well, here we are again, faithful readers. another year of blogging has come to an end. there’s been a trend over the last several years with these ‘most read blog posts’ entries from the last several years (2013, 2012, 2011) in which i lament the fact that i’m blogging less than ever. this year is certainly no different.

blog post tallies for the past few years:

2014: 32
2013: 41
2012: 50

so, you can see the trend. (2012 was the major drop-off, with more than double the posts in 2011.)

to be honest, i’ve almost shut down this blog several times this year. i guess more than shutting it down, i’ve thought about radically overhauling what i use this site for. i wouldn’t just trash 6 years of posts, but i’d tuck them away to make room for something that might reignite my interest. i just simply don’t have time in my life for long form blogging. that’s still my preference in terms of my sensibilities, but i just don’t have the time or the fervor to post like that anymore. we’ll see if i finally pull the trigger in 2015.

in the meantime, i thought i’d take a look at the most read posts from this year. in doing so, a very interesting observation was made. i rarely—if ever—check my blog stats anymore. i just don’t care. it’s not why i blog. so it was interesting to look at the stats over the last couple days and find a few things. there were a couple interesting findings.

first, my blog traffic is far higher this year than it’s ever been. the first year i had analytics turned on was 2011. in comparing the 2 years, my traffic has increased by about 5x. that’s pretty incredible considering that i blogged every few days then. this year, it’s been every few weeks. moreover than that, i’ve done less to “promote” my blog than ever before. i’ve never done a lot, but i would at least push posts a few times on social media. now, it’s nothing more than an early-morning auto-tweet when it hits RSS feeds.

second—and the most fascinating—is that by far, the most traffic i’ve had on my site this year was from a blog post i wrote in september 2012. specifically, it’s about dan haseltine’s thoughts on evangelicalism. i’ve had, literally, tens of thousands of visits from that post this year. in fact, the combined traffic of my top 5 most read posts this year is less than what that one single 2-year-old post brought. in april, it got picked up on some kind of “emergent-is-evil” forum and it just took off. april’s blog traffic by itself was more than i got in all of 2012—the year that blog post was published.

here were some of the search phrases (or some variation of these phrases) that generated considerable amounts of traffic to my site in 2014 (in order of traffic generation):

dan haseltine
rob bell
beingryanbyrd
dave ramsey
church pledge card
steven furtick coloring book
breaking bad walter white
nadia bolz weber the nines
racial diversity at mcclellan hall at fair little rock

and a few other fun ones:

reggie fish
all bad things must come to an end
i hate mustard
ivy retardation
chicken tetrazzini the soup
how to die
all hail the king
pagan or tax collector means
the word toothpaste

ok, without further ado, here’s the list of the 5 most read posts on my blog for 2014.

5. announcing perch: a web design and development shop

i’m excited to announce perch—a web design and development shop that my partner, joseph yancey, and i have started. in february, we decided to put a little more form and structure around the freelance projects we’d been working on and we took steps to officially form our business. much more quickly than what we could’ve imagined, our little hobby turned into quite the thriving side business, to the point that we’ve had to be choosy about which projects to take on. certainly, it’s been a good problem.

read the entire post »

4. fade to grey: the difference between equality and justice

equality says that everyone gets the same treatment. our culture particularly values this idea. and while yes, we certainly are all the same, justice demands more than mere equality. it demands that we honestly evaluate how our culture and our systems have held people back from playing on an even playing field and respond in ways that move us toward a place of equality. it demands that we acknowledge that some people need a couple boxes to see the game, whereas others are tall enough without any assistance.

read the entire post »

3. this is not a post about steven furtick’s coloring book

but, there’s a better way. there’s leading like jesus—sacrificially, humbly, with a team of people who screwed it up regularly. pastor-as-CEO isn’t a biblical model of leadership. neither is pastor-as-dictator. and neither is teaching children to have unquestioning, unwavering allegiance to a pastor.

read the entire post »

2. logs and specks: why mark cuban got it right about prejudice and bigotry

when we can first acknowledge the darkness in ourselves, we can better see the plight of the people who are victims of our prejudices. when we take the time to address the log in our own eye, everyone is helped by our self awareness.

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1. rob bell, biblical literalism and piano tunes

biblical literalism is a thief who robs us of songs that are beautiful and moving and emotive and connective and universal. it’s a dead end in a world of paths that never end. it’s the shallow end of the pool.

read the entire post »

alright, there you have it. these were the most read blog posts of 2014.

were there posts not on this list that stood out to you?

and while we’re talking about the blog, i’m always eager to receive feedback on what people would like to read or what you would not like to read. so, suggestions? complaints? i’d love the feedback.