What were our most read articles and most visited webpages last year? Find out here.
Thank you to all our faithful readers! We’re always glad to hear from you about the things we publish here online and also in print.
Counting online traffic helps us know what’s important to you. Every year we publish what the analytics say is the top new material we posted the previous year (read by the most unique visitors during 2022). We neglected to do that earlier at the turn of the year somehow, so here it is now, better late than never, we think.
Let us know how closely this top ten aligns with your interests.
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Two blog posts related to Ukraine are tied in the tenth spot on our list. In the first, Russia Invades Ukraine: A Guide for Christian Response, Phil Wagler of the Peace and Reconciliation Network reflects on what God might be calling us to do: Pray Kingdom prayers. Be aware of the humanity of our neighbours and those in the conflict zones. Be sacrificial, and cheerful about it. In the second, What Drives the Violence Between Russia and Ukraine, Ottawa scholar Vern Neufeld Redekop explains how the conflict derives from national identity needs. Both articles are part of a web-only series called All Things Reconciled (whereas most of the other top 10 items also appeared in our printed issues).
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A Human Christian Response to Depression. Senior writer Rod Wilson wrote this challenging essay on "how to avoid secular and spiritual missteps" by drawing on both personal experience with depression and his training as a clinical psychologist. Aussi disponible en français.
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Redeeming "Evangelical:" What to do with an inaccurate reputation? Senior writer Patricia Paddey draws on interviews with many experts and a number of books to help us think about what the label "evangelical" means today to different people. It may be a negative word in North America, but in the rest of the world it often means the same thing as Protestant Christian.
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Preaching Now and Then. Mark Buchanan, a Calgary professor of pastoral theology and bestselling author, looks back nine years to the time when he was a full-time pastor and reflects on how his advice about preaching has changed since then.
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Companionship in Grief: How we can bring grace to a bereaved person. Susie Colby shares her heartfelt thoughts about the journey of bereavement after her husband’s recent death from cancer. This article won an award recently, and we just made it into an audio podcast episode as well.
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The Life Cycle of Worship Songs. This cover story allowed a group of researchers including Marc Jolicoeur of Moncton Wesleyan Church and Mike Tapper of Southern Wesleyan University to share their analysis of how church songs are coming and going in popularity faster than ever in recent decades. Our colleagues at the Faith Trends Podcast also interviewed the researchers, plus we created a related post Add to Our List of Favourite Worship Songs that also ranked among the most popular on our website in 2022.
4
Funerals: How Saying Goodbye Has Changed and Why It Matters. 
When we published this essay by Tim Perry, author of the new book Funerals: For the Care of Souls and a theologian at Providence Theological Seminary in Manitoba, we also asked him onto a podcast episode for a discussion with David Guretzki, resident theologian at The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (and now also its president). The essay is aussi disponible en français.
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Faith and Mental Health. Markku Kostamo reflects on his journey with bipolar disorder and finding a sanctuary in the church community, where he now serves as director of development at Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries.
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Correct Coffee in Canada is a column by our backpage columnist and provocateur John Stackhouse. Two of his other columns were also among the most popular articles of the year on our website: No, Don’t Give Your Kids a Choice and Deconstructing Deconstruction.
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The website article with the most visits in 2022 is Navigating Medical Assistance in Dying: How the Church is encountering voluntary euthanasia. Senior writer Patricia Paddey actually wrote two major features for us on this topic that both involved a heavy amount of interviewing. The companion piece, How MAiD Is Transforming Canadian End of Life Care – And what we ought to do about it, also ranked among our most popular of 2022. The pair of articles recently won an award. Le premier est aussi disponible en français.
Well, that's the list for this year. To be fair, we should mention how Is This Korean Church a Cult?, a column in our former Religion Watch series by James Beverley, actually got more views than any of these, but we didn't give it a ranking since it's from 2017.
What would you like to see on our website or in our print magazine in the rest of 2023? Please let us know anytime at editor@faithtoday.ca. Thanks for reading.
P.S. People with a Canadian address can now get a print subscription for free! You can also check out our top posts from 2021 below.