Today I went through my RSS reader and cleaned out a bunch of blogs and sites I no longer read. (I’m under 100 feeds now! Woo hoo!). As I removed many RSS subscriptions I realized that I’ve developed a couple values that determine which ministry blogs I read and which ones I don’t.

Resources
I don’t read blogs just because I have nothing better to do with my time. I read because I want to learn from others and be resourced to do what I love — leading students toward Christlikeness.

Updated Consistently
It doesn’t matter to me whether the site is updated once a week or once a day, I just want to see that it’s consistent. Little blogging sprees followed by two weeks of silence lead me to wonder if the author has dropped the blog or not.

Original Material
Unfortunately, a lot of youth ministry blogs seem to be especially prone to copying other people’s material instead of generating their own.

Thought Provoking
When an author gives me their original thoughts, I want it to make me think about what they’ve shared, even if they think I’ll disagree. I want to mull it over, apply it to my personal situation and leave wanting more of the author’s perspective.

Authenticity
I love hearing about the author’s personal life, challenges and success. I can easily identify with an author who is willing to be vulnerable with me and provide a backdrop for the rest of their posts. That author quickly earns my respect.

Focused
Unless it’s a personal friend of mine, blogs that talk about everything under the sun lose my attention (i.e. sports, weather, church, friends, last night’s dinner). That’s the difference between a youth ministry blog and a youth pastor’s blog.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that these values have also determined the direction of my own blog. Looking over my archives, I’ve basically built the site that I’d like to read myself if I was a subscriber.

And by the way, if you’re not a subscriber and would like to follow a blog like this, subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up to receive the updates via email.

Posted on September 24, 2007