Over the past few weeks I have done a series on what I have labeled my “Top Blogs.” To do so, I created the following criteria; admittedly, they are somewhat arbitrary, but they are the things that I have determined are important to me. The criteria include . . .
1. Content - The blog has to have a theological, ministry, or spiritual formation nature to it, and mainly from a conservative evangelical perspective. All these are loose terms, but I think they give you a clear picture of my fuzzy parameters.
2. Informative – Does it have something fresh for us, it does not have to be serious all the time, but will we learn by reading this blog?
3. Current - It must be updated regularly; as a general rule, at least once a week. The only thing worse than a blog that is dormant, is one with sporadic updates. These are automatically eliminated from my consideration.
4. Interesting - It must be regularly interesting (this is totally subjective). By interesting I mean that it consistently presents topics that are worth reading about, and even entertaining at times. Not all subjects will be of interest to me, or to you, but the effort should be there.
5. Creative - I like creativity; blogs with meaningful variety and creativity (and humor is a double bonus) are far more interesting to all of us. Nothing bores me more than constantly reading the same things over and over, but just in different words. Of course I have an easy solution to that, I don’t.
6. Relevant – This piggy-back’s with the previous two, if it is interesting and creative, it will probably be “relevant” to me. Does it regularly have it? Or, not so much?
7. Appeal – And last, being a product of the visual culture that I am, I have to ask: “Is it attractive?” Does it have a smooth layout? Is it easy to navigate? Does it look inviting? Etc. You would think this would be the easiest, but I’ll show you a few that drive me crazy.
Based on these criteria, here are the ones I selected as my Top Tier blogs:
Between Two Worlds
Christ is Deeper Still
Resurgence
Stuff Christians Like
Sharper Iron
Christians in Context
evotional.com
And , the Second Tier blogs:
Jesus Creed
Tim Challis
Koinonia
Pyromaniacs
EDSTETZER.COM
These sites represent a variety of perspectives and interests. There are, of course, tons of others that could be featured. These are just the ones I like. For the most part, all of these are dedicated blogs, meaning that this is all they do. So to close, there is another pool of blogs that I would like to call to your attention, and will do so, over the next few days. That is, blogs that are connected with ministries. These blogs complement the ministries they are associated with. Again, this will be quite subjective in that I will highlight the blogs associated with ministries I have some affinity to. Nonetheless, I hope you will find them profitable, and spiritually encouraging. I will start them tomorrow.
Blessings
3 John 8
Bill H.
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