Top Canadian Christian Blogs

In 1964, this was one of three finalists to become the new flag of Canada

With a nearly 75% U.S. readership, I tend to cloak my Canadian origins, but I thought today we’d celebrate a few people who also experience spell-check issues every time they use words like honour and colour. (After a year of fighting it, I converted this blog over to U.S. spellings.)  Ahead of time, apologies for anyone I left out:..

Top Ten

Jamie Arpin-Ricci – Missional — Urban church planter, IVP author (Cost of Community) and co-director of YWAM Winnipeg, Jamie is a few months shy of seven years of blogging. Tag line: “Conversations about Christ and Community.” 

Lorna Dueck — The host of Context With Lorna Dueck on television and frequent contributor to national newspapers and magazines writes about cultural, political and social issues from a Christian perspective.

Ann Voskamp – A Holy Experience — From the moment you click through and the music starts playing on your speakers, you know you’re in a different place. Probably the greater appeal is to women, as is Ann’s bestselling book, One Thousand Gifts (Zondervan).

Tim Challies — The blog’s tag line is, “Informing the Reforming;” so you get the idea as to the target audience. I would tend to think at this point, Tim has become a prisoner of the blog’s success; it has got to have become a full time job. Still, the success is deserved and has spun off a book publishing company.

David Hayward – Naked Pastor — To say this blog is ‘edgy’ would be an understatement. David writes from Canada’s “east end” and is also a cartoonist who sells prints of his daily panels as well as larger pieces. Tag line: “Graffiti artist on the walls of religion.”

Sarah Bessey — Representing Canada’s “west end;” through her connections with people like Nadia Bolz-Weber, Rachel Held-Evans and Jamie Wright, Sarah is rapidly gaining readers, not to mention her book Jesus Feminist (Howard Books).

Paul Wilkinson – Thinking Out Loud and Christianity 201 — Well thank you, don’t mind if I do…  Splitting up my daily writing into two very different platforms was both risky and a lot of hard work, but I’m honored (with no “u”) to be here.

Darryl Dash – DashHouse — The Toronto church planter writes articles of interest to other pastors and church leaders and is a featured writer at Christian Week, a Canadian Christian magazine. He wouldn’t mind me saying that his demographics skew Reformed.

Carey Nieuwhof — Carey is the lead pastor of Connexus, a dual-site church in the North Point Ministries family, based in Barrie, Ontario which is about 45 minutes north of Toronto. His articles, mostly written to pastors and leaders often appear on other websites as well.

Kevin Rogers – Orphan Age — Kevin is a chaplain, musician, and pastor of a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada church in Sarnia, Ontario; which is on the other side of the border from Port Huron, Michigan, north of Detroit. He writes devotionals, mostly and his blog was recently featured in the PAOC magazine, Pentecostal Testimony.

Worth Noting

Some writers don’t pull the same numbers but are worthy of being on this list and do have a national (and international) following.  

John Stackhouse – He’s best described on his Twitter feed: “Theologian, historian, ethicist, public scholar, preacher, musician and crime fighter.” A professor at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, John is well-known to academics, but appeals to a much wider readership.

Lorne Anderson – Random Thoughts from Lorne -Lorne Anderson has been a broadcaster in Ottawa and Western Canada, a missionary in Liberia and has worked on Parliament Hill in Canada’s capital. He writes on a variety of topics including his extensive travels through Europe.

Rick Apperson – Just a Thought — Rick and his wife live in Smithers, British Columbia, in the central part of the province east of Prince Rupert. A pastor and YWAM-er, he has been blogging faithful for years and manages to score some great interviews with top authors for his “Five Questions With” series.

Diane Lindstrom – Nice One Nana — (formerly Overflow) I mentioned Diane already here in our blog review on March 30th. She writes from a small town northeast of the Greater Toronto Area, is a great storyteller, embeds some great music videos, and hopes to have a book published soon.

Emily Wierenga — Emily writes from Alberta in western Canada, has two books on eating disorders and a third book coming this summer. She writes about marriage and family issues as well as adoption.

Jeff Loach – Passionately His — Somehow Jeff got bumped from my radar lately, he should have been on our list of writers with substance a few weeks ago. (See link below.) A Presbyterian pastor in a town about 30 minutes northwest of Toronto, Jeff has been blogging since 2008, and has taught at Tyndale Seminary. 

Chris Vacher – Chris from Canada — Chris writes about all things related to worship leadership. You’ll have to forgive him if there’s been less activity on the blog lately, as his family recently relocated east of Toronto where he’s now directing music at C4 Church (Carruther’s Creek) in Ajax.

Sheila Wray Gregoire – To Love, Honor and Vacuum — With a syndicated newspaper column and books published with Kregel and Zondervan, Sheila is a popular speaker on the Girls Night Our events which tour across Canada. She lives in Eastern Ontario, and I have no idea why her blog doesn’t make the top traffic lists, as I suspect she does have many readers. 

Christian Book Shop Talk – Another one of my projects, this is a trade blog for Canadian Christian bookstore owners, managers and staff, but you don’t need a password to read!

Writer Collective

Canadian Writers Who Are Christians — Online since 2007, this blog features new content almost every day, by people who are members of The Word Guild, a collective for Canadian Christian writers. 

Did I miss anyone? Feel free to leave a comment, or if you live in the land of the chosen frozen, mention your own blog.

Related reading: Substance Consistently (Mar. 30/14) — A list of blogs I try to check more frequently out of the more than 600 I keep bookmarks for.