How does 2×2 rank with other church blogs?
I have been blogging on behalf of my congregation (Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls) for nearly three years. It has become a discipline which has created many interesting mission opportunities for our little church without a building. It is something our members follow and discuss when we get together. It is our church blog.
There is always something new to learn! In 2011 we inched our way up from one visitor each month to 500 a month. In 2012 we improved our statistics about tenfold and doubled that again in 2013. We have used no gimmicks or strategies—no Facebook ad campaigns, no contests or elaborate opt-in schemes. We just created and posted content almost every day.
But how do our statistics measure? I had no idea.
Today I saw a recommendation for a utility that analyzes a website in comparison with others in a similar field. I think it does this by analyzing key words and results of key words. How would three years of work stack up in an independent, purely statistical, algorithmic review?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Nevertheless, I started exploring.
The results are amazing.
2×2 is in the upper 20% of most church social media ministry categories and is NUMBER ONE in the category of church blogging. The lowest we ranked in any category was 47%.
Within the next two weeks we will tally our 40,000th unique visitor. We now have about 200 readers everyday (about half unique and half followers).
We are putting our four years of exile from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to good use. What we have learned could help many! Statistically, we may be the largest church in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod — measuring modern statistics!
But we are shunned. Our skills, our loyalty, our faithful mission, and our people are worth nothing in the ELCA. Our property and the protection of the people who created this mess are priorities.
Lutherans teach that the church is not a building. The church is the people.
But Lutherans don’t really believe what they teach. They have our building and evicted the people. They declared us closed—with no consideration for the people. A new church is now worshiping at the same time we once worshiped — right across the street from our locked building—proving that ministry is totally possible in our neighborhood.
But we knew that all along.
Will the ELCA ever see us as viable?
Not without some help.