Kingdom Strategist looks back at 2009

I haven’t fully gotten into the blogging groove yet. I’ve been at it for just over a year now but I’m only recently starting to feel like I’m picking up momentum. But I enjoy blogging and I’m especially enjoying all the new people I’ve met and interacted with this year. I know that my blog doesn’t have much to do with these relationships forming but it’s part of it none the less.
Well someone forgot to send me the memo letting me know that bloggers have to do two things at the end of the year.

1. Write a really awesome retrospective post.
2. Write a post highlighting your top content from the past year.

Check and check.

To be honest, far too many things have gone on offline for me this year that I never expected: starting my own strategic consulting business, my second child being born, my sister getting married, becoming an elder at my church, my dad’s cancer worsening… all of which I’m still reeling from and trying to sort through. So I decided that my retrospective should take a different tone. So I wrote about squirrels.

As for my review of popular posts, I only wrote 39 posts this year so I’m conflicted as to what I should include. But nonetheless, here are the top 10 Kingdom Strategist posts from 2009 (based on popularity):

1. Facebook’s popularity and your church’s social media strategy

   // This is by far the most read thing that I wrote this year. I attribute it’s popularity to two things:

   • #1. Piggybacking off of Cynthia Ware and Drew Goodmanson’s popularity. I was fortunate enough to work with these two amazing people researching how social media is helping the church be the church.
   • #2. The surprisingly low competition over the keywords “church” and “social media”. I fully expect this to change in 2010 as more and more people move into this space. But I got the content, the traffic, and the inbound links because I posted this early.

2. State of the Church Online – Research Findings

   // My response to Drew and Cynthia’s seminar on church social media usage plus further analysis. I guess people like this stuff.

3. Tim Keller’s new blog and a triperspectival analysis of today’s church movements.

   // I wrote this post because I’m a fan of Tim Keller, John Frame’s triperspectivalism, and the global church. So when Tim Keller writes a post using triperspectivalism to assess different church movements you can bet I’m all over it.

4. Considerations for developing a Business as Mission strategy

   // This post developed out of a project I did for a missions organization developing the foundation for them to engage in Business as Mission.

5. 15 Reasons “Church Online” Should Be Debated

   // I consider this an important piece simply because I believe it’s true. Proponents and opponents for whether churches can exist online both seem to have developed strong positions on the issue but there doesn’t seem to be much debate. Paul Steinbrueck at OurChurch.com did a great series diving deeper into the issue, but other than that most of what people are say about online church is either why or how. There needs to be more “what if?”

6. Some Thoughts on Leadership

   // My pent-up frustration at the hypocrisy and self-indulgence of the Christian leadership circle.

7. Book Review | The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning

   // A book review I wrote as part of the Ooze’s Viral Bloggers program. I love the way Brennan Manning describes the power and beauty of God’s grace.

8. Have you ever seen a broken heart?

   // I wrote this after breaking up a fight between two boys at my church’s neighborhood youth outreach ministry. I hate the hurt that exists in the world.

9. Update on Stuff Christians Like Building a Kindergarten in Vietnam

   // This was the second of two posts I wrote on the day Jon Acuff and Stuff Christians Like raised $30,000 in one day to build a kindergarten in Vietnam. That was an amazing day and I was blessed to be able to take part.

10. Well done, good and faithful servant!

    // This was the first post I wrote the morning the Stuff Christian’s Like started fundraising to build a school with Samaritan’s Purse in Vietnam. I had seen Jon Acuff a few weeks before and he had mentioned he was working on this so it was amazing to see how it exploded over the course of the day.

So there it is, the top 10 Kingdom Strategist posts from 2009. What will 2010 hold? I don’t know, but here are a few things I’m working on for the blog.
A complete redesign of the site – I don’t have money to hire a designer and I love learning new things so I’ve taken it upon myself to design and build the next version of this site. Who knows when it will launch…

• A bunch of posts tracking with the Excellence in Online Ministry project that I am leading and presenting at the 2010 Christian Leadership Alliance Ministry and Internet Technology Summit. In addition to what I’ll be posting at the State of Ministry Online website, I’ll be including special content here.
• Findings from the State of the Church Online | Member Community and Social Network research project I completed this summer. I’ve been working on the final report for this for awhile now so I’m looking forward to being able to share some of the results here.
• Conversations with my dad – a series of video interviews with my father, asking him questions about his life. This is a way for us to chronicle his life and pr3eserve a lot of our family history. Plus it’s a chance for us to process and mourn the final stages of his battle with lung cancer. This is not something I’m happy to be doing but I know it’s important and I especially want my kids to be able to know their Grandpa Ring when they’re older.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to continuing to serve you in 2010. Feel free to leave me any suggestions for posts in the comment section below.

Have a happy and safe New Year! -Kevin