I’ve spent a bit of time this morning updating my blogroll. Most of the major blogging hosts or engines have altered the location of their RSS feeds over the past six months, and as people upgrade or switch to Feedburner, I’ve lost track of a few people. I also like to go out in search of new blogs every once in a while and see what I find that I should perhaps be following for at least a little while, so I’ve added as well as updated.
While I was at it, I even added a couple new bits of blog-bling in the sidebar. That, and I’m thinking it’s probably time for a new layout — maybe something a bit cleaner, possibly a 3-column layout. Do people have any thoughts or preferences on the subject?
Back on the subject of Emerging/Missional Church bloggers, it looks like Emerging Church Blogs is pretty much defunct — no updates since December 15th, not sure what’s up with that… does anybody know? I would happily volunteer to take it over if there’s some problem with administrating or hosting it. In the meantime, anyone who is missing that site can feel free to use my blogroll, which does the same thing, aggregating feeds… uses the same software, in fact. If you’re on that list (now over 150 blogs) and find it useful, drop me a note and let me know what your local time adjustment is relative to GMT. (Presently I’m not compensating for the feed times, so the most recent post is usually but not necessarily displayed first.) I originally set this up for my own use to help me skim through the blogs I follow as they’re updated — hopefully nobody minds being there if it becomes more public, and hopefully you’ll get a bit of traffic from it if that’s the case. I know I used to get a reasonable amount of traffic from Emerging Church Blogs when it was actually running, despite publishing my full feed there. (And btw, if your blog doesn’t publish the full feeds, please change the setting — this is a large cause for people unsubscribing from your feed.)
In my search for good EMC blogs to follow, I was thinking again about so many of the under-rated EMC bloggers out there. In my quick evaluation, if 8 of the last 10 posts were personal only or weren’t on the themes I wanted to follow, I skipped past it. Not fair perhaps, but you need some measure to move along quickly… and I recognize this leaves some people undervalued.
At one time, I had cracked the top ten on Technorati’s emerging church blogs list. While I still apparently qualify as a B-List Blogebrity, I’m a far cry from the top ten list now, with a number of people catapulting to fame and fortune. Well, fame, anyway. Okay, that might not mean much either, particularly to the vanity-challenged. Since this list is one of the places I search for new blogs to watch though, it does mean something to some people… and I think that there are a few blogs out there that deserve more link love than they’re getting… ones which I appreciate and which I feel should be read more widely than they are.
So I’m starting a meme. A link-love meme. Oh yes, be afraid.
The idea comes from Mack Collier’s Revenge of the ‘Z-Lister’, and yes, it can work… at least for a little while, it can skew the Technorati rank we’ll call it “T’rati-Bombing”. And if it doesn’t, I don’t care that much… what I do care is to end up with a grassroots list of EMC bloggers whose blogs I might want to follow.
Here’s what we’re going to do. Think of between 3 and 5 blogs which you think are under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued. More people should be reading them, in other words. They need to be blogging largely on EMC themes and topics, and they should not be on the list of leading blogs on these areas, say 150ish+ links on Technorati. Got your list? I’ll wait. If you come up with 7, that’s fine… you can borrow 2 from someone else. ;^)
You’ll find below a list of blogs that I feel deserve more attention. Yes, some are compadres, but others are people I’ve never met, I just read their blogs. To participate, copy this list into a new post on your own blog, and add the names you have to the bottom of the list, and encourage others to do the same. Your list will be about twice the length of mine, and people who follow you will have lists three times this length. It could get fairly long, but that’s part of the point — each link will help boost the undervalued blog’s profile… and you might even get some link love from it too! Include these instructions (this and the preceding paragraph). When you’ve done that, leave a trackback or comment below, or link to this post so we can keep track of who ends up participating. Sound like fun for the weekend? Okay, here we go, in no particular order:
- Emerging Grace
- Robbymac
- Lily a.k.a. Erin
- Nathan Colquhoun
- John Smulo
- Who’s Next?
If you edit your posts in HTML, I’ll even start you off with the list code:
(If you want to pass along the same favour, add a second list between textarea tags: <textarea rows=”10″ cols=”70″><textarea>) If you don’t have a blog of your own, but still want to participate, just add the obscure bloggers you like in the comments below. We had a lot of fun the last time we tried something like this, so let’s see what happens. Any questions?
Subscribe Posts
March 24th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Done
March 24th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I second Jerry’s “done” — http://www.johnsmulo.com/emerging-and-missional-church-bloggers.html
Thanks for the encouragement and link love!!!
March 24th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Good stuff guys, we’ve got a great start going — I’ve been poking around some of the sites listed so far, and it looks like there’s some rich reading to do (and lots of it) in the grassroots. Participants so far:
Jerry Frear
John Smulo
Webb Kline
March 24th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Oh, and I just noticed Technorati is down right now, too… but it’s not our fault!
March 24th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Woohoo!
I feel like I just got in on the ground floor of a multilevel marketing scheme. :)
I’ll try to get my list posted soon.
March 24th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
[...] To participate, copy this list into a new post on your own blog, and add the names you have to the bottom of the list, and encourage others to do the same. It could get fairly long, but that’s part of the point — helping us all discover those undervalued blog’s profile. Include these instructions with your post. When you’ve done that, leave a comment at Brother Maynard’s blog so he can keep track of who ends up participating. [...]
March 24th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Ok, just got the list, plus my four additions, posted :-).
March 24th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Took Ricks list added a few and posted! 0_o
March 24th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Great idea. The list is getting longer!
glennhager.wordpress.com
March 25th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Here’s mine. First I’ve been here. Nice site. :)
March 25th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Here’s my editions
http://intheway.typepad.com/in_the_way/2007/03/emerging_and_mi.html
March 25th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
OK… that would be ADDITIONS not editions…. :-0
March 25th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I have posted four new names from the list made by Rick Meigs :).
March 25th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Sharing the love
From Brother Maynard —undervalued missional/emerging blogs…..
Here’s what we’re going to do. Think of between 3 and 5 blogs which you think are under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued. More people should be reading them, in ot…
March 25th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
I posted my list….
March 26th, 2007 at 4:00 am
I’ve put it up on my site with two additions. Great idea. Thanks
March 26th, 2007 at 5:57 am
My list is here
http://mattstone.blogs.com/journeysinbetween/2007/03/emergingmission.html
I suggest you do a master list here so we can all keep track of it and maximize the impact.
March 26th, 2007 at 8:21 am
I don’t know if I’m doing this in order but I got my list from Matt and added 2 at the bottom on my blog
March 26th, 2007 at 8:35 am
scratch that, I added a handful from others who had produced their list. I’m not sure if mine is complete but there were probably about 10-12 additions to Matt’s.
March 26th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Here ya go: http://johnwmorehead.blogspot.com/2007/03/under-appreciated-or-under-valued.html
March 26th, 2007 at 10:49 am
[...] Brother Maynard has started a meme to post links to under-read and -appreciated emerging/missional church bloggers. Somehow I wound up on the list, who knew? [...]
March 26th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I chimed in with a couple of links… the list is almost too long, it took away most of the people I would link to!
March 26th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Added the list so far at http://nouslife.blogspot.com/2007/03/under-rated-under-appreciated-or-under.html
However most of mine are already there. However I do rate Steve Hollinghurst at http://onearthasinheaven.blogspot.com and couldn’t see him there.
March 26th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Wow! Thanks so much for the link! Can’t say that when I began reading this post I expected in the least to be included. Merci!
I’m actually at the coast on vacation this week. Since my Treo doesn’t blog well and the wi-fi is inconsistent here, I probably won’t get to this until next weekend – but I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring it. Peace, Lily.
March 26th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
[...] To participate, copy this list into a new post on your own blog, and add the names you have to the bottom of the list, and encourage others to do the same. It could get fairly long, but that’s part of the point — helping us all discover those undervalued blog’s profile. Include these instructions with your post. When you’ve done that, leave a comment at Brother Maynard’s blog so he can keep track of who ends up participating. [...]
March 26th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
I’ve included my update of the list here: http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/?p=644
I added: David Fitch, Geoff Holsclaw, Mark Scandrette, Graham Old, and Jeff Gauss…
March 26th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Great idea – and I feel a bit humbled to have been ‘tagged’ myself
I’ve added the list to my blog at http://www.outofthecocoon.co.uk, and added a few relatively unknown UK-based blogs at the bottom.
March 26th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Done. Thanks for this, looking forward to some good new reads!
March 26th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Thanks for the technorati boost! I’ve added the list at http://www.revitalizeyourchurch.blogspot.com
March 26th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
A very unexpected surprise from my good friend Mark O Wilson. I’ve added it to my list at http://www.virginiatransplant.blogspot.com
March 26th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
OK, mine are up.
March 26th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Whoops I mean HERE.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Done and it will post here tomorrow evening.
http://www.nathancolquhoun.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/27/links_for_march_27_2007
March 27th, 2007 at 9:08 am
[...] Over the weekend Brother Maynard (that dastardly monk) got a bee in his cowl and started a new meme. At least this time we know the source … hehehe.  In any case, here’s the dealio … Here’s what we’re going to do. Think of between 3 and 5 blogs which you think are under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued. More people should be reading them, in other words. They need to be blogging largely on EMC themes and topics, and they should not be on the list of leading blogs on these areas, say 150ish+ links on Technorati. Got your list? I’ll wait. If you come up with 7, that’s fine… you can borrow 2 from someone else. ;^) [...]
March 27th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Mine are here
March 27th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Done. Mine are here
http://prodigal.typepad.com/prodigal_kiwi/2007/03/emergingmission.html
March 27th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
For what it is worth I have added the list and added on 5 more people.
http://circleofpneuma.blogspot.com/2007/03/emergingmissional-bloggers.html
March 27th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Ok, I’m a bit simple on the techno stuff… what am i to do?? I’d love the love. :) And I’d give some too.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Welcome to Australia bloggers.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Maybe you said this, but I hope you compile all the links people add. This is great. I think average people’s blogs are the best – and they rarely make it high in the rankings. The problem is I never can find very many as a result – hopefully this will help. Great idea.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I added four more to Paul’s list. My post is here.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:53 am
I’ve posted my (short) list on my blog:
http://nathanmyers.blogspot.com/2007/03/blog-love-where-needed.html#links
March 29th, 2007 at 9:17 am
I’m pretty new to all of this so I don’t know anyone else, but I added my blog.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Fun. I’m a bit late to the party after being offline for a week – but I’ll get mine up soon!
March 31st, 2007 at 9:23 am
i added to the list . . .
April 1st, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I followed the crowd and did the list :)
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:23 am
[...] To participate, copy this list into a new post on your own blog, and add the names you have to the bottom of the list, and encourage others to do the same. It could get fairly long, but that’s part of the point — helping us all discover those undervalued blog’s profile. Include these instructions with your post. When you’ve done that, leave a comment at Brother Maynard’s blog so he can keep track of who ends up participating. [...]
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:53 am
[...] 150 links so we can truly scew the Technorati rankings. When you’ve done that, leave a comment at Brother Maynard’s blog so he can keep track of who ends up [...]
February 15th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I’ve tried to add my bit but I,m a bit thick so don’t know how to add my blog as Joe’s Journal, it comes out as
http://.....................................whatever. I might figure it out later.April 4th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Hi,
I posted your list on my blog.
Sincerely
Guillaume Smit
http://www.emergingbracken.blogspot.com
February 11th, 2009 at 5:48 am
[...] profile. Include these instructions with your post. When you-ve done that, leave a comment at Brother Maynard’s blog so he can keep track of who ends up [...]