So Tony Kummer at Ministry to Children has put together a evista without prescription target=”_blank”>top 100 list of kidmin blogs.

It took him a huge amount of effort to put this together, so hats off to you Tony!! I would be blogging about it even if I didn’t come in at third place… just because of the hours he put into it!

I have been blogging since late 2004 and all I can say is that there is something about longevity and persistence. Just showing up is 90% of success I think. It will be a big milestone to see this blog at the ten year mark!

Bring on 2014!

So last week I started this post in my drafts folder all about how I thought we were starting to see some real traction in the social media/internet world with relation to the non-geeks starting to use technology tools to communicate. But then Sat night happened… I cut back on the amount of blogs I read dramatically. I have done this once before, but didn’t touch the Children’s Ministry ones because I kinda felt I wanted to keep up with all of them… those days are over.

I made some tough (well not really compared to fighting in world war 1), decisions and just stopped following about half the CM blogs I used to (I follow them in Google Reader).

Having blogged for many moons now I have seen the landscape change and shift; in obvious ways like the rise of twitter, and in watching blogging grow, plateau and maintain.

But blogging still seems to be the way that great leaders can communicate, converse and contribute to a wider conversation – and spreading it through twitter.

So I wonder if the little niche of ministry cytotec order overnight to Children has reached its peak with blogging contributors and time will soon present a much more mainstream option?

The bottom line is that we should have FAR more people involved in contributing! Too many leaders doubt their experience and feel like they have nothing to say. Everyone has something to contribute.

Leader: Don’t waste your experience. Grow your influence.

You are already giving out to your team, just make that content go further, find a way to share! Believe me, as you give you will receive, pressed down, shaken together… you know the rest.

Here are a few posts that hit it out of the park in the last few weeks!

Pudge on Leading for Tomorrow

A bunch of posts from Henry Zonio about the Conspire Conference Rewiring Ministry for the Digital Learner,  Spiritual Formation in compare prices nexium Children

Fascinating stuff from The Connecting Church and Home Conference from Jared Kennedy via Doug

Shane Hipps on Technology from the Q blog! MUST WATCH! Hipps discusses how technology shapes your faith and offers a critique of the cliche “the methods change but the message doesn’t.”

How to Blog 101 from churchrelevance.com

I haven’t written one of these posts in a while, but I think to start out 2009 it would be great to write about some new blogs and not so new blogs on the internets.

The last time I wrote something like this was in May 2007: The State of the CM Blogosphere

So today I write the State of the CM Blogosphere Jan 2009, or “Blogs of most excellent repute”

I will try and write about new blogs here rather than the ones listed in the last report. But if I really feel like there is consistent goodness coming from those blogs I will be forced by sheer respect to mention them. It is worth at this point to mention two resources: church.alltop.com, A list of some very influential Church blogs and from Church Relevance: The Top Church Blogs

I cannot even remember how I got the number of 232 blogs that discuss children’s ministry in my old post, I even went onto Technorati to figure it out, but the site was slow so I gave up. I do follow 121 blogs that relate to ministry to children, although only a very small amount of those update regulary.

I do need to talk about the rise of twitter this last year, but that will be kept for another post!

So, here are a few of the top blogs that I love reading at the beginning of 2009!

• Just Pudge – Still in the game, probably one of the most engaging blogs still to read, who has taken a cue from his senior pastor Perry Noble who writes an enormously readable blog. It was great to meet the children’s pastor of Newspring Cherie Duffy when she was over here in October who doesn’t blog but does twitter.
• Justyn claritin without prescription Smith – From ‘The Church‘ in South Las Vegas. Started strong and hopefully will keep going because I think he has a lot to say! I met him last year when he was over here in Sydney with his pastor Benny Perez to speak and is a fantastic young pastor to children!
• Jim Wideman – Just a great guy starting out in ministry, a great fresh new pastor with a LOT of wisdom and a huge future ahead of him (at least thats what it seems like ). I will be meeting him this year when he makes it over to Australia with his daughter Yancy to speak at kidshaper conference.
• Rob Bradbury – Rob and his team from Planetshakers Church in Melbourne blog about a lot of cool stuff… now because it’s not just Rob, I think it’s frequency of posts could increase. And they do need to remove the annoying Captcha for commenting (hint, hint) But Rob is really my hero in ministry in Australia. And you should get the K Magazine issue that features him on the cover with a fantastic article about their relatively new church plant.
• JC’s Thompson – A blogger since Sept 2007, the Elementary Production Director for the Children’s Ministry at Brookwood Church in Simpsonville, SC (I copy and pasted this from his site). I love the way he thinks so read this post to get an idea of what ticks in his brain. Looking forward to reading more!
• Kenny Conley – Kenny is the Next Generation Pastor at Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas. Love the practical stuff that has been coming from Kenny recently… the photos for portable church and makeover stuff. I do learn visually so it has been great for me to see all those photos!
• Jonathan Fietzer – The Assistant Children’s Pastor at World Outreach and Bible Training Center in Milwaukee, WI. Jonathan has a very fancy site, and lots of great posts!
• Karl Bastian – Karl has a new blog look and is fulltime on kidology.org, by far still the best place to get answers and support when you need them from incredibly generous people. He writes a great blog with a fantastic mix of personal and minstry.

etc.

etc.

Lots more that I could write about, but pasting all those links in takes a lot of time and my wrists are beginning to hurt.

TIPS: If you are starting to think about maybe writing a blog, then please do it. One of the greatest things I have found is that making my thoughts public is a great accountablility system. Keeps me learning and giving and making time just to think (VERY important for any form of creativity). And make sure to mix the ministry with your personal life, if we have learnt one thing from Pixar movies is that story matters. I want to know YOUR story, not just your thoughts.

CHANGE.

I have totally changed the way I use the web from only about a few months ago. I used to search a lot, randomly surfing for interesting stuff…

But I changed.

Now I log on I almost always go straight (after checking email) to checking for any new posts on the blogs I read. I use bloglines, which allows me to check all the blogs in one place.

Most of the interesting stuff I read is recommended in these blogs.

Change happens.

I am in the middle of a manifesto about change and your childrens ministry in 2006.

Coming soon to this blog…

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“Whats that noise Bill?”

“It’s the winds of change Mildred, the winds of change”

Dave.