top ten

Two “Top Ten” Lists for 2019 – Part 2

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Two “Top Ten” Lists for 2019

Part 2 – Top Ten Blogs of 2019

Yesterday, I published my “Top Ten” (actually Top Five) sermons from last year.  What follows is the list of my most “popular” blog posts.

#10) “Fear” (February 21)

Writing before the Special General Conference on issues of sexuality in the United Methodist Church I shared a few words for those who were worried about the outcome and the future of our church.  Although that conference is over and the future is slightly more in focus, my opinion hasn’t changed.

#9) “So, What Do We Do on a Mission Trip?” (September 25)

After our team returned from our latest trip to The Joy Center and Red Bird Mission in Kentucky, I explained a little about what happens there.

#8) “One Year In” (June 20)

A few words on my first anniversary at Christ Church

#7) “Pastor’s Report 2019” (October 28)

My summary of our year written for our official Charge Conference report.

#6) Confession and Pardon for Scout Worship (July 28)

Here I share my contribution to a Protestant worship service at the World Scout Jamboree in the event that that others might it useful for future scouting events.

#5) “What Happens When We Die?” (November 1)

One of my friends asked this question online and I shared it here because I know others have asked the same question.

#4) “Cutting the Baby in Half” (October 24)

Regardless of its apparent necessity, I don’t think that dividing the United Methodist Church will end well for anyone any more than Solomon’s proposal to cut a baby in half.

#3) “I’m Not Going” (March 25)

I explained to my congregation, and to anyone who cares, that regardless of how our denomination may, or may not, divide, I have no plans to leave this local church.

#2) “Do We Need a Catholic Order of Methodists?” (October 30)

While I doubt that anyone cares what I think, this is my proposal for how our denomination might stay together.

#1) “A Jamboree Honeymoon” (July 31)

While I was at the World Scout Jamboree, I met a young couple who were so passionate about scouting that they were spending their honeymoon sleeping in separate tents and working as staff so that scouts from all over the world could have the experience of a lifetime.  This post was read almost eight times more than #2 and ten times more frequently than #3 because it got picked up by both our Annual Conference and our denominational web pages.

Honorable mention

“Changing the World with Muddy Boots” (July 23)

While this is officially my least read blog of 2019 (and probably the shortest), it’s still has an important message and is one of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

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Two “Top Ten” Lists for 2019 – Part 1

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Two “Top Ten” Lists for 2019

Hi everyone. I’m never sure that doing these “top ten” lists are worth doing, but when I have done them, as I found this year, I usually find something that I hadn’t noticed the first time.  Occasionally, we learn things from looking backward if only to see how far we’ve come.  With that in mind, what follows are two such “top ten” lists.  The first is the ten most read, or at least the most “clicked” sermons that I posted last year, and the second is a similar listing of my most “popular” blog posts. And, before I even get started, I’m backing up again.  As I look at my list of how many “reads” there were for last year’s sermons, the numbers are really so close together that listing ten seems to be a bridge too far.  After the first five, each message was read less than 20 times, and there is six-way tie for sixth so it would have been a “top eleven” list anyway.

Part 1 – Top Ten Five Sermons

#5) March 31 “How often in our lives have we heard phrases like, “You aren’t good enough,” “You aren’t rich enough,” “You aren’t smart enough,” “You aren’t pretty (or handsome) enough,” “You aren’t one of us,” “We don’t want you here,” “Why don’t you and your friends sit… over there.” Almost all of us, at one time or another, were one of the outsiders.  We didn’t “fit” in the popular group.  We weren’t wanted.  We didn’t measure up to whatever standards that group thought were important.” The good news, for all of us, is that God has an entirely different opinion.  Find out what that is in Return of the Rejects.   #4) April 18 “Most of the time, the commands of Jesus don’t rise to the level of a “commandment” because it isn’t something that applies to everyone.” “ But at the conclusion of the Passover feast, Jesus says something that he intends to be a lasting instruction, an enduring command, a “commandment” if you will, that applied not only to the disciples, but everyone who would ever claim the name of Jesus for all time.” There is something for all of us to remember from this Holy Thursday message, A New Commandment.   #3) August 25 “How many times can someone need to wash their hair when you ask them out on a date?  Or be out of town every single time you ask them to help with something?  Look, if you don’t want to go on that next mission trip, just tell me that you don’t want to go, and I’ll quit bothering you about it.  But, can you imagine how many excuses God has heard when he asks his people to do stuff?  And, don’t you think that God knows that we’re just making excuses?  Of course, he does.” Take a hard look at all the excuses we make for not doing what God has called us to do in No Fear, No Dogma, No Excuses.   #2) November 17 “As much as we dislike trouble, and as painful as it can be, pain and trouble seem to be an integral part of life itself.  Where there is life, trouble seems to be present.” “But even though trouble and pain and suffering are always there, it seems fair to wonder what God thinks about it, why God allows it, or what God is doing about it.  So, together, let’s explore that idea for a little while…” in Trouble Times Three.   #1) August 18 “What do you do when everything seems to be going badly? You know what I mean.  When your plans are falling apart, and nothing is going the way that you expected it to go.  Worse than that, what do you do when the tide, and life itself, seems to have turned against you?” “When things are going well, enjoy it, and give thanks to God.”  But sometimes you just have to Embrace the Suck.   That’s long enough for today, but tune in tomorrow for Part 2 – Top Ten Blogs of 2019        
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Top Ten 2012 Blog Posts

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    As promised, here are my top ten blog posts of 2012.  There are a few interesting points that I will note along the way, but among these is just the growth of this blog.  While it is still pitifully small compared to some of the mainstream “big name” bloggers with tens of thousands of subscribers (I have five), there is a marked difference between 2011 and 2012.  In the last year, the number of readers has grown enough that of all the posts included in last year’s list, only the number one post from 2011 would have made this list and even then at number eight. Hey, while you’re here, why don’t you click on the “Subscribe to Blog Updates” link in the right hand column?
    In any case, the readership of this blog, however small, has doubled in one year, and for that, I am both humble and grateful.  I hope that my musings make you think, regardless of whether we agree or not.  This year’s list is reversed, David Letterman style, with number ten presented first, so that you have to scan the whole list to see the most popular.
10) As was the case in other multi-part blogs I have written, “Part 2, Politicians, Rape and Bad Theology”, was less popular than Part 1 (which comes in at number 7).
9) In, “Is It Time to End Spousal Benefits?” I pondered the injustices of the way that many employee benefits as well as Social Security and other Federal benefits are calculated.  Several comments showed me that that my thinking was not as clear as I would have liked and made me think that I may need to think this through a bit more and revisit the subject sometime down the road.
8) “Why I Stand With the Catholic Church” discusses why I agree that our federal government is overreaching in its demand that church agencies be compelled to pay for contraception and abortion inducing drugs despite in a clear violation of their religious beliefs.
7) Politicians, Rape and Bad Theology (Part 1) is the first, and most popular, of my reaction to some seriously dumb things that were said by politicians.  Honestly, I sometimes think that this happens every day, but when these same politicians begin to justify their dumb stuff by saying that it’s God’s fault, I have to say something.
6) In John Wesley’s Crazy Rules?, I list the rules that the early Methodists had agreed to live by.  Today, most all have been abandoned and most church members would panic if we even suggested bringing them back.  On the other hand, under these rules the church grew and under ours we’re shrinking.  Perhaps something in this list we ought to learn from?
5) Why is Homosexuality an Argument Instead of a Discussion? Isn’t even my blog post, but a link to a post by Dr. John Byron, one of my seminary professors.  Here we wonder why everyone wants to demonstrate and shout from their polarized positions, but not have an honest discussion about the issues.
4) The blog entitled, “Just How Many Homosexuals Are There?” was taken, by some, as a political post even though I made some effort to deliberately distance myself from making any overt political statements.  The unfortunate truth, as we’ve seen in other posts, is that anything regarding abortion, homosexuality and a few other topics automatically become argumentative instead of the opening of a discussion.  Here, I simply found statistics that indicated that nearly everyone has a dramatically wrong idea of what we are talking about whenever we begin such an argument.
3) What’s the Big Deal About Sex? was written after it was discovered that several Secret Service agents and military personnel had been cavorting with prostitutes during a trip in which they were to be guarding President Obama.  While what they did was immoral, I wonder why all the fuss?  These folks aren’t monks?  Clearly there are national security concerns, but otherwise, in a culture that values sex and money above all else, what do you expect?
2) Censorship is never the answer.  The beauty of our freedom of speech here in the United States is that it allows atheists to blaspheme my religion and my God, but it also allows me to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.  In Christians are Wrong; Atheists are Right I argue that when Christians lobby for censorship to protect them, they really undermine the most important protection of all.
1) This is the one that makes me smile.  I first wrote, Ahimaaz – Patron Saint of Cross Country Running? , about a man known to King David who loved to run.  When it was written, almost no one read it.  For months afterward… almost no one read it.  And then something interesting happened.  Because I suggested that Ahimaaz ought to be a patron saint of long distance runners (clearly, being Methodist, I have no inside track on this), this blog started to turn up in Internet searches for patron saint of cross country and track.  As track season came closer it began to get a few, but regular, hits each week.  By the end of the year, just like the story of the tortoise and the hare, slowly but surely, this blog had become the most popular of the year (and continues to grow).

Top Ten 2011 Blog Posts

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    I know I’m a year late, but as I began to assemble the top ten blog posts of 2012, I realized that there were a few from 2011 that still had value and might well be worth a second look.  Here they are, more or less in order of popularity.
1) God Will Destroy the Fat Cats – November 29, 2011 – A Blog about God’s desire to destroy the rich, well, not really… but sort of.
2) Laws of Man and God – Are guns evil? Part 1 – February 9, 2011 – Part 1 of 4 – The first in a series that I wrote after the shooting of Gabriel Giffords.  Not really pro-gun or anti gun, just asking a lot of questions and thinking out loud.    The first two installments made the year’s top ten, but while part 3 was moderately popular, almost no one made it to part 4.  My lesson?  Even broken into pieces, this was just too long.
3) Happy Birthday Mr. Shea! – February 2, 2011 – A tribute to George Beverly Shea           on his 102nd birthday.  
4) Laws of Man and God – Are guns evil? Part 2– February 10, 2011 – Part 2 of 4
5) Living Together, No Harm No Foul? – April 27, 2011 – Is living together normal, healthy, moral and responsible?  I’m sure you can find lots of people who think it’s a good idea, but, well, no. 
6) Seeing God in the World Around You – March 25, 2011 – A man I never met, weeps during my talk, wondering how I knew so much about his life.  I didn’t.  But God did.
7) 20/20 Blindness – March 31, 2011 – A blind man is thrown out of a restaurant because of his guide dog.  Apparently, humans are just as blind today as the Pharisees that Jesus knew.            
8) Christmas in January – January 4, 2011- I explain why our family still leaves our Christmas decorations us until the first week in January.  Not everyone celebrates Christmas on December 25th you know.
9) Too Busy for God? – May 25, 2011 – Do you plans for the summer, or for the New Year, include church.  If church is important to you, don’t allow it to happen by accident.

    In reality, there was a three or four way tie for tenth place.  Instead of picking one of those, or using all of them, I jump to the blog that comes after the tie because, even though it was read less often, it had more comments than any other blog of the year.  That’s worth something mentioning, I think.

10) A New Digital Divide – Who wins, who loses? – January 19, 2011 – As we become an increasingly technological society, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the people who are being left behind.
Honorable Mention) The Nightmare of Democracy? – February 14, 2011 – I include this, a blog that was written at the very beginning of what we now call the Arab Spring.  In it, I worried that the revolution in Egypt might not be such a great thing.  In the two years since, attacks on Coptic Christians and on the Coptic Church have increased and the government has shown little interest in preventing it.  Events are still unfolding in the Middle East and as they do, out brothers and sisters in Christ will continue to be in need of our prayers.

Top Ten Lists 2010 (Part 2)

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    As I mentioned before, a top ten of my ten blog posts was almost pointless but it does perhaps shed some light on what sorts of things interest the people that are reading my blog.  On the other hand, I have been posting sermons on the web for much longer and the audience for that is, surprisingly, much bigger.  If you don’t know the back-story, this whole Internet ministry is all a series of accidents anyway.  It never would have occurred to me when I began two years ago that I would have 49 online subscribers, two or three dozen email subscribers and that some of these messages would be ‘read’ (or at least opened) almost four hundred times.  It is still simply amazing and the only way that I can make any sense of it at all is to remember 2 Corinthians 12:8-10.  There, God spoke to Paul saying
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
    I began typing out manuscripts of my messages because I lacked the skills and the confidence to speak for twenty minutes from a few notes on a card.  I’m doing better but most of the time I still wouldn’t want to if I didn’t have to.  From my weakness and insecurity God is doing something amazing and his word is going out around the world in ways that none of us can ever know.  In any case, (as you might suspect) this year, some messages were far more popular than others.  Just as obvious, the sermons from the end of the year didn’t really have the same chance as the ones from the beginning of the year.  In any case, here are…
Your top ten sermons for 2010
#1 Power, Protection and Holy Fire – 2010-01-10
This is a message about how we can find safety and comfort in a scary world.  Obviously a lot of people were looking for that.
#2 Quest #3 – The Gift of Sight – 2010-02-14
This #2 was actually the fourth in a series that I preached on the Five Quests of the Christian life and the first of several that made the top ten.
#3 Our Journey – 2010-07-11
It was interesting to see how this became popular with readers.  It was our introduction to our new church and contains a part of our family testimony.  If you think that it is interesting, you can’t imagine what it was like to live through it.
#4 Horoscopes Are NOT Harmless! – 2010-05-30
The first Facebook inspired sermon (at least for me).  I had far too many of my online friends reading and posting horoscopes and it occurred to me that a lot of other folk were probably just as unaware of how stupid and dangerous they can really be.
#5 Secrets and Mysteries – 2010-01-03
Last year’s Epiphany message (The Sunday we remember the Wise Men).  We fall short when our mortal and finite minds try to explain the immortal and infinite.  That’s why we call it a mystery.
#6 Failure or Future? – 2010-03-21
A message dealing with failure and how Jesus tells us to see the world when life slaps us down.
#7 Quest #5 – Tell of God’s Blessing – 2010-02-28
The second from the series on the Five Quests of the Christian Life.
#8 Christian Love and Arrogance? – 2010-05-02
A precautionary tale that we don’t always know what God is doing from the lips of Peter, who, like us, also tried to tell Jesus what to do.
#9 Goodbye – 2010-06-20
Just as #3 was our introduction to our new church, this was our goodbye to our friends at the Johnsville and Steam Corners churches after six years of ministry there.
#10 God Will Provide if… – 2010-06-06
God answers prayer but he is not a genie in a bottle.  What does God require of us?
Honorable mention:
    As I mentioned, the year is short and sermons from the end of the year hardly have a chance against others that had many more months to accumulate ‘votes.’  These messages wouldn’t have won any awards last year, but would have made the list this time… if they hadn’t been from 2009.
Be a World Changer – 2009-12-20
God invites Joe Average to change the world.
Hyperinflation, Locusts and Other Disasters – 2009-11-22
Doom and gloom are everywhere. What do we to do in the face of disaster?
The Garments of Faith – 2009-12-27    
How well do we wear Jesus’ coat?
Overcoming Obstacles (Is His Message- Our Message?) – 2009-12-06  
What obstacles must we overcome to be the people God has called us to be?
Who Do You Trust? – 2009-11-01  
Who is worthy of your trust?