Year 2 Discoveries

“For where two or three are gathered in my name,

I am there among them.”

–Matthew 18:20 

This post marks my final one for 2025. I began the Ordinary Grace blog in January of last year. In June of this year, I added a podcast version called “Ordinary Grace: Finding God in the Everyday.” As the second year winds down, let me reflect with you on the journey.

A stats tool on the respective hosting sites provides all kinds of numbers. While not positive that I am interpreting the data correctly, this former economics major finds the details interesting even so; not only for the information, but the different results from the two platforms.  

As of today, there are 244 subscribers to the blog, up slightly from year-end 2024. The Click Rate for those who receive an email about a new post is 47% compared to the average rate for random emails that range between 1-5 %. Those numbers suggest that my subscribers are generally interested in reading the latest post which, of course, pleases me.

When it comes to the podcast, Transistor estimates that I have eight subscribers (always happy to have more!) with an average of 17 downloads for each episode.  That hosting service also tells me that 88% of the people who listen do so on a mobile app using Apple Podcasts. 

Over the past twelve months, I have had 16,000 unique visitors to my blog website and 32,000 visits which shows some are reading the post without subscribing and others come back more than once. By contrast, Taylor Swift had about 60 million visitors to her website in 2025, but she is a much better singer than I! As of today, I have had 566 downloads of the podcast.   

The most frequent times someone reads one of my posts are 9 a.m., 4 p.m., and 4 a.m. Clearly, my readers start or end their day with my latest devotionals. The largest group by country (after the United States) are from Japan, China, Russia, India, and Australia. IP addresses reveal that the greatest number of readers are from PA, GA, OH, AZ, and the Netherlands. Perhaps that European location is the work of some bot. I’m not sure. The podcast version draws from different nations, for after the U.S., the top number of listeners live in Spain, the Congo, the UK, Russia, and Canada.  No matter which format you cite, such a wide reach still amazes me! 

One of the fun things about the blog is the comments posted afterwards (my podcast doesn’t offer that feature as far as I can tell). The one that generated the most comments came in June when I offered a prayer after the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Not only was that the only time I have ever uploaded two posts on the same day, but it remains the most commented upon post since I began Ordinary Grace. 

The second highest number of comments came from the October 13 post called “A Glimpse of Church” when I told of visiting another congregation on a random Sunday.  The one I posted after reading the book  “The Anxious Generation” evoked 23 comments as did the post entitled “The Perfect Mom,” when I spoke about my mother-in-law and the feminine traits of God as found in the Bible. 

The June 15 post that built upon the time I stood up for a college freshman seeking entry into my fraternity was the fifth highest post that received comments. It was also the episode of my podcast with the most listeners. 

Others in that webcast’s top five included the one where I talked about branch employees who learned my name quickly after discovering my big brother was in senior management of their bank and one about a gay man who came out to his parents because of something I had said in a sermon.  Both installments had 24 listeners. The episodes with 22 or 21 listeners, respectively, built upon the moment when I embarrassed myself while visiting the home of a woman in West Virginia and when I was on the way to help my sister who was moving from Texas and ran a red light while driving to the airport.    

I don’t see any shared thread between those varying statistics between the blog and podcast other than how they both share the same devotional material each week. If you see a link between the most listened to and commented upon offerings, I’d welcome hearing your theories. Such feedback could help me consider the kind of stories or themes that could strengthen the blog and podcast’s impact in 2026. Yet what these stats and the experience of the past year make abundantly clear to me again is the gift you are simply by reading or listening to my weekly musings.

Thank you for sharing this journey and being part of my virtual community.  If you have mostly experienced Ordinary Grace in the blog or the podcast version, I’d encourage you to check out the other platform. Pass on the word to others about this online family, too.

But most of all, keep your eyes open to the ways God is at work in the everyday events of your day. For such moments are truly unique occasions of grace, too, as is your ongoing part in this journey with me. 

Abiding One, I celebrate this online community. Keep their eyes open to ordinary times of grace during the year ahead that your blessings upon them will become ever-more clear. Amen.

P.S. The feature that automatically sends an email to blog subscribers has unexpectedly stopped working. While I work with technical support to correct the issue, you might want to check the postings for December 14 and 21.