Retired Pastor Ruminates: My Most Popular Blogposts of 2010

Friday, December 31, 2010

My Most Popular Blogposts of 2010

The year past marks the first full year of Retired Pastor Ruminates and once again I turn to Google analytics to have fun with the numbers. The site had 14,234 visits, with 21,648 pageviews and 9,744 visitors. You came from 104 countries, in this order: United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India, Germany, Philippines, South Africa. The US visitors came from all 50 states and two territories.

If there was a theme for the year it would have to be the poor morale of mainline clergy and the peculiar pressures on that noble vocation these days. The most popular post by far was my “Ten Highly Effective Strategies for Crushing Your Pastor's Morale,” a snarky piece of satire that seemed to strike a nerve. It was especially popular with Episcopalians and made its way to Episcopal Cafe. Whether this means that Episcopalians have worse morale than other clergy is anybody's guess.

My second popular post was a jokey piece on Nebraska football that got posted on something called Huskerpedia (I'm not making this up) and went viral. For a time I considered putting “Nebraska football” in the title of all my posts (ie.: “Eschatology in late Barth and Nebraska football”) but decided that it would be wrong.

As usual, the interface between theology and ministry (my preoccupation) was the topic of many of the popular posts. Several of them deal with clergy burnout, and a couple others poke fun at some of the antics of my denomination, the United Church of Christ. There is more satire this year than last, as I find myself drawn less to the jeremiad and more and more to the “modest proposal.” Whether this is a sign of wisdom is an open question.

My post “Pastor's Aren't Prophets” got picked up and, in a much edited form, reposted on Duke's Faith and Leadership blog. One of my own favorites that didn't make the top ten list is my satirical take on the New York Times Op Ed pages: “Your Opinions Stink.”

I recently read a fitting quote from Samuel Johnson, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” So there you have it.

I am glad you have found your way here. Thank you for visiting and I hope you come again from time to time in 2011.

Here's the whole top ten list:

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Published articles and reviews

Floyd, Richard L. “A Brief Historical Sketch: The Religious Life of the Berkshires During the Time of the Mercersburg Movement.” The Mercersburg Review. Fall, 1997.

_______. “‘And to the Son:’ The Gloria Patri and Inclusive Language.” Prism. Volume 7, Number 2, Fall, 1992.

––––––––. “A Course in Basic Christianity: Remedial Catechesis for Adults.” Horizons. Volume 1, Number 1, Spring, 1995.

––––––––. “Marriage in the United Church of Christ.” in Christian Understandings of Marriage: Ecumenical and Pastoral Directives, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox. Revised Edition. Massachusetts Commission on Christian Unity, Boston: Divinitas Press, 1990.

_______. “The Cross and the Church: The Soteriology and Ecclesiology of P. T. Forsyth.” Andover Newton Review, Volume 3, Number 1,1992.

________. “An Interpretation of the Craigville Colloquy.” New Conversations. Volume 8, Number 1. Spring, 1985.

_______. “Review Essay of ‘Justice the True and Only Mercy: Essays on the Life and Theology of Peter Taylor Forsyth.’” Edited by Trevor Hart. The St. Mary's Bulletin: The University of St. Andrews. Spring, 1996.

_______. “Review of ‘Justice the True and Only Mercy: Essays on the Life and Theology of Peter Taylor Forsyth.’” Edited by Trevor Hart. Pro Ecclesia, Volume VII, Spring, 1998, Number 2.

_______. “The Pastor as Theologian in a Fundamentalist Environment.” Andover Newton Quarterly. Volume 19, Number 4, Spring 1979.

-----------. “The Towers We Build or God our Strong Tower?” No Other Foundation. Volume 14, Number 2, Winter 1993-1994.

_______. “Unity in the United Church of Christ.” Address to the Executive Council of the United Church of Christ, October 17, 1993. Papers from the Initial Meetings of Confessing Christ, November-December 1993.

_______. “Something Old, Something New.” The Journal of the United Church Musicians Association. Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998.

_______. “The Work of Christ in the Thought of P. T. Forsyth: Kenosis and Plerosis Revisited” in P. T. Forsyth: Theologian for a New Millennium, Alan P. F. Sell, Editor, The United Reformed Church, 1999.

_______. “The Worshiping Self” in Persons in Community: Theological Voices from the Pastorate. Edited by William H. Lazareth. Eerdmans, 2004.

_______. “Churches with Adjectives.” Colleague, Vol. XXI, No. 3, May, 2000.

________. “Spills.” Colleague, Vol. XXII, No. 4, October, 2000.

________. “The Tools of a Learned Ministry.” Colleague, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, October, 2001.

_______. “Review of God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament” by Richard Bauckham. Theology Today. Vol. 58, No. 1, April 2001.

________.“God is our refuge and Strength” in “He Comes, the Broken Heart to Bind:” Reflections on September 11, 2001. Edited by Frederick R. Trost, Confessing Christ. 2001.

––––––––. “The Cross as an Eschatological Act of God” in Hope for your Future: Theological Voices from the Pastorate. Edited by William H. Lazareth. Eerdmans, 2002.

––––––––. “They’ll know him in his Cross” in Story Lines. Edited by Skye Fackre Gibson. Eerdmans, 2002.

--------------. Review of “Who do you say that I am?: The Christology of the United Church of Christ” by Scott Paeth. United Church Press, 2006, Joy in the Word, Winter 2008.