Tag: rankings

  • Behind the Scenes on this Year’s Top 20 List

    Today I published the YS list of top 20 bloggers in youth ministry. It’s the second year for publishing it (third year I’ve done it) and I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

    I thought it’d be cool to pass along some notes from the process:

    • Overall, there was exceptional growth this year. In 2010, the YS Blog was the clear #1. Statistically, it was well ahead of the pack. This year that same blog came in at #5. What happened is that the YS Blog was largely flat in growth, lost its lead, then got passed by 4 blogs to drop it to #5.
    • There were a few new entries to the top 20. Kenda Creasy Dean, Greg Stier, Terrace Crawford, Rethinking Youth Ministry, and Doug Fields are all new to the list in 2011.
    • At quick glance, you’ll notice few women, which continues to baffle me. With what I index, there is a ratio of 5 men for every female youth ministry blogger. What’s weird about that is that the field is typically evenly split with 50% men and 50% women. For now, Kenda Creasy Dean and Kara Powell (Fuller Youth Institute) are our female bloggers. (Kara does about half the blogging for FYI, Brad Griffin does the other half.)
    • Looking at the rankings with a 3 year lens, I’m actually pleased with how the formula works. It’s 66% publicly available stats and 33% an influence ranking. (Who knows where that other 1% goes!) If you’ll look year over year over year, it’s cool that there aren’t wild fluctuations.
    • This list is pretty democratic. I’ll index anyone whose blog is on youth ministry, is active, (posted in the last 60 days) and has some statistical value. (Like… more that 25 readers per day top get into the top 100.)
    • Unlike last year, where we saw a HUGE drop off between #5 and #6, there is no dropoff in the composite ranking. There’s no drop off in the index and that carries all the way to #50.
    • Speaking of the composite ranking. Josh Griffin barely held off Mark Oestreicher for #1 this year. I wasn’t sure who’d be #1 until I added the very last numbers.
    • 2012 is “game on.” I think anyone currently in the top 10 could make a run at the top spot next year. There’s even a couple between 11-20 who could make a run at it.
    • On a personal note, it’s really cool to see my blog creep up from #5 to #4. I’m no Tim Schmoyer. But I’m getting there!
    • Last thing, this is a labor of love. I love doing it. And I have seen how these rankings have been used in the past 2 years, so I know that while everyone feels a bit weird about ranking bloggers… it’s ultimately good for the genre of youth ministry blogs AND it’s good for the visibility of the field of youth ministry.
    Got questions? Leave me a comment.

  • The state of youth ministry blogs

    It’s been a couple of months since I published my list of Top 20 Youth Ministry Blogs at the YS Blog.

    And for the most part the list did what I was hoping it would do. People took notice that YS had taken notice of blogs enough to rank them. And the net effect has been that many who had stopped taking the genre seriously are now take it seriously again.

    It’s hard to explain and its impossible to pin it on just the rankings. But it was clear that youth ministry blogs were on the decline. Now they are noticeably getting stronger.

    Am I taking credit for that? All I’m saying is that publishing the rankings didn’t hurt the genre.

    Here’s a few observations: (In no particular order)

    • The quality, quantity, and effort put into youth ministry blogs has increased in the past two months since the rankings went public.
    • There are lots of new youth ministry blogs to index– awesome!
    • The method used to calculate the top 50 will continue to refine.
    • It looks like I only missed a few sites that could have hit the top 50. (This was my big fear!) I did ask those who voted on the top 50 to tell me who was missing, that group brought up only 2 blogs that weren’t indexed. For a first public shot… that’s not bad.
    • For 2011, I’m glad that I’m just the math guy and I get to turn over the influence ranking part (33% of the overall ranking) to the 2010 top 20 bloggers.
    • Basically, everyone from #11-20 wants to be in the top 10. Which is fantastic because it forces EVERYONE to grow and get better just to stay in the top 20. I’d be impressed if anyone can crack the top 5… there is a big statistical hurdle between a top 5 blog and the rest.
    • I’ve noticed a lot of folks in last years top 50 are making changes. They are getting right with Technorati and Google. They are making sure their RSS feed works. They are probably doing some SEO stuff. In other words, the whole class of youth ministry blog is getting better not just from a content side… but from a set-up side.
    • I think I’m going to exclude from index if they haven’t updated in 30 days. It’s tough because it takes me a couple of weeks to get through the data. So I might just index everyone and scrub the data right before I send the top 50 for influence ranking to the top 20.
    • Those of us on the list have had some weird effects. I know I’ve heard more bizarre product pitches in the last two months than I’d ever heard before. And marketers have definitely taken notice. Crazy town.
    • Yes, I think it is possible for a new blog to make a first year appearance in the top 20. Because some of the indexes that go into the composite score take time to build… I sincerely doubt anyone could amass the traffic to go from launch to the top 10 though. But I’m sure its possible.
    • I’ve had to laugh at the humility thing of those on the list. Lots of people on the list don’t know how to react. Christians try to act humble when they are proud. I think it’s OK that they are OK being on the list. It’s not like they politicked to get on the list… no one knew it was coming!
    • Speaking of politics, unlike other rankings in our world, the YM blog ranking is open. If anyone thinks their blog has a legit shot at getting into the top 20, let me know so I can start indexing it. Last year, I indexed more than 100 blogs. I have a feeling I’ll be indexing 200+ in 2011.
    • A lot of people have asked me about adding Twitter/Facebook numbers into the mix. I’m resisting that urge for a number of reasons. I actually think blog indexing and social media indexing are two different things. Truth is, size of a social media circle is completely meaningless.

  • Football, Church, and polls

    bowdenAugust 1st arrives and I find myself drawn to coverage of football. I’m not really into baseball. With 164 regular season games I struggle to care between April and September. The NBA playoffs last almost as long as the regular season so that has never interested me. March Madness is fantastic, but it only lasts a month. And I can’t get into watching hockey on TV so that is out. College football is, by far, my favorite sport to get into.

    The Pre-Season polls are starting to come out. This is the one thing that truly irks me about college football. So much is determined about the outcome of the football season before the ball is kicked off in September. It simply makes no sense to me that you pre-rank teams before they’ve played a game knowing that the polls will eventually determine who gets ot play in the national championship game. The same 25 teams are in the top 25 each fall. It’s as though the script for college football has already been written. Tim Tebow, back for his senior season, will play either Texas or Oklahoma for a national championship… depending on who wins the conference championship game. A playoff is the only thing that will fix this. And even that will be effected by pre-season polls.

    church-rankingsA few years back I was hanging out with some friends and we were discussing setting up a fantasy church league. You know, put out church rankings based on attendence, power of sermon, quality of worship service. Add to the mix some Church Center replays and postgame talk… we could probably get enough interest to put out weekly rankings. “Late in the sermon it looked like Craig Groeschell was losing his audience. Heads dipped and the internet interaction started to slow. But then he threw in an unexpected hail mary altar call and brought it down! What a pro finish!” or “John Piper’s delivery was flawless on Sunday. His precision in slicing and dicing that passage, tying in the joy application, that was a thing of beauty. Church Center play of the week nominee, for sure.” But then we thought it’d make the whole thing just weird if it blew up and pastors started spiking Bibles and dudes started getting endorsement deals. Can you imagine a postgame interview from Perry Noble? “First off, I need to give all the glory to Jesus Christ. Second of all, I couldn’t have done it without my Pepsi Worship Team and the Tommy Nelson Gospel Choir. Without them, we wouldn’t have won today.”

    Thankfully, we came to our senses on that one. The last thing anyone wants is for megachurches to start lobbying supporters for all-star votes!

    Football wouldn’t be the same without rankings. Church wouldn’t either.