To be honest, I’m a little disappointed as I look over my blog stats for 2006 and see which posts where the most popular last year. As I said before, blogging about tech-related issues always generates a lot more traffic than posts about youth ministry, which is unfortunate because youth ministry is really what I’m passionate about. I would’ve liked to see a long list of youth ministry topics here instead, but oh well.

#1. How to correct misspelled words added to Firefox 2.0 dictionary
I wrote this tutorial trying to help other people who have the same problem I did with fixing misspelled words accidentally added to Firefox’s dictionary. Apparently there’s a couple thousand other people trying to resolve the same problem!

#2. Issues in Youth Ministry: What needs to change?
This series started as a result of some brainstorming I did about my own youth ministry and then expanded to get input from many other youth workers around the world. Turned out pretty well, although the amount of information is pretty overwhelming.

#3. Interesting puzzle
Just like my #1 post of the year, the popularity of this post was also an accident. It was originally a response to one of my youth leaders who asked if I had any idea how to solve a popular online Flash puzzle. I figured it out and posted the answer for her. Apparently thousands of other people had the same question she did.

#4. Distorted perception of beauty
My wife actually posted this before me, but some of my site’s subscribers picked it up from my site so I ended up getting credit for it.

#4. 10 easy steps to guarantee a successful youth ministry
This one cracks me up because of the controversy is started. Some people thought it was actually a legitimate reflection of my own perspective on youth ministry and totally missed the sarcasm behind it.

#5. How to eliminate all spam mail for free
Here again I was only trying to post some helpful information for low-budget youth ministries to eliminate spam mail, but it was picked up by some other tech blogs, not because it’s necessarily a new idea, just because I included screenshots and step-by-step directions with the tutorial.

#6. Why I stay away from MySpace
Although I posted this is March, it wasn’t until a blogger for the Dallas Morning News picked it up several months later that it generated any interest.

#7. Issues in Youth Ministry: Grant English
Grant English served up a great contribution to the “Issues in Youth Ministry” series here. Many people thought it was worth sharing and checking out.

#8. Move over MySpace, Facebook is #1 among teenagers
I’m not really sure why this one became popular since I’m basically only quoting someone else’s research, but I guess my spin on the issue was attractive enough to earn some mainstream attention.

#9. Why students are dropping out of church
This is just my opinion to a question many people are searching for on Google, probably due to all the hype surrounding the unfounded “4% of believers in this generation” statistic.

#10. Liberty Mutual commercial and the body of Christ
Just an observation I made about how this commercial reflects what we should see in the body of Christ. Too bad the commercial reflects it better than we often do.

#11. The daunting job description of a youth pastor
Youth pastors wear so many hats, carry so many responsibilities and are sometimes expected to do it all on their own. No wonder so many of us burn out.

#12. To what extent should I help the homeless?
My response to this question was challenged by a homeless person who said NOT to give money to homeless people. Ever since then I’ve kinda struggled with the balance between helping and hindering this demographic. How much do I give? How much do I refrain?

Posted on January 5, 2007