My favorite 'Good Stuff' blogs (part 2)
Drumroll please, it's the last list of the year
I offered my first ‘Good Stuff’ blog in September.
I was already reading over 250 Substack publications a week - well, skimming, at least - and I found so much amazing good stuff! Especially about the church, life with God, and how to live a meaningful life. And running.
I couldn’t help but share! Others seemed to like the recommendations, and this has become one of my favorite things to do.
So I thought I’d do a roundup of my favorite ‘Good Stuff’ posts for the last two weeks of the year.
I started with the idea of doing a ‘top ten’ - but there’s simply no way I can narrow my favorite writing down to just 10 articles (even in only 4 months!). I’m so grateful to be part of this virtual community of brilliant, faithful writers.
So here - still in random order - are the final 15 of my favorite thirty blogs of 2025.
Here’s to 2026!
How To . . . Build A Community.
by Lane Scott
‘Parties are actually the means by which a community creates itself, and weaves together its unique culture and traditions.’
Keep Christianity Weird
‘Weird Beliefs, Normal Practices. Too often, churches have it reversed: they’re organizationally weird and theologically bland.’
Why Lifeless Rituals Are Better Than None
‘Yet, surprisingly, the best method for sustaining spiritual rituals has a lot in common with the best methods for weight loss: rather than committing ourselves to radical, over-the-top diets, we should instead simply integrate long-term, sustainable changes.’
Why Therapists Should Pay Attention to the Brené Brown Rebrand
by Chris Hoff
‘Brené’s move from therapist-adjacent thinker to leadership consultant isn’t a sellout move. It’s adaptive.
She recognized that vulnerability, empathy, and courage, the so-called “soft skills” of therapy, have become strategic assets in an economy built on fragmentation, acceleration and burnout.’
On Marriage
‘As best I can, I am living into the role of the elder. I’m not exactly old—and I’m not exactly young either. I’ve been married for almost three decades. I’ve raised five children. I’ve seen a few things. I may not capably work a TV remote (as some of my young friends can attest), but I can counsel you on weightier matters.’
How Many Members Should a Church Have? Lessons from the Religion Census
by Ryan Burge
‘What’s the simplest explanation for this phenomenon? Membership has declined much faster than congregations have closed.’
Why we’re tempted to - and shouldn’t - embrace decline
by Ben Crosby
‘But here’s the problem: what if your church’s decline isn’t so much because of vast, tectonic social forces beyond your control so much as poor preaching or an unwillingness to evangelize or the lack of a good visitor follow-up program?’
Faith is Transformational, Not Transactional
by Jake Owensby
‘…those other nine lepers loved Jesus for what he could do for them. Not for his own sake.
For the tenth leper, Jesus himself had become his heart’s desire. His faith was not a set of ideas. It was a relationship that changed him from the inside out.’
Let Them Enemies Rest Too
by A.J. Swoboda
‘There is never a time to stop our efforts to win the ideological argument. It is all battle. All the time. And the reason is that we know if we give them a moment’s rest, they could come along and win the argument. So we keep our guards up constantly.
But the Sabbath declares that even your enemies need a day of rest from you.’
Why I Didn’t Walk Away...
by James Pence
‘And slowly I began to understand that walking away from God would mean turning my back on fifty years of moments where I was convinced He had stepped in, had intervened, had made Himself known.’
Rooted in Peace - Finding Rhythm and Contentment in the Liminal Space
‘So, with remarkable peace, I've created my new rule of life: Seek like Mary, serve like Martha, but surrender like Lazarus.’
The Sermon That Ended My Preaching Career
by Absinthe & Transcendentalists
‘Lately, however, something’s been shifting in me. My feet seem to be turning back to those old paths. After years of sleeping in on Sundays, I’m attending a local church, talking more God talk, and this time finding others on the same road.’
Go To Church Anyway.
‘Go to church. Go to church in person. Go to church even if it’s two degrees below outside with an even colder wind chill. Go to church even if it’s sunny and 80 degrees outside. Go to church even if you feel tired. Go to church even if your life is a mess. Go to church even if you don’t feel like it.
Just. Go. To. Church.’
Christ in the Neighbourhood of Chaos
‘It’s our broken grasp on humanity that needs baptism to recover it, so maybe part of the faith of baptism is trusting that Christ knows what’s good for us and the confession that we don’t.’
Repairing Tiny Crowns
by Traci Smith
‘This year, I opened the box and felt the weight of it in my gut. At least it’s not the shepherd, I thought, but the symbolism was unmistakable: a king without his crown, an angel without her wing.’
and finally…
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Thanks for including me Cathie!!