Andy Rowell | Church Leadership Conversations

The Best Blogs for Church Leaders to Read

Update March 2008:

See my new List of 81 Church Leadership Blogs I am watching.

Original Post:

These are the very best 70 blogs for Church Leaders. 

Ok, ok, who can really say what the best ones are considering the vast internet and the huge spectrum of churches?  But this is a good place for start if you are interested in innovative, emerging, megachurch, American churches like I am.  (See also Kevin Hendrick's list of The Top 20 Web Sites for Church Communicators)

The blogs that made my list have met at least 5 of the 6 criteria below.   

1. They help me improve my church leadership. 

2. They write thoughtfully.  Emotion and rants are great but they should take into account the different sides of an issue.  You shouldn't be mean-angry unless serious injustice is taking place.    

3. They keep their writing about personal things to 20% or less.  I don't want to read about what they had for breakfast or see their vacation photos.  But personal reflection on the material is great!

4. Often they are proven writers with published books. 

5. These blogs have not been eliminated from my blogroll for some other reason.  Admittedly, I often just skim post titles of these blogs and don't read all that they write.

6. The design of the blog is sufficiently attractive. 

This is my "blogroll" i.e. the blogs I skim.  See my post about Newsgator entitled "How I Keep Up Reading Blogs." 

Feel free to suggest your own blog in the comments or others you would recommend. 

Two other similar posts by me are: The Best Podcasts for Church Leaders (and how to use ITunes) and The Best Free Audio on the Web for Church Leaders.   

The very best blogs for church leaders:

Alan Hirsch - The Forgotten Ways - Hirsch has written the important books The Shaping of Things to Come and the new The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church

Alan Nelson, Stan Toler, et al. - Rev! Unplugged - Rev. is the magazine by Group Publishing for pastors

Alex McManus - into the mystic - brother of Erwin and was active at Mosaic until recently

Andrew Jones - TallSkinnyKiwi - well known emerging church blogger from outside the USA.

B.J. Woodworth - what's your wood worth? - missional pastor in Pittsburgh

Ben Witherington - Great New Testament scholar at Asbury Seminary

Bob Roberts, Jr. - the Glocal Trekker Blog - wrote new book Glocalization and pastors in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas area

Brian Bailey - Leave It Behind & Blogging Church - has the new book Blogging Church

Brian McLaren - well known emerging church leader and writer

Byron K. Borger - Hearts & Minds BookNotes - great book reviews from great bookstore owner between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh

C. Wes Daniels - gathering in light - Fuller Ph.D. student under emerging church author Ryan Bolger

CatalystSpace - Catalyst conference blog

Chris Scharen - faithasawayoflife - works with Miroslav Volf at Yale Center for Faith and Culture; Emory Ph.D.

Christianity Today Magazine - great resources here.  I love Weblog highlights. 

Craig Groeschel and Bobby Gruenewald - LifeChurch.tv : swerve - "the most innovative church in the nation" (Later note: August 1, 2007: These rankings about "most innovative" by Church Report are probably not from a reputable source.  See article about founder). 

Dan Kimball - Vintage Faith - author of Emerging Church and a new book on getting out of the office as a pastor They Like Jesus But Not the Church

Dave Ferguson - Velocity - pastor in Naperville, IL pioneering the multi-site thing with pastors preparing sermons together.  Has a new book The Big Idea.

David Fitch - the great giveaway - Has critical look at American church book  The Great Giveaway - teaches at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL and pastors

Doug Pagitt - the pagittBlog - pastor of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis area and wrote Preaching Reimagined and other books

Douglas LeBlanc, et al. - GetReligion - variety of Christian journalists put stuff here

Dwight Friesen

Earl Creps - just wrote Off-Road Disciplines which I reviewed in the previous post.

Ed Young resources - CreativePastors - pastor of huge church(es) in Texas - Fellowship Church

Emergent Village - they have a blog - the main organization for the emerging church movement in the US

emergingchurch.info

Eric Swanson - author of The Externally Focused Church

Gavin Richardson - Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd

Gifted for Leadership - great new women's blog from Christianity Today - highly recommended

Gordon Atkinson - Real Live Preacher - rlp's blog - famous blog - has a book Reallivepreacher.com

Greg Surratt - Personal - wrote The Multi-Site Church Revolution

Greg Surratt - Seacoast Church Blog - wrote The Multi-Site Church Revolution

Holly Rankin Zaher - happydaydeadfish - emerging church leader - personal blog mostly

Jamie Arpin-Ricci - (e)mergent Voyageurs - canadian avid blogger and emerging church leader

Jason Powell - Church IT and other musings - runs technology at one of the most innovative churches in the nation at Granger Community Church and is Taylor University grad

Jim Plueddemann - The Missionary Iconoclast - teaches missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

John Mark Rutter - Theological Ruminator - blogger pastor friend from Texas

John Stackhouse - Professor of Theology at Regent College and wrote Humble Apologetics and other books

J.R. Briggs - brokenstainedglass - graduated in 2001 from Taylor University and is a pastor in Souderton, PA at Calvary Church and has written a couple of books including When God Says Jump

Kem Meyer on Less Clutter & Noise - marketing expert at Granger Community Church.  One of my favorite bloggers.

Kent Shaffer - churchrelevance.com - some interesting stuff here on marketing and the church.

Kevin D. Hendricks, et al. - Church Marketing Sucks - great blog about how to improve marketing in churches

Leadership journal and resources for church leaders - great journal from Christianity Today folks. 

Leadership Network Leanings - Leadership Network is a great organization interested in megachurches and leadership.

Leonard Sweet - Napkin Scribbles - prolific author - most recently 2007 The Gospel According to Starbucks

LeRon Shults, James K.A. Smith, John Franke, Klyne Snodgrass, Roger Olson, et al. - Generous Orthodoxy ThinkTank - variety of people write academic stuff here

Marc Heinrich - purgatorio - great humor and satire here

Mark Batterson - Thoughts on Life and Leadership - energetic pastor from Washington, D.C. - has a new book In a Pit with Lion on a Snowy Day

Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer, Anthony Bradley, et al. - TheResurgence - these are Conservative Reformed, Southern Baptist and PCA.  So if you are in that camp, good voices.

Mark D. Roberts Blog - Theology Ph.D. trained pastor

Mark Galli - GalliBlog - editor of Christianity Today

Mark Waltz | ...because People Matter - pastor of welcome at Granger Community Church and author of First Impressions

Michael Bird & Joel Willitts - Euangelion - two young New Testament scholars keep us up to date on the latest in NT scholarship

nextwave News

Out of Ur - the central hub for church leadership info is Leadership journal and this blog

Perry Noble dot com

Pete Rollins - author of book sensation How (Not) To Speak of God

Richard Mouw - Mouw's Musings - The President's Blog - president of Fuller Seminary and prolific author including He Shines in All That's Fair

Ron Martoia - velocityculture - wrote books including Morph: The Texture of Leadership for Tomorrow's Church

Ryan Bolger - TheBolgBlog - author of Emerging Churches and Fuller Seminary professor

Scot McKnight - Jesus Creed North Park New Testament professor and best blogger ever.  Wrote Jesus Creed and many more books. 

Scott Collins-Jones - SCJToday - Philadelphia presbyterian pastor and Princeton Ph.D. student in theology

Steve Taylor - e~mergent kiwi - wrote Out of Bounds Church

Susan - The Philosophical Pastor

The CBE Scroll - pro-women in ministry blog

Think Christian - variety of people post here

Tim Conder - Wonderings & Wanderings - author of Church in Transition; doesn't look like he has blogged since September

Tim Stevens - LeadingSmart - pastor of administration at Granger Community Church and author of Simply Strategic Stuff et al.

Todd Rhoades - Monday Morning Insight - lots of Christian news

Tony Jones - Theoblogy - emergent village coordinator and author of many books including The Sacred Way

Tony Morgan | one of the simply strategic guys - former pastor at Granger Community Church now a pastor in South Carolina

Business people worth reading if you are a church leader:

John Moore - Brand Autopsy

Chip & Dan Heath - author of Made to Stick

Fast Company Now - business magazine

Harvard Business School Working Knowledge - some good stuff here from secular leadership headquarters of the US

Kevin Carroll - Katalyst Blog - interviewed on Catalyst Conference podcast; used to work for Nike; inspirational speaker and author of Rules of Red Rubber Ball

Seth Godin - Blog - has written many books including All Marketers are Liars

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner - Freakonomics Blog - thoughtful economic insight from book authors

Tim Sanders - Sanders Says - leadership expert and author of books including The Likeability Factor.  Was interviewed on Catalyst Conference podcast. 

Tom Peters Weblog - business leadership expert and author of many books including Reimagine!: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age

Taylor University Friends:

Andrew Ulasich - digging for mummies - senior

David Landt - The Way of Jesus - graduated in 1997 and is pastor in Minnesota

Jim Garringer Photography - Taylor's photographer

Ken Castor - jesusfollower - graduated in 1994? and is pastor in Calgary

Gary Friesen - Becoming a Millennial: 53-yr-old takes the dive - oversees technology at Taylor

Gary Thomas - art professor at Taylor

Other friends of mine:

Kirk Bartha - from theocity to lovelocity - went to Regent College with him and he is pray-er, prophet, preacher in Canada.

Steve Gisel - Asi Es La Vida... - Cousin working for the Peace Corps in Columbia

How I Keep Up Reading Blogs

If you are  new to reading blogs, I will tell you more about why you might want to use a RSS_aggregator like NewsGator Online (Free version).

[Update: March 2008, I use Google Reader now]. 

Summary of what NewsGator does for me:

In the previous post I placed all the 44 church leadership blogs that I am currently "subscribed to."   You can scroll through them and see what's of interest to you. But there is an easier way.  I check my NewsGator Online (Free version) website each day and it gives me the headlines of all the new posts.  You can save stuff to read later in your "clippings."  After scanning them, I click "read all posts" so that only new ones show up next time.  Newsgator works well.  I recommend it.  It takes a few minutes to get set up but it is worth it once you start using it. 

Story of how I came to use NewsGator:

When I was first blogging, I went through and searched for like-minded blogs.  I looked on other people's blog rolls, etc.  I saved them all in a folder in my favorites.  Then I would browse through them once a month and see if there was anything of interest.  But I would end up re-reading things that I had already read.  And some people would not have posted anything new.  And sometimes the conversation was already over by the time I read the post.  A couple times, authors offered free books to the first people who would email so-and-so.  Well, I always missed that.

That is the great thing about having something like NewsGator.  (I'm happy to have other people recommend their newsreader if they recommend it).  Here is Wikipedia's explanation of what an aggregator is and here is a list of all of them available. 

Basically, with NewsGator, you just go and search for the blogs that you want to subscribe to.  So you put in "Jesus Creed" and Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog appears and you click "Subscribe."  Or you can simply paste in the URL (web address) of the blog and NewsGator finds the feed for it and subscribes you.  You can always unsubscribe.  Then whenever you open your NewsGator webpage, it will tell you the headlines of all the posts since you last checked it.

I recommend picking a few blogs and trying it.   

Note: I had subscribed to a bunch of news sites like CNN, NY Times, Fortune Magazine, etc. but they have too many posts each day so I decided not to subscribe to them.

The List of Church Leadership Blogs I Subscribe To

Below I have put the church leadership blogs that I currently "subscribe to."  I check my NewsGator Online (Free version) website each day and it gives me the headlines of all the new posts.   

If you are new to reading blogs, I will tell you more about why you might want to use a RSS_aggregator like NewsGator in the next post. 

I have not put many blogs on my permanent blogroll on the side of this page (only the firmly established Andrew Jones, Scot McKnight, and Out of Ur) because the blogs vary so much in quality and frequency but I thought I would share all of them here.  Some of the people I know personally, some I don't.  I have put a few quick notes below.      

I would be happy to hear your recommendations on others I/we should check out. 

Aaron Flores - theVoiz
Andrew Jones - TallSkinnyKiwi - emerging church leading blogger in New Zealand I think
Andy Rowell - Church Leadership Conversations - Me!
B.J. Woodworth - what's your wood worth? - I know BJ from Pittsburgh with Senior Capstone Trip.  He is a church planting pastor of an emerging church. 
Ben Witherington - NT Scholar at Asbury. 
Bill Arnold- Poet in Motion; image sound theology
Bill Kinnon - achievable leadership
Bob Robinson - Vanguard Church
Brian McLaren - well known author of a New Kind of Christian and A Generous Orthodoxy and an emerging church movement spokesman
Byron K. Borger - Hearts & Minds BookNotes - I know Byron from Senior Capstone Trip.  He is the owner of a great bookstore.  This is a great blog about books. 
C. Wes Daniels - gathering in light - Ph.D. student at Fuller under Ryan Bolger.  See Ryan's blog below. 
Chris Monroe - Paradoxology
Christianity Today at the Movies: Reviews
Christianity Today Magazine
Church Marketing Sucks - trying to improve church marketing but pointing out that much of it is typically not good.
Dan Kimball - Vintage Faith - author of Emerging Church and Emerging Worship
David Fitch - the great giveaway - author of new book The Great Giveaway
Doug Pagitt’s Blog - Emerging Church movement high profile person and author of Preaching Re-Imagined. 
Ed Cyzewski - inamirrordimly
Ed Young resources - CreativePastors - influential gigachurch pastor from Texas
emergent-us
emergingchurch.info
Gavin Richardson - Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd
Generous Orthodoxy ThinkTank
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
J.R. Briggs - brokenstainedglass - friend from Taylor University who is a young adult pastor at a megachurch in the Philadelphia area.  He has also written a book. 
Jim Plueddemann - The Missionary Iconoclast - professor of missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
John Mark Rutter - Theological Ruminator - new pastor
Kem Meyer on Less Clutter & Noise - she has Granger Community Church connections.  I think she is an employee there. 
Kirk Bartha - from theocity to lovelocity - friend from Regent College who is a prophet, pray-er and preacher. 
Lauren Winner - superb author and infrequent blogger
Leadership Blog: Out of Ur

Leadership journal and resources for church leaders
Mark Waltz | ...because People Matter - author and a pastor at Granger Community Church
Michael Bird and Joel Willitts- Euangelion - New Testament scholar in Scotland and NT scholar at North Park University in Chicago
nextwave News
Rick Warren - wrote a couple of books
Ryan Bolger - TheBolgBlog - professor at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Emerging Churches
Scot McKnight - Jesus Creed - professor of New Testament at North Park and prolific author
Scott Collins-Jones - SCJToday - I know Scot from Senior Capstone Trip in Philadelphia.  He is a Ph.D. student at Princeton Theological Seminary in theology and a PCUSA pastor in Philadelphia. 
Steve Taylor - e~mergent kiwi - author of Out of Bounds Church and lives in New Zealand
Tim Stevens - LeadingSmart - author and a pastor at Granger Community Church
Tony Jones - Theoblogy - author and Emergent Village coordinator
Tony Morgan | one of the simply strategic guys - author and a pastor at Granger Community Church