Top 20 Youth Ministry Blogs of 2011
By YS on July 05 2011
This is our third year of maintaining the indexes and rankings. (See 2010 list) The first year we looked purely at stats stats. (A composite of publicly available stats, like Alexa and Technorati.) The second year, we added to the formula a weighted influence rank worth 33% of the final results. Our top 50 bloggers statistically were ranked on influence in an online poll. Starting this year and going forward we have invited the previous years Top 20 to act as the pollsters in the influence ranking. So, the 2010 Top 20 were the influence pollsters for 2011 and so on.
Without further introduction, here is our list of the Top 20 Youth Ministry Blogs of 2011.
We currently index almost 200 youth ministry blogs. If you don't see your favorite or would like to submit one that you think could make it into the Top 20, leave a comment on this post or email adam(at)youthspecialties.com.
Want to follow them all on Twitter? Here's our list.
Want to subscribe to one RSS feed with all of them? Here's the feed.
Comments
From Tim Schmoyer on July 06, 2011
My honest and transparent thoughts as I read through this.
“Wow, Josh is at the top now! Nice! I saw that coming.”
“Hmm… I’m still at #3. Thought I would be closer to #5 or #6 this year.”
“YS blog is #5 now after being #1 last year? What happened?”
“Adam’s personal blog outranks his company blog.”
“How is Doug Fields so far down on the list? I guess he needs to do this for another year before being #1.”
“What constitutes a ‘youth ministry blog’ versus ‘a youth worker who blogs?’”
From Tim Schmoyer on July 06, 2011
Oh, and btw, I think it’s cool that Adam’s personal blog outranks YS’s blog. Didn’t mean anything negative by that… just for the record. :) Adam’s blog is really personable, which is why I like it.
From Ty Dezno on July 06, 2011
I think iAMtransparent.tv is a very good blog. Lots of blogs, guest blogs, leadership advise and resources!!!
Check it out - http://www.iAMtransparent.tv/blog
From Josh Collesano on July 06, 2011
Our staff/team at NorthRidge Church just started a blog last month devoted to sharing our story of student ministry. Our goal is to help resource the incredible community of youth pastors, volunteers, worship leaders and creatives by sharing our story of practical and engaging student ministry.
Check it out at NRSMonline.com
From adam mclane on July 06, 2011
Josh- didn’t know you guys were doing that. Love the NR staff. Just added it to the index for 2012.
Tim- Pretty crazy. The top 4 just outgrew the YS blog for some reason. Of course, since I’m the editor here… you could look at it as I have the #4 & #5 blog.
More background info on this years rankings here:
http://adammclane.com/2011/07/05/behind-the-scenes-on-this-years-top-20-list/
From Adam Walker Cleaveland on July 07, 2011
WHAT?! I’m still at #6? I didn’t move?!
All kidding aside, it’s an honor to be a part of the amazing people on this list. Though Kenda should totally be ahead of me. She rocks.
From Brandon on July 15, 2011
Good to see Kenda and Fuller You thInstitute in the mix of some very helpful blogs. I’m surprised to see Pomomusings classified as a youth ministry blog. That’s like calling the Bible a youth ministry book (not exactly like that, but the resources are certainly helpful to a broad audience, even beyond ministry).
Thanks for providing these links!
From anonymous on August 11, 2011
who ranks this stuff? And who put Kenda at #20. She’s probably the most relevant voice out there.
From Adam McLane on August 11, 2011
Not sure why you need to be anonymous…
Above explains how the rankings work. It’s more an index than an opinion poll. I monitor 200+ youth ministry blogs. They are first indexed based on several publicly available stats which ranks them numerically 1 - 200. I then take the top 50 statistically and send them to the previous years top 20 to vote on. That adds a layer of subjectivity and helps add in a factor for actual influence in the field of youth ministry.
Obviously, we agree that Kenda has a strong voice. (She’s speaking at www.nywc.com this Fall)
This isn’t a popularity contest though. It’s really just a ranking of people’s blogs in youth ministry. And Kenda’s blog is new.. and barely active enough to even stay on the index. She is currently posting about 2x per month and I’d love to see more out of her. (Most in the top 20 post 5x or more per week.)
From Jay on August 11, 2011
In my opinion, Adam Walker Cleaveland’s blog should not be on the list. His theology based on homosexuality and the acceptance of it is terrible.
Like I said, its just my opinion and it doesn’t really make a difference.
