Recommended Blogs for Pastors

In some previous posts, I mentioned that I was in the process of compiling a list of recommended blogs for Pastors for use at the Fellowship of Fundamental Bible Churches Annual Conference next week in Montague, New Jersey.

This project got expanded on me a little bit to include Internet Resources for Pastors as well as Recommended Blogs for Pastors. This will be a one page (front and back) handout. I have split them into two posts, but I thought some of you might be interested in the final product and other readers might find the information helpful. I already realize that I left off some things I wanted to include (such as Sermon Audio).

Anyway, here is the Recommended Blog portion.


Religious and Pastoral Blogs

A blog is short for “weblog” and is a sort of online newsletter that allows for user interaction and comment. It is this interaction feature that makes blogs a unique and popular feature on the internet. Blogs are easy to start, but to post on them regularly often requires either a serious commitment to writing or a group effort. Many of the most successful blogs are “group blogs” which feature a group of writers who work together to post regularly. Blogs are often viewed as successful based on either a large readership or strong “linkage” - however, both of these can be manipulated and the relative value of any blog cannot be measured by these factors alone. Due to the relative ease of setting up a blog, almost anyone can have a blog and as Solomon might write today, “Of the making of blogs there is no end.” This continual growth of the number of blogs makes reading and evaluating them a hard task and I am sure there are worthy blogs that will be missed due to this fact.

While you can read a blog with pretty much any computer and browser (such as Internet Explorer), the prolific nature of blogs makes the use of a “Blog Reader” a helpful addition. A Blog Reader allows you to check all of the blogs you are interested in reading at one time by highlighting which blogs have new or updated information. Depending on the setting of the blog reader and of blog site itself, you can view the headline of an article, the beginning of the article, or the whole article from within your Blog Reader without needing to go to the individual blogs unless you want to check things in further details. A couple of the most popular Blog Readers are Blog Lines (http://www.bloglines.com) and Google Reader (http://www.google.com/reader/). I use Blog Lines and have found it easy to use and helpful.

* Current Christian ((http://www.currentchristian.com)

Current Christian is the blog of Pastor Greg Linscott. Greg does a great job of highlighting articles and news items from around the web that are particularly relevant to Pastors.

* Sharper Iron (http://www.sharperiron.org)

Sharper Iron is the biggest of the “Young Fundamentalists” blogs and forums. The blog itself is pretty good and conservative, while the forums tend to be a mix bag that leans (strongly at times) to the left of conservative Fundamentalism. The blog itself often features helpful articles by leaders such as Kevin Bauder, John Whitcomb, Sam Horn, and Mark Farnham, as well as interviews of leaders (both Fundamentalist and Evangelical) and a number of helpful and informative book reviews.

*Church Matters (http://blog.9marks.org/) and Albert Mohler (http://www.albertmohler.com)

Church Matters is the blog of Pastor Mark Dever and his organization 9 Marks (Pastor Dever wrote the book “Nine Marks of a Healthy Church.”) Dr. Mohler is the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Both of these men are leaders in the conservative and Calvinist side of the Southern Baptist Convention and their writings reflect this. They also frequently address issues of the church (Dever) and social issues of the day (Mohler).

* Christianity Today News Feed (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct) and Live Blog (http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/)
* World Mag Blog (http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/)
* Baptist Press (www.bpnews.net)

Each of these blogs tend to focus on news items and commentary from a New Evangelical perspective.

For the sake of space, the following are presented without comment. Disclaimers still apply.

* Expository Thoughts (http://expositorythoughts.wordpress.com)
* Tim Challies (http://www.challies.com/)
* Pyromaniacs (http://teampyro.blogspot.com/)
* The Shepherd’s Scrapbook (http://spurgeon.wordpress.com)
* Theosource (http://www.theosource.com)
* Pulpit Magazine Blog (http://sfpulpit.com/)
* Biblical Preaching (http://www.biblicalpreaching.wordpress.com)
* Between Two Worlds (http://theologica.blogspot.com/)
* Pure Church (http://purechurch.blogspot.com/)
* Unashamed Workman (http://unashamedworkman.wordpress.com/)