it’s a little fuzzy. (Obviously) You know how it goes. People pop in and out of YM jobs… but they are still youth workers! The point isn’t current employment, it’s who they are… are they a youth worker who blogs? Do they blog, at least sometimes about youth ministry and the church?
The other debate on this topic I’ve had is… do we index blogs that aren’t really youth ministry related but a lot of youth workers read? (Like Don Miller, Anne Jackson, Stuff Christians Like, etc?) Obviously, in consulting with some people I chose to exclude those and just try to focus the list on youth workers who blog and have a voice in YM.
I’m learning a lot this week. And I think I’ll be able to further tweak the rankings for 2011 based on the feedback I’ve gotten. (Remember, these rankings didn’t have public scrutiny in 2009)
From Jeff Goins on June 12, 2010
Thanks for this list, Adam. I’ll definitely be reading some of these that weren’t on my radar.
From Adam Walker Cleaveland on June 12, 2010
@scott - thanks for your comment. I literally LOLed when I read it in bed this morning.
Not sure what blog you’re reading, but there haven’t really been too many posts about Sadie recently….sorry. But if you’d like more, I can certainly do that.
Now, I do TWEET about and FOR Sadie (you can follow her at @adognamedsadie), so if you do want more stuff about Sadie, that’s where I’d recommend getting all the updates.
Anyway - I am a little shocked because you’re right, I’m not one who writes SOLELY about youth ministry, but still got pretty high up on the list. Guess I need to do some more writing on youth ministry….
From Brian Kirk on June 12, 2010
In case there is any doubt (I guess there is some on Scott’s part) Pomomusings is still a great read (even if it isn’t always about youth ministry) particulary on topics related to thinking theologically.
From Jay Higham on June 12, 2010
Great list. But do we really need to rank youth ministry blogs?
Read what I wrote at www.jayhigham.com!
I’d love to read your comments.
Nice job, Adam!
From Matthew McNutt on June 12, 2010
I just want to know if I made the top 1000! ; )
I love the list - gave me some blogs I need to check out!
From Matt Brown on June 13, 2010
Thanks for compiling this helpful list, and thanks to each of these leaders and others who share their ministries with others.
My brother Jon, Veteran Youth Pastor near Chicago, just started a great, new blog that will hopefully soon be a great resource for more youth workers - http://jonbrown.ws
From David Summers on June 16, 2010
Another great blog I read is http://www.dustinsams.com This. guy has some fantastic insight for the Youth Ministry field. I didn’t see him in the list, but you should absolutely check him out!
From Bill on June 16, 2010
Way to tick people off!
Anyways, I think it would be an interesting service to list somewhere on the YS site a link to all the blogs you guys follow. I love to check out new blogs and see what ideas they have. Its just hard to find them at times. I’d hate to add to your workload :-) but it would be a helpful thing.
From Adam Lehman on June 18, 2010
Interesting. This list made me go out and make sure my technorati token worked. I guess it’s the motivation i needed…
