"Of the 133 Million blogs that are currently on the web 80% are abandoned within a month. The average rate of updating is 2-3 times per week. 85% use tags, just beating the 82% that use images to make blog posts look more appealing. Even though 61% use blogging to supplement their income, 70% say that personal satisfaction is how they measure their blogging success."
Ciphering NumbersI have a confession… I didn't know anything about Alexa — a blog rating system — until I came across a post by Jared Moore called The Top 250 Christian Blogs. I vaguely remember a commenter mentioning something about Alexa several months ago when he first came onto our blog, but I never took the time to investigate. Dee and I were way too busy covering topics that we believe must be addressed in Christendom.
To justify his blog ranking method, Moore explains:
"My list is solely based on Alexa's 3 month traffic rankings checked on March 21, 22, and 23 in 2013. Why only use Alexa? In blogdom, the only thing that matters concerning rankings is traffic. Traffic is currency in blogdom. Alexa is one of the best sources for estimating website traffic (depending on who you ask)."
What triggered Jared Moore's post? It was the bi-annual ranking of the TOP 200 MINISTRY BLOGS (as of March 5, 2013) by a group called Church Relevance, also unfamiliar to me. But I am a quick learner. 🙂
Here is what I discovered about this website. Church Relevance was founded in 2006 by Kent Schaffer in order to help ministries become 'relevant' and 'effective'. The caption at the top of the Church Relevance website states:
"True relevance is understanding culture and responding to hurts and needs with the gospel, sacrifical love, and selfless ministering."
At some point we may try to analyze the 'bottom line' for Church Relevance, but that's not the purpose of this post. Our focus for now is their ranking of 'ministry blogs'. What is a ministry blog? The Church Relevance website defines it this way:
"A ministry blog nurtures or challenges the way ministers think about the gospel, the Great commission, ministry methodology, and the cultures they are called to reach. It is a bit more than just a faith blog or one that explores how to live a good Christian life. The six most-popular subjects are:
methodology: how can we better reach and disciple people?
theology: how can we grow more Christlike and be Spirit led?
journalism: what current events might influence how ministry is done?
academics: what research, discoveries, and intellectual insights might reshape how we approach ministry and theology?
culture: how is culture shifting?
humor: what is laughable about ministry and Christian culture?To qualify, each ministry blog must also have published sometime within the last 3 months, be considered a blog, have an Alexa rank of <5,000,000, and be classified as Protestant, Anglican, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox."
Here is what Church Relevance measures:
Traffic – Alexa Rank (AR)
Traffic – Compete Visitors (CV)
Google’s Opinion – Google PageRank (PR)
Loyal Readers – Google Reader Subscribers (GR)
Buzz Depth – Open Site Explorer Homepage Authority (HA)
Buzz Scope – Open Site Explorer Linking Root Domains (RD)
The top 10 'ministry blogs' on the Church Relevance list as of March 5, 2013 are:
1. Between Two Worlds – (Justin Taylor)
2. Desiring God – (Various)
3. DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed – (Kevin DeYoung)
4. Dr. Albert Mohler – (Albert Mohler)
5. Tim Challies – (Tim Challies)
6. The Gospel Coalition Blog – (Various)
7. The Resurgence – (Various)
8. Fr. Z's Blog – (John Zuhlsdorf)
8. Jesus Creed – (Scot McKnight)
10. Kingdom People – (Trevin Wax)
Getting back to Jared Moore's list of the top blogs, he explains how he arrived at the ranking as follows:
"Alexa does not provide traffic rankings for subdomains. Since The Gospel Coalition's and Patheos's blogs are on subdomains, no accurate traffic rating was provided. Thus, I gave the top 10 spots on my list to blogs from The Gospel Coalition and Patheos. They're the two largest…. The list provided…was compiled by examining Church Relevance's Top 200 Ministry Blogs list (which they came to by examining over 1,000 blogs), various high-ranked Christian blogs listed on Technorati, and blogs listed on various Christian blogrolls across blogdom. I examined over 400 Christian Blogs."
If you take a look at Moore's list, The Gospel Coalition occupies the first five spots and Patheos occupies the next five spots. It certainly appears that Jared Moore is skewing the numbers to elevate The Gospel Coalition blogs over Patheos blogs. Our question is WHY? Is he trying to boost the ratings to impress sponsors? Any thoughts?
I did a little checking, and Tim Dalrymple, a blogger featured on Patheos, wrote a post last fall called Ranking the Top Christian Blogs. While he is most complementary of Kent Shaffer and the Church Relevance website, he does raise some concerns, specifically:
"There are, however, serious limitations to the list that are not well explained, and that everyone should understand. Kent leaves out many of the largest Christian blogs, especially Catholic ones, and he is (through no fault of his own) forced to base his ranking on publicly available information. There is not here — as there are with college rankings, for instance — internal data on number of pageviews or unique users. Since I happen to know the traffic for a lot of the top blogs, both at Patheos and beyond (through ad networks and, well, asking people), I can point out some interesting limitations and omissions…
WHY IT’S LIMITED: The main limitations — and I’m not being critical of Kent Shaffer here, I suspect he would agree — have to do with who is included and who is excluded, and the limitations of the rankings tools themselves. A ranking is only as good as the tools at its disposal…
Alexa: Alexa rankings are arguably the best way for an external observer to assess the size of a website. If you are ranked 5000 in the US (for instance), then Alexa estimates that you are the 5000th largest website in the United States. The problem here is that blogs on a platform (like Patheos, TGC, Christian Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet or HuffPo) will not have individual rankings; they will only show the ranking of the site as a whole. This leaves Kent unable to use Alexa rankings meaningfully. Still, one can compare blogs that are not on platforms — but then one sees that Tim Challies, whose blog is in the 80,000s worldwide, is ranked #9, while Al Mohler is #8 with an Alexa ranking above 260,000. I would estimate that Tim Challies has at least ten times the traffic that Al Mohler does, yet Al Mohler is mysteriously ranked higher."
Paul Wilkinson chimed in with this fascinating comment in response to Dalrymple's post:
"A couple of the blogs listed haven’t had a fresh post in nearly 90 days. Personally, I think that ought to be a criteria as well."
And these are the top 200 ministry blogs? If you have limited knowledge about blog rankings, we highly recommend Tim Dalrymple's post – it is extremely insightful.
With regard to the Church Relevance list, we had pondered the following question: "Why are so many of the top blogs Reformed theology?" which is included on the FAQ list. Here is the response:
We aren’t sure exactly but a few ideas are:
Reformed theology has grown increasingly popular in recent years.
As the ministry blogosphere grew, Reformed bloggers tended to network, collaborate, and help each other more than other church subcultures.
Many top Reformed bloggers write on larger websites like The Gospel Coalition, which favorably affects their metrics.
Reformed bloggers may write more often about the gospel and the Great Commission than other theological niches, which consequently may give them a higher percentage of blogs that qualify by our definition of a ministry blog.
When we looked at this list, we saw some obvious flaws. For example, we believe SGM Survivors belongs on the top 200 list of ministry blogs. Kris and Guy, along with their commenters, have ministered to so many who have been hurt. Do the Alexa numbers demonstrate that they should have been ranked? Well, let's take a look…
By consulting the Alexa website, we obtained SGM Survivors' worldwide and U.S. ranking in the blogosphere. Here are their numbers (as of today):
Global Rank: 422,990 U.S. Rank: 87,084
Alexa provides the following Statistics Summary for sgmsurvivors.com:
"Sgmsurvivors.com is ranked #422,990 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings. The site's visitors view 2.7 unique pages each day on average. Approximately 13% of visits to it are bounces (one pageview only). The time spent in a typical visit to Sgmsurvivors.com is about five minutes, with 50 seconds spent on each pageview. The site is relatively popular among users in the cities of Washington (DC) (where it is ranked #6,151) and Baltimore (#10,639)."
For comparison, let's take a look at the Alexa rating for Sovereign Grace Ministries' website. As of today, here are the traffic numbers:
Global Rank: 727,090 U.S. Rank: 148,575
Now let's look at the Alexa numbers for Worship Matters, Bob Kauflin's website:
Global Rank: 860,163 U.S. Rank: 273,088
Each website has a 'reputation' number on the Alexa website, and currently the Worship Matters number is 666. We're not sure what that number means.
In case you're wondering whether Worship Matters was ranked in the TOP 200 Ministry blogs by Church Relevance, indeed it was! It came in at 39. Jared Moore also ranked Worship Matters at 104. Let's compare the Alexa numbers for SGM Survivors and Worship Matters. Something does not compute…
Not only that, we are acquainted with at least one website that actually has a worship service on its blog, along with a Bible reading program, and the ability to take prayer requests. How many of these "ministry blogs" in the top 200 have those features?
If you want to do your own research, just plug various blogs into the Alexa website and see if they are ranked. We'd love to know what you discover!
Hopefully, you now understand that there appears to be a lot of tweaking of numbers when compiling these blog rankings. What a joke! There are so many ways to manipulate the numbers.
We leave you with a humorous video featuring some very unusual number crunching.
Lydia's Corner: Judges 9:22-10:18 Luke 24:13-53 Psalm 100:1-5 Proverbs 14:11-12
I think Fred Clark at Slacktavist had the most Christian response to the American need to be numero uno. The need to play the numbers game. The bigger is better thinking. The quest for tribal celebrity.
He compiled lists of blogs which would never make the Church Relevance big boys’ table.
The Bonfire (female bloggers) of which TWW is listed. :^)
The Mosaic (a list of Christian bloggers who don’t happen to be white)
XN Quiltblogs (LGBT Christians)
When I first started blogging in 2002, I admit, traffic was a big deal.
I got over it.
I participated in the days of blogging infancy in a Christian blog portal, and I’m sorry to say that I found that international blogs were not even on the radar of most US bloggers. Still aren’t, never will be.
Monetizing has something to do with the quest and drive for traffic for some, but this drive for relevance and recognition by landing on self-proclaimed big boy lists probably isn’t going to diminish any time soon.
I find this stuff almost incomprehensible, unless one is trying to play some ‘look how important we are’ ego game. Even people who monetise their blogs do so on page views, not on rankings. And if you tweak your category definitions, I guess you can always create something where your team comes first. And I suppose that, in certain people’s eyes, if you don’t fit a certain paradigm, it isn’t ‘ministry’.
Just realised, when I stopped to think about it, that I’ve actually been blogging for 7 years. But that’s a personal indulgence, not ministry.
BTW, do these guys count blogs by women as ever being ministry? Or only if they’re addressed exclusively to women?
@ Lynne T:
Lynne: I would love to know the answer to your question addressing whether these guys count blogs by women as ever being ministry . It is an excellent one!!
Deb
Old Dee here is laughing out loud. I love the 10 ton elephant in the room. I wonder if anyone has caught it yet.
Deb
There was a Downton Abbey episode about the annual village rose competition in which the Dowager Countess’s roses always won. Except it was rigged so that she always won. There is a bit of game playing going on here.
They had to include Rachel Held Evan because they would be embarrassed if they had not. Bet it would splash all over the Huffington Post. But other women, who might be known to irritate a few “rankers,” were studiously ignored. I wonder how many others were ignored?
Gavin
I spoke to Deb about it when you mentioned it. She, actually, was not terribly interested and did not look into it.I went over, said “huh” and promptly went on.
If you have noticed, we are barely keeping our heads above water over here. And, we haven’t jumped anywhere in the rankings. We are still the “blog that must not be mentioned.”
And I took the time to publicise positively online the work of TWW!
Gavin,
I’ve never been into popularity contests. Alexa is so unimportant to me, although I’m glad our research is not falling on deaf ears (except for our detractors). 😉
@ Gavin White:
Gavin –
This comes across as if you don’t believe what Deb and Dee have said about not knowing, nor investing time in knowing, about all the ranking “nonesense.” If you don’t believe them, why would that be? On the other hand, maybe this was a joke that I didn’t get?
Deb –
One thing I don’t get is what their idea of “ministry” actualy is. Many if the blogs that the top 5 guys write I wouldn’t call ministry simply because they don’t interact with the people who respond to their article. Many of the TGC blogs are copied from elsewhere and the writers just seemmto want their perspective “OUT THERE” but have no desire to interact with commenters. The blogs are more “advertising” the a paticular doctrine than ministry. The other issue is that “some” folks are getting income from their blog.
Is the man who did the top ten ranking connected to the Reformed community? Is he getting something out of these rankings? Tim Challies didn’t reveal his connections with SGM when writing an article about SGM.
Who decided the criteria for including a blog as a “Christian” blog or not? Who was the grand arbitrator?
@ Bridget:
Hi Bridget
Yes it’s a private joke 🙂
Gavin
It is not a joke and you know it.
Gavin
Positively? Hmmm…There were some other things that did not speak to your kindness and you and I both know it.
@ Bene D:Until a reader mentioned the Alexa rankings, I had not heard of them. I looked at our Google stats a couple of times and frankly found it boring and useless. For me, this blog has been therapeutic. I have gotten a lot of things off my chest and in so doing, met some wonderful people like you, to dialogue with and explore our differences and hopes.
When we started, I had hoped we could find a nice group of about 50 (that seemed like such an impossible task) from around the US (we could not imagine anyone wanting to read us from other countries). We actually hoped that we might develop a few new friendships outside of the Raleigh area as well. Deb was concerned that we wouldn’t have enough to write about.
But, one thing is for certain, we became quickly focused on the victims of abuse. When I read Jared Moore’s post, I became concerned that there were no survivors type blogs on it. Surely there were some that had the numbers. Well, SGM Survivors popped right up. Why were they ignored. And why was SGM’s Kauflin’s blog featured which had far fewer numbers. And guess which one of those REALLY ministers to people?
So, I have come to the conclusion that there is a big game going on out there, pretending that they are the leaders. The fact that Patheos ranks lower than The Gospel Coalition is an example of this. Moore even took the cumulative TGC rank and gave it to each of the bloggers ate TGC which is nonsense.
Knowing this, I now wonder how many other blogs have been overlooked which have great rankings? I bet there are lots more.
Gavin
The reality of those words will be proved out over time.
Deb
There is only one obvious reason for Kauflin being listed and SGM Survivors not being listed. There is more to the silence than not judging. These guys are being pushed and pushed and pushed and it is starting to look ridiculous. This is business and there are some bloggers out there who might be angling for a piece of the action. “Notice me, please notice me. Can I be a conference speaker and a book writer, too?”
If I am wrong in my assessment, than some folks have some explaining to do. But they won’t–silence.
I spent a few minutes checking some familiar blogs. Some blogs that I frequent had better numbers than ones on their top 250.
Deb – – I think there’s part of a test that they are not showing you and if you answer “yes” to any of the following (and i’m sure there are more), then you automatically get removed from consideration:
Have you attempted to post on one of their blogs and your comment remained in moderation?
Have you publicly questioned their theology on your own blog?
Have you publicly questioned friends who embrace their theology?
Are you unsettled on complementarianism?
Are you a woman blogger?
If you are a woman, do you teach Sunday school to teenage boys?
The whole thing is a farce.
Deb, Thank you for this post! I am so glad someone is talking about this. Of course Jared Moore is not going to include any watchblogs that would not only defeat the purpose but he most likely will say they do not fit the criterion because they always ‘define’ for us or interpret for us what something means.
As to why there are so many Reformed blogs, the answer is that they were early adapters. And that worked for a long while to build the YRR movement. But now, the same social media is being used to discuss/inform about problems in the movement and analyzing doctrinal stances/teaching. People are reading the Institutes and discussing them!
I love it. The biggest problem these guys have is controlling what people read and how they think about what they read. That is why they want to plant redefinitions of slander/libel/gossip, etc so their minds are thinking in those terms when they do read them.
That is why you will not see a Christian watchblog on his top list actually discussing problems with the GC teaching/behavior even if they ARE getting more traffic.
Again, thanks so much for all the work put into this blog post. Moore comes up with some strange things on SBCV and I was amazed at this one.
Dee,
Remember that post I wrote last month – Who Calls the Tune in the Southern Baptist Convention?
I believe it sheds light on why Bob Kauflin's blog is ranked so high.
Anon 1,
I believe the YRR crowd has been strategizing for a long time, and I don't think it has anything to do with God's sovereignty.
Isn't it curious that in 2006 a number of things happened:
* The launch of Together for the Gospel
* The publication of the Young, Restless, Reformed article in Christianity Today
* The establishment of the Church Relevance website
Sounds like a perfect plan, except seven years later it appears to be backfiring.
They had no idea that whistle blowers would find a voice in Christenblogdom (a new word I discovered over at Patheos). 🙂 The main one they should be thanking/blaming is Mahaney.
“Reformed bloggers may write more often about the gospel and the Great Commission than other theological niches, which consequently may give them a higher percentage of blogs that qualify by our definition of a ministry blog.”
Reformed bloggers. May write more often. About the Gospel.
Who’s defining the term “gospel” here?
If they wanted to be genuine Christians, they would be honest, accurate, open. As it is, they run things the way big business runs the media, which is maintenance of their own power/influence. Anything that looks askance at the system they’ve established is ignored. Thus we do not get accurate news, neither from inside nor outside the church.
Unlike the corporate-owned American media, these people have a religious standard to which they say they hold themselves even while they use corrupt methods of control. Yet they have the arrogance to fill the nets with criticism and judgment against others in their community.
In the arts, any time a person says he is an artist, it is courtesy to take him at his word even if his work is awful. But truth requires one to also say, to protect the integrity of the field, “He believes himself to be an artist but he makes bad art.”
…..
Sorry for the rant. I have only recently been exploring Christian circles again (and only online). Two years ago, I checked some of the blogs via two or three “top Christian blogs” posts (don’t remember whose). I was so disgusted that I fled for another couple of years.
The thing about Christianity is that it’s supposed to mean something. So when it just looks like the worst of everywhere else, it is an extra-ordinary travesty.
About the only thing I learned when I took statistics for my master’s program is that numbers can be manipulated in your favor. Any interest that I ever had in the numbers game went out the door during that class.
I would guess that a lot of pastor and ministry blogs do care about numbers. They care about their numbers on Sunday mornings. They care about the amount of money coming in the offering basket. They may or may not care about the number of people leaving their church. I think numbers, to these people, is just another way to inflate ego.
I, for one (hee hee…1), am glad that you don’t really care about the numbers game. It shows that your head and your heart are in the right place.
I wonder how long it will take for all the YRR to have that flash of horror and the squirming feeling of realizing that it isn’t actually a GOOD thing to be the strand of faith that does more writing than doing. While they’re writing millions of words, the world (literally) is filled with faithful Jesus-followers who are actually SPREADING the gospel and making disciples, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned, pursuing justice for the oppressed. They DON’T HAVE TIME for all the ponderous pontificating about who’s reformed enough and who is not. Those quiet, less-influential and “less relevant” folks are far too occupied with “being about their Father’s business.” I know which crowd I want to be part of.
jubilate,
Preach it! You have made some excellent points about talking the talk but not walking the walk.
@ Bridget: Not sure that reviewing a *desk* counts as “ministry.” 😉
Gavin,
There you go again…
I can honestly say that I have NEVER seen that chart over at Google, but it looks like we are soaring.
We must be doing something right. 😉
“Never trust statistics that you haven’t manipulated yourself” 🙂
@ Bene D: Absolutely re. your comment on people of color, LGBT and women bloggers… It’s as if xtianity is all about middle-class white Americans.
You certainly never hear about bloggers from Canada, let alone Latin America, Africa or Asia! Even Europe gets shortchanged.
@ dabide: Good one!
“I believe the YRR crowd has been strategizing for a long time, and I don’t think it has anything to do with God’s sovereignty.” Deb
Well, you don’t believe that it has anything to do with the sovereignty of God, but they might :).
If the thought came into their heads to unite their efforts for advertising their doctrines and conferences, then God MUST have sovereignly put that thought into their heads. Therefore, it is totally fine for them to “advertise” people into their churhes and conferences, and charge money to boot . . .
This doesn’t dismiss the fact that God CAN use what is meant for “other” purposes, to actually bring people into His Kingdom. But, it also doesn’t imply that God has justified the means. I believe that Paul discussed this in one of His letters.
@ Deb: You betcha!
@ dj pomegranate:The problem with definition is solved in their minds. What they do is gospel. Everyone else is suspect.
@ Gavin White:
He sees it more than we do.
@ numo: Now, now, it is stand up desk and all of these guys are impossibly cool and ahead of the curve in trends.
@ dabide:
dabide
Back when no one was reading our blog, Deb and i would sometimes put in a comment or two to make our numbers go from 99 to 100. Then we would laugh for hours. It drove GBTC crazy.
@ numo:Do not forget about Antarctica!
@ dee: heehee 🙂
dabide,
So true! Thanks for a great comment.
Patrice wrote:
My sentiments exactly.
numo wrote:
Bill Kinnon is in Canada as is Challies. In fact, there are quite a few Canadian bloggers like Suzanne McCarthy who was blogging quite a while and did a piece a while back on Christian women bloggers and how they are missing from the stats. She now co-blogs here and is very good…a sort of expert on Greek:
http://bltnotjustasandwich.com/
There are many more but I cannot remember their names. Kinnon has links to some that are quite popular. Adrian Warnock is the big Reformed blogger in England.
I used to read a blog from a Dentist in Iraq that was excellent. I lost track of it, though.
@ dj pomegranate:
“Reformed bloggers. May write more often. About the Gospel.”
Well, they do use the word more often…
Anon 1 wrote:
I remember awhile back, McCarthy took Grudem to task with an issue of Greek grammar and usage in the age of Hellenism. I wonder if he ever recovered from being exposed as a Goebbels artist with egg on his face?
@ numo:
Oh, well, maybe he is ministering to people by helping them know how to avoid back problems from sitting to much 🙂 The gospel guys are good at redefining words and concepts to fit their world. I’m sure they could come up with a way to define desk reviews as ministry. That is, if they don’t like my explaination 🙂
What is it about the numbers game that makes me lose interest so fast?
This blog is about quality, or I wouldn’t have stayed & become a Usurpress & Britain’s Warty chocolate checker ( the warts are on me, not the choc). The level of honesty, genuine dialogue & learned commenters is sky high. Dee & Deb don’t live in a little plastic gospel bubble that has to run scared from the real world.
And like the Reformed blogs talk about the ‘gospel’ more – they talk about the gospelly-wospel of a million tiny rules according to their faux-humble penitant sinner (white male)of the week. Jesus is the gospel, not their oppressive structures.
Suzanne McCarthy runs circles around most male “gospel” bloggers and has been kicked off, banned, and silenced from many of them simply because the men cannot stand the fact that she is a far better Greek scholar than them and can counter their arguments with half her brains tied behind her back. She is always respectful, but that doesn’t seem to matter. She’s embarrassed Denny Burke, the Bayly Brothers, and more so much that they try to shut her up on the least excuse. She is amazing.
Leila and Muff,
I am convinced Denny Burke erased the 1000+ comments on his ‘Bruce Ware teaching at Denton Bible church that unsubmissive wives trigger abuse’ thread because Suzanne was cleaning their clocks on the Greek. She is always respectful so that makes it harder for them.
They just don’t have a category for such things in their male elevated bubble world.
Oooh, I’ll be watching Suzanne McCarthy’s stuff now. My go-to Hebrew scholar is also female – an old friend of mine with one of those extraordinary academic brains who now teaches Hebrew & Theology at some of the Cambridge colleges, plus at what used to be London Bible College. Can’t remember what it’s called now. She’s on the board of some new online Hebrew resource that’s going to be rolled out from Cambridge. Such a breath of fresh air.
Here it is if anyone wants to see:
http://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/carts/semantics-of-ancient-hebrew-database-sahd
She’s now Dr Gray. http://www.christianstudies.org.uk/tutor%20alison.html
@ Beakerj:
Wait until you see what was just written about TWW at Jared Moore’s blog by Jared in the comment section. This has never been about the numbers but about an agenda and we will write about it on Monday.
@ dee:
I think Jared is just trying to put down a blog lead by women. I’m not sure he can deal with it. How sad!
Beaker, thanks for the link!
Beakerj wrote:
her old blog has some great stuff on it:
http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/
Here is a link to some interesting blog posts on some of the comp’s favorite Greek words:
http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/search?q=authenteo
Disclaimer: Haven’t read all the comments.
Some of us pointed out the obvious problems with this list way back in 2006, I think. His definition of ministry is very narrow and he routinely shuns women because they don’t fit the ministry paradigm that he is promoting.
Even way back then we came up with a substantial list of women bloggers who had much higher numbers than the ones trotted out there. I mean hugely bigger numbers. And the focus of their blogs was faith, ministry, etc. But nothing changed. He’s marketing his business to a certain segment of the church and that’s where he puts his efforts.
What? The Pedestrian Christian isn't there? What? R U Kidding? What? D#&N this, I want to be famous like the Pyromaniacs (wait…what's this?). Oh I am sorry, I should have said my blog must not be "penetrating" the Christian community enough (yes Dan Phillips' own words about his early blogging exploits until his fellow bearded puss friend came and saved him from obscurity). Besides, they hate me because I am a lazy editor.
HE is trying to sell his Harry Potter for Christ study. He is a big John Piper fan and often offends like minded commenters over at voices but seems to have tamed himself in the last year.
He basically said Dee and Deb were deceptive but did not make the case. He would skewer anyone who said that about one of his icons like Mohler, Piper, etc.
The fact is this Mahaney thing is becoming an embarrassment for them. It is touching many areas they have taken for granted. Like the Challies connection with Cruciform Press and an SBC Voices contributor publishing a book with them. To Moore it was deceptive for TWW to mention it.
Look, SBCV is an SBC Reformed pastors blog. They don’t want to admit that. Yes they have non Reformed contributers few and far between but it is more like affirmative action so they can say they are balanced. And they trot out the point system to try and prove they are balanced which means if you are 3-4 pt Calvinist you are not a Calvinist at that moment in time.
What cracks me up is Moore thinking he is the aribter of such lists? Who is he to decide? The pastor of a church in rural Ky with 50 members? He is working hard to make a name for himself on the blogosphere and has hitched his star with the Reformed SBC movement. Mahaney is becoming a problem just like Driscoll was.
@ Sallie @ A Woman’s Freedom in Christ:
Yes, he is trying to push his blog.
Alex Guggenheim wrote:
Alex, So glad you commented. I have read your blog and like it a lot but lost track of it when I got a new computer. Now it is back in my favs.
@ dee: Those comments certainly are “interesting.”
numo wrote:
I couldn’t find the blog/comments. Any hints?
@ Leila:
“She’s embarrassed Denny Burke, the Bayly Brothers, and more so much that they try to shut her up on the least excuse.”
The Bayly Brothers use Greek in their arguments (which here means “yelling a lot and insulting people”)?
Hester wrote:
But only men are allowed to disagree with the Baylys. If you are a woman and disagree (no matter how much better your Greek is than theirs) they will demonize you, delete you, or tell you to shut up.
@ Bridget:
I may be wrong, but I believe they are referring to the comments here:
http://jaredmoore.exaltchrist.com/2013/03/22/top-christian-blogs/#comments
@ BeenThereDoneThat:
Thanks 🙂
Gavin, I take it back. You may have some funny lines that you borrowed, but a sense of humor includes empathy and imagination and you have neither. And this “I am sorry that you are still offended and I am sorry that I caused you to be offended.” is not an apology. What you are shouts so loudly that I can’t hear what you say, I mean, quote.
I love that Ma and Pa Kettle video. There is another version of this by Abbot and Costello that I use in my math classes every semester. See also Math Bunker Style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da0eaiZ0CKw
@ Bridget:Just link to the Jared Moore post in Deb’s blog and then scroll to the bottom. He has accused us of being liars. I have written him privately.
@ dee:
Thanks. I originally googled his name and blog, but couldn’t find the article. I did see it eventually — not that it was edifying or anything. Numbers and big names don’t impress me in the least, never have much.
@ dee:
Numbers and big names don’t impress me either.
If there’s anyone who tries to get the facts straight, and make corrections when there’s been a mistake, it’s you. It just proves Mr. Moore does indeed have an agenda. Most certainly he has a false opinion of you. Might his comments be construed as gossip or slander? 😉
Gavin White wrote:
I have this, and I am not a Calvinist.
@ dee:
Being called a liar is a serious charge but the burden is on him to prove it. He should be ashamed of himself, but he sadly will not be.
dee wrote:
I hope Jared explains why he accused you two of being liars with specifics. But remember, they often have their own definitions for things.
I see Jared tweeted about TWW writing about him and he cannot to wait to see all the “grace filled” comments here. (He gets to define “grace filled”, of course)
Guys, this is exactly what the YRR world is like. They get to define so they are always grace filled and right. They are always, in their minds, the opposite of what they accuse you of. I have never seen anything like it in my life in so vast a movement in Christendom.
If you have ever read up on what it is like to deal with narcissism, this movement exhibits many of the characteristics. In fact, I would bet Jared is thrilled with the attention.
@ Anon 1:
Bless his little heart. Grin.
@ Anon 1:
I’m afraid that many of the FUNDAMENTALIST in the SBC suffer from this same narcissistic tendency.
“Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'”
-Mark Twain
I’m just trying to figure out how a pastor suddenly becomes a statistician! And why anyone would think such a person is an authority or carries any importance in the field. It’s kind of like asking a jet engine mechanic to perform open heart surgery.
@ Bridget: I am trying to clear up a few things with him by email. I do need to get the accusations of lies and deceit dealt with.
@ Anon 1: I am attempting to reach a resolution by email, especially on the liars, deceit and falsehood stuff. I will report any movement.
After spending a bunch of time researching his church in Hustonville, we could not find a website so I have asked him for one. But, best as we can tell from a post he wrote about having no baptisms in his church in 2011, we used numbers provided from 2010
In 2010 it appears that there were 7 baptisms which resulted in an increase of 11% of his congregation.So there were 64 members. Well, 63.6 but my husband made me say 64 so I hope I am not accused of being a liar.
Oh, yeah, I think it may be SBC (which makes sense) and there appears to be 2 pastors.
Anon 1 wrote:
Comments were probably deleted because well, you know, there’s nothing a women can teach these “men” anyway – which I agree with, not because it’s biblical, but because these “men” are too daft to listen.
Daffodil
Pray for Gavin. He is to be pitied. He is banned from the blog from now on.
Daffodil, Finally Gavin actually makes readable sense. I could never tell what he was trying to say here. He was not exactly direct but seemed to enjoy playing games. Which is always indicative of one not sure of themselves.
Now I have a better idea.
Thanks for posting.
I wonder what the ratings would do with the Lord Jesus Christ’s blog? Somehow I doubt that God would make the top 10. And then I didn’t see any mention in the rather arbitrary Church Relevance criteria to exposing evil. Like TWW. That doesn’t appear to be viewed as a valid ministry these days. Pharisees don’t like to have light shined on them. And, as long as the religion of the Pharisees prevails, the ratings will put the Sanhedrin’s blogs in the top 10.
I mean, in my comment above, that TWW exposes evil.
@ Jeff Crippen:
Right on, Jeff!
@ dee:
@ Anon 1:
Who is Daffodil?
@ dee:
Was it not amazing? He had to run back over to Jared’s place and share with Jared he had been banned from TWW.
@ mot:It appears that Gavin has a problem. I believe he (or so he claims, who knows) will do this to other blogs as well. They will now be “blessed” with his presence.
He exhibits the pattern of a troll. He comes in, pretends to be nice, intellectual, thoughtful and then slowly escalates (IMO). I might suspect that he/she has done this before.
The problem with blogging is to figure out who is commenting legitimately and who is playing a game. The vast majority are sincere and so that is how I treat people who come here, even if they sharply disagree with us. If such a person gets a little out of hand, I put them on ice for a short while and let them try again.
In “he who claims to be Gavin”‘s case, he did comment off blog to me and I was not encouraged by his communication but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
My guess is he will troll around, leaving comments about TWW on lots of blogs. Eventually most people will see it for what it is. I hope that all the blogs he shows up at will also join us in praying for him.
@ Bridget: I know who Daffodil and he/she is legitimate.
Dee – You are correct. You and I have seen this troll behavior before. They get banned and go frolicking from one blog to another.
Jeff – I just checked out Jared’s blog and if you read in the comments, he talks about leaving out discernment blogs with the next top 250 blog release – – – those would be blogs that expose evil. Seems to me the Bible and Jesus did a lot of discerning of evil. I find it strange to leave something as important as that out of the top Christian blogs.
BTW – Where is the original Daffodil comment. Am I blind?
@ dee:
I should have said “where” is Daffodil’s comment? I wanted to read it.
@ Jeff Crippen:
For the life of me I cannot figure out why exposing evil would not be a “legitimate” ministry, since it’s directly commanded in the Bible (Eph. 5:11). If it’s not “legitimate,” then why does it take up so much space in the Gospels? And why did Paul get so crabby at all those false teachers? I think he got a little too “mean-spirited” in Galatians when he said he wished they’d go castrate themselves (Gal. 5:12)…
I just want to know why so many Reformed bloggers are named Jared.
@ Hester: One might also wonder why some men, who want those “under” them to show such a degree of submission to them, balk at the idea that “their” churches might be visible to the wider church and that they might in any way be held accountable by people they didn’t themselves appoint.
SMG,
Yes, I agree. I get them confused.
Sergius Martin-George wrote:
Supposedly nothing in particular about a person can affect whether they’re predestined to be one of the elect, but it does seem like being named Jared really helps…
Sergius Martin-George wrote:
I’m not sure what the significance of this is, but the Hebrew root of the name (y-r-d) means “to descend, to go down.”
Anon 1 wrote:
This is spot on.
I would love to see someone who knows about this sort of thing (clinical psychologist?) write a post about the possible connections between the YRR/Calvinista crowd and NPD. It comes up again and again. It’s uncanny.
Deb,
This may be irrelevant in 2013, but I’ve always wondered about the blog ratings. Back in the day, I used to watch my traffic numbers pretty closely, as well as the traffic numbers of certain other blogs that had the embedded meter thingy. What I found then, is that a site “hit” could be simply a recognition that a blog showed up on page 84 of a Google search without ever being actually visited, much less read. A “search result” was not the same as a site visit.
One blog on my blogroll is and has been listed as one of the top rated Christian blog sites, yet has only a handful of comments. Not sure I “get it.” Not sure I care to.
Steve
Until this last go round, I couldn’t care less about the ratings. However, when I see men manipulating things it raises a flag for me. I am so glad that commenter on his blog asked the question. Now I know that I am a discernent blog and therefore not “worthy” (in spite of the fact we whoop their butts!)