Top 20 Christian Blogs Remixed.

I decided to remix the recent top Christian Blog List 2 different ways.

Kent Shaffer designed the original list. (He calls it church blogs, I went with Christian.) He’s got a head for numbers that boggles me. (And the irony that Stuff Christians Like slipped from #4 to #18 a day after I wrote why numbers don’t matter was not lost on me. I got whupped on that list.)

I remixed the top 20 blogs in the list based on two things: number of comments and frequency of posts.

Why? Because there are two encouraging things this remix reveals. The first is that you don’t have to have a ton of comments to be relevant. Stuff Christians Like is #18 on Kent’s list but #1 on the comments list. That means just because you might not be getting a lot of comments doesn’t mean you aren’t making an impact. The second thing is that sometimes new bloggers feel they have to write a ton and that feels overwhelming. But the frequency lists shows that’s not true. Michael Hyatt for instance, the #5 on Kent’s list, only posted 4 times in the last week. Interesting lesson in quality vs. quantity.

Here are a few things to keep in mind about this list, including a few problems with it:

1. If the site doesn’t accept comments I couldn’t count it. I would debate Kent that a site that doesn’t accept comments is less of a blog and more of a standard website, but I digress.

2. For the comments list, I didn’t count posts where people were giving away free stuff. Those tend to artificially swell the comments. I also didn’t count posts where it was just a research question, e.g. “Hey, what should do talk about?” Those also tend to swell comments.

3. For the comments, I tried to not count posts that were not indicative of the blog. For instance, one blogger posted the song “Africa” by the band Toto. I didn’t count stuff like that. I tried to ignore guest posts too unless the whole blog was about those as far as the comments went. I counted every post though for the frequency number.

4. I only measured the last ten posts for the comments list and the last week for the frequency list. That means these lists are built with a really small sample section, so they should be taken with a grain of salt.

5. Some blogs aren’t written for comments so just because they have small amounts of comments doesn’t mean they don’t have a healthy community.

6. If you post often, your comments will be less. Justin Taylor for instance posts way more than me so his total comments are divided amongst different posts.

7. I only took the top 20 from Kent’s list so there might be a great blog with tons of comments ranked #49 that did not make my list.

8. I am not a math guy. And you can make Kent’s list say anything. That SCL is tops on comments is not a surprise, but if you made the criteria, “Top Video Posts on Christian Blogs” I’d be dead last. Seriously, all you should take away from this list is that if you’re new to blogging, it’s about more than just your number of comments or frequency of writing.

Without further ado, here are the lists:

Top 20 Most Frequently Updated Christian Blogs in the last 7 days:

1. Between Two Worlds =34 posts

2. Jesus Creed = 25 posts

3. Get Religion = 21 posts

4. Tim Challies = 17 posts

5. Ragamuffin Soul = 12 posts

6. Stuff Christians Like = 11 posts

7. Desiring God = 10 posts

8. Internet Monk = 7 posts

9. Mark D. Roberts = 6 posts

9. (Tied) Pyromaniacs = 6 posts

9. (Tied) Swerve = 6 posts

12. Compassion International = 5 posts

12. (Tied) Without Wax = 5 posts

12. (Tied) Donmilleris = 5 posts

15. Flowerdust = 4 posts

15. (Tied) Michael Hyatt = 4 posts

15. (Tied) Church Marketing Sucks = 4 posts

18. Josh Harris = 3 posts

19. Tall Skinny Kiwi = 2 posts

20. Church Relevance = 1 post

Top 20 Christian Blogs with the Most Comments in last 10 posts:

1. Stuff Christians Like = Kent’s List #18. Comments = 60, 145, 73, 169, 89, 234, 48, 91, 104, 213 = 1,226 total in 10 posts

2. Internet Monk = Kent’s List #8. Comments = 12, 62, 127, 126, 22, 30, 13, 249, 114, 77 = 832 in 10 posts

3. Michael Hyatt = Kent’s List #5. Comments = 66, 40, 80, 263, 120, 75, 34, 14, 17, 38 = 747 in 10 posts

4. Ragamuffin Soul = Kent’s List #24. Comments = 30, 24, 22, 62, 60, 30, 17, 51, 59, 228 = 583 in 10 posts

5. Without Wax = Kent’s List #21. Comments = 56, 69, 39, 35, 63, 50, 82, 17, 81, 49 = 541 in 10 posts

6. Donmilleris = Kent’s List #14. Comments = 35, 39, 38, 49, 34, 131, 48, 38, 46, 55 =513 in 10 posts

7. Pyromaniacs = Kent’s List #7. Comments = 31, 22, 80, 8, 22, 3, 203, 23, 28, 4 = 424 in 10 posts

8. Flowerdust = Kent’s List #17. Comments = 42, 60, 25, 130, 22, 45, 59, 8, 15, 18 = 419 in 10 posts

9. Jesus Creed = Kent’s List #3. Comments = 3, 56, 10, 91, 41, 16, 8, 39, 40, 8 = 312 in 10 posts

10. Desiring God = Kent’s List #1. Comments = 2, 13, 16, 4, 76, 18, 5, 68, 6, 10 = 218 in 10 posts

11. Between Two Worlds = Kent’s List #10. Comments = 10, 7, 16, 15, 2, 4, 14, 8, 83, 2 = 161 in 10 posts

12. Challies = Kent’s List #2. Comments = 14, 9, 7, 14, 6, 7, 6, 26, 17, 27 = 133 in 10 posts

13. Get Religion = Kent’s List #4. Comments = 4, 7, 5, 4, 24, 16, 11, 22, 4, 2 = 109 in 10 posts

14. Swerve = Kent’s List #15. Comments = 0, 3, 5, 2, 10, 6, 5, 22, 14, 31 = 98 in 10 posts

15. Compassion International = Kent’s List #20. Comments = 0, 6, 13, 4, 14, 5, 15, 1, 6, 21 = 85 in 10 posts

16. Tall Skinny Kiwi = Kent’s List #13. Comments = 2, 10, 6, 2, 2, 17, 3, 4, 4, 10 = 60 in 10 posts

17. Church Relevance = Kent’s List #11. Comments = 11, 2, 2, 9, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 7 = 34 in 10 posts

17. (Tied) Church Marketing Sucks = Kent’s List #9. Comments = 2, 2, 1, 9, 0, 0, 5, 6, 4, 5 = 34 in 10 posts

19. Mark D. Roberts = Kent’s List #19. Comments = 4, 1, 2, 1, 4, 3, 1, 1, 3, 1 = 21 in 10 posts

20. Josh Harris = Kent’s List #22. Comments = 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 3, 6, 1, 0, 2 = 18 in 10 posts