Tag: Top Posts

My Top Posts of 2022

I’ve done very little writing on this blog in 2022.

So little writing you’d almost think I’ve given this away!

But, this isn’t the case. Life circumstances have changed and publishing content through this website hasn’t been a priority these past 12 months. A change in churches and moving into a Lead Pastor role has meant I’ve continued to write, just not for my personal blog here. There is a hope that as I continue to settle into the role I will begin publishing here again. As I posted last week, I continue to read which often leads to review posts or reading recommendations here and there.

Nevertheless, this year has still seen plenty of visitors and people checking out some old posts. Below is a bit of a summary of who has popped by and what they’ve been interested in. This is something I’ve done in previous years, which you can find here: Top posts for 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015. I also have a collection of writings published elsewhere on the inter-webs, which you can read here.

As to what has been popular on joncoombs.com this past year, here are the top five posts for 2022:

  1. God’s Love Expressed: Through The Cross
  2. My Top Books for 2022
  3. Martin Luther On Complete Forgiveness of Christ
  4. The Sparkle of a Youth Ministry First-timer
  5. 11 Things: The Senior Pastor-Youth Pastor Relationship

All in all I have only posted 4 times this year, one of those posts being this one. However, in total I have had:

  • 7662 views from 4828 visitors.
  • I’ve had 7 comments and 28 likes on these last 3 posts.

A big thanks to all those who do come and have a read. It’s quite humbling and amazing anyone would come and check this place out. Look out for more via social media or go ahead an subscribe so I can regularly hit up your inbox.

Thanks, and have a good New Year.

My Top Posts of 2021

I continue to write and seek to express myself and hopefully encourage others along the way too.

This past year has seen my writing develop in different ways, and less so on this blog than I would’ve liked. I’ve been taken up with writing more sermons due to an increased teaching role at my church. And, one of the unique writing projects I completed this year was a weekly review focussed on Supercoach (fantasy AFL) during the footy season. This meant that time and dedication to writing in this space dissipated from previous years. And to be honest, another year of lockdowns had an affect on this too.

Nevertheless, I continue to commit myself to writing. I find it is the best way for me to express myself and to find clarity of thought. It’s also an enjoyable experience to have written, to finally hit publish on a post about an idea that I’ve been mulling away on for a while.

Having only posted 13 times in the past 12 months you’d think people would simply stop reading the articles and posts I have here. However, this hasn’t been the case. There are still a number of popular posts that continue to have traction with people, which is certainly pleasing as a writer! It seems that I had about the same amount view this blog as I did last year, which is to say just over 9200 hits all up.

As to what has been popular this past year, here are the top five posts for 2021:

  1. God’s Love Expressed: Through The Cross
  2. The Lord of The Lockdowns (published in 2021 and on TGCA)
  3. Martin Luther On Complete Forgiveness of Christ
  4. My Theological Library
  5. 11 Things: The Senior Pastor-Youth Pastor Relationship

If you’d like to explore more of what has been popular on here in previous years you can do so here: Top posts for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015. I also have a collection of writings published elsewhere, which you can find here.

My Top Posts of 2019

I continue to plug away on this thing called a blog. There are times when I wonder whether any of the words I string together to make sentences and paragraphs are worth publishing. But it seems this year has seen continued growth on this blog, and also some wider writing on other ministry sites, so that’s been encouraging.

In typical fashion I started out the year with a flurry of posts and articles but it seems I went missing in the second half of the year.

Below I list the top 5 posts in 2019 as well as some stats for the year. For those interested in stats from previous years you can read about 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Top Posts of 2019

The Top Five Posts:

  1. 10 Tips For Reading In 2019
  2. Making The Bible Project Your Bible Reading Plan For 2018
  3. My Top Books of 2018
  4. Growing Young – Keychain Leadership
  5. 11 Things: The Senior Pastor-Youth Pastor Relationship

Some Reflections:

The only post actually written in 2019 was the first one, ’10 Tips For Reading In 2019′. The reason this made it to number one was because it got picked up by a very popular blogger in North America. The traffic that sent to this site was out of this world, particularly compared to usual!

I found myself writing 21 articles or posts for other ministry sites. I don’t get to know how well those did in terms of page views, but due to the sites I wrote for I’m fairly confident the readership will have been larger than I could reach.

The top five posts actually written in 2019 go to:

  1. 10 Tips For Reading In 2019
  2. New Children’s Ministry Initiative Makes Worship Leaders Walk Out Of Service
  3. My Top Books For 2019
  4. The Inadequate Youth Pastor
  5. Christian Blogging And Social Media

Raw Stats for 2019:

In 2019 I managed to:

  • Publish 54 individual posts on joncoombs.com.
  • Write over 29,800 words from those individual posts.
  • Have 11,657 views on the site for 2019 (up from 7700 in 2018).
  • Increase to 185 followers to the blog, as well as 34 email subscribers.
  • Publish 21 articles on other ministry sites.

This is actually more encouraging the more I think about it. I didn’t think I’d posted on average once per week, but it looks like I have. Writing for other sites at nearly every other week is also a pleasing goal to have achieved.

While right now it’s holiday time, and really the last couple of months I’ve not been in the zone to write and publish, I do hope I can continue to plug away at this again in 2020.

Anyway, if you’re a regular reader, thanks for popping by. I hope it’s been useful for you as it has been for me.

My Top Posts of 2017

Earlier this month I wrote briefly about how I’ve managed to achieve a couple of blogging goals this year. I wanted to write more regularly in 2017, and as a result I’ve averaged a published post per week on this site and a few guest posts on others. The second goal was to increase the amount of views from last year. I aimed to double last years result and achieved this too. Happy days.

Top Posts of 2017

But, there are a few things that continue to get read reasonably regularly so here’s a list of the five most popular posts viewed this year (2016 and 2015).

One, 11 Things: The Senior Pastor-Youth Pastor Relationship

It seems there’s a few people out there wanting some tips on how to deal with the Senior Pastor-Youth Pastor dynamic. It’s not surprising, it’s probably the number one reason Youth Pastors move on from their job.

Two, Growing Young – Keychain Leadership

I wrote this over twelve months ago. I was working through the book Growing Young. This post talks about how churches need to be willing to pass the baton of leadership to young people. It is a key chapter in the book and worth reading entirely.

Three, Growing Young

Here I begin the Growing Young series, which I wrote over a period of three months. I write about each chapter, but this one gives a general summary of the whole. Again, it’s a book for those in youth ministry and church leadership (and others if they’re interested).

Four, Beginning As A Youth Pastor: 11 Things I Wished I Knew

I wrote this in preparation for a presentation. It describes what I wished I knew when I started out as a Youth Pastor. As it turns out I had 11 points, and those 11 points were then made into a blog post each. This series has already been mentioned with the number one most popular post on the site. This one covers them all.

Five, On Youth Pastor Position Descriptions

I saw a really poorly written position description for a youth ministry position and I got annoyed. This resulted in further articulation of my thoughts in this post. It seems it was reasonably well read and rather relevant to people. Not really many surprises there if you’re a Youth Pastor.

Some other random bits of information about this blog:

  • The top five countries where readers are from are Australia, the USA, the UK, Canada and New Zealand. Australia and the US bring in the most by far.
  • Facebook and search engines are the digital spaces people come from to read.
  • I currently have over 200 posts available for people to read.

If you’re a regular reader, thanks very much for coming by. I am always in two minds as whether or not keeping this up is worth it. When I get to the end of the year and begin to re-evaluate my goals there is something about giving this up that I would find painful. I hope the words written here are worthy of being read, fun and humourous at times, and most of all bringing glory to God as I write about youth ministry.

Thanks again.