When the 2010s began, I had been blogging for seven months. While I planned to continue, I had no idea that I would blog for the entire decade (and beyond).
During this decade, I continued to write about matters of faith that matter. Content included discussion of hundreds of new books, sharing of resources I created for use in worship (sermons, prayers, etc.), reflections on my lived experience, and exploration of new data focused on American religious belief, belonging and behavior.
Over the course of the 2010s I published 1,776 posts (or 89% of all posts currently published on So What Faith).
Stability and Change
After spending all of the 2000s ministering in local congregations, I continued this professional path for the first half of the 2010s serving
- Naples United Church of Christ – Naples, Florida
- United Church of Marco Island (UCC) – Marco Island, Florida
- Fort Myers Congregational United Church of Christ – Fort Myers, Florida
During these years I viewed my blog as an extension of my ministry in the local church.
I stepped away from full-time service to the local church toward the end of 2015. In the late 2010s, I primarily served at the Mansfield Mission Center (Mansfield, Texas) – a faith-based non-profit motivated by Christ’s love to help all in their community thrive through a variety of programs and services, including food, healthcare, clothing, shelter, and assistance seeking, upgrading, and maintaining employment. During the second half of the decade, I also served a small congregation for less than a year on a very part-time basis: Westfork Presbyterian Church (Grand Prairie, Texas). (Additionally, I spent some of the latter part of the 2010s in healthcare.)
During these years I continued to blog, but with reduced frequency. Eventually, I settled in to posting content about once a week. Full length book reviews transitioned into book recommendations (ratings of books alone or with short blurbs for the best of the best) and worship resource content became far less common. The commitment to the core focus continued, and the attention to not only covering “so what” material included a focus on providing a series of “so what” questions at the conclusion of most posts to encourage readers to struggle with and reflect on the content (and, ideally, to continue the conversation).
Most Popular Series
While most posts stand on their own, I’ve also written some thematic series ranging in length from a few posts to 18. The most popular series from the 2010s are listed below with a series title, date of publication, and a brief explanation. Popularity was determined by adding the view counts of all posts within the series.
- Top 10 Books of the Year (2010-2019) – an annual list of the 10 best new books I read that year
- Search for a Church (2017) – a series of 18 posts over 17 months chronicling our search for a new church after moving to Corinth, Texas
- The Future Church (v.2020) – 10 Shifts (2012) – a series exploring the top ten ways I hoped the American church of 2020 would differ from the church of 2012
- Search for a Church 2.0 (2019) – a series of 11 posts over 13 months chronicling our search for a new church after moving to Fort Worth, Texas
- One Faith – Many Traditions (2010) – a series of 9 posts exploring how my understanding and experience of Christianity has been enriched by 7 denominations or traditions
Most Popular Posts
The top 10 posts written during this decade based on total lifetime view count are shown below alongside their date of publication and their ranking among all posts on So What Faith.
- Pastoral Prayer – Love (2014) – 2nd overall
- Are 10,000 Churches Closing Every Year? (2019) – 3rd overall
- Review of Not a Fan (2011) – 4th overall
- 12 Marks of Convergence Christianity (2012) – 5th overall
- My Visit to Next Level Church (2012) – 6th overall
- 6 Decades of Decline in the United Church of Christ (2018) – 7th overall
- Sermon: Lost –> Found –> Party (2015) – 8th overall
- Reading the Whole Bible (2010) – 9th overall
- The Acceptable Year of the Lord – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011) – 10th overall
- Review of Good and Beautiful God (2011 – 11th overall
So What?
Blogging began as an extension of my ministry in the local church, but evolved to stand on its own when my primary vocational endeavor moved from the local church to other settings. By the end of the 2010s, blogging had become more than something I did; it was part of who I was and an explorative tool to aid me on the path to who I was and am becoming.
Blogging and the conversations birthed by blog content became normative during this decade. Conversations over time shifted from the blog itself to other social media sites (feel free to engage with me there – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn – or here any time).
During the 2010s blogging provided me with an ongoing opportunity to share what I was learning, and to continue to learn from others.