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Posts Tagged ‘Guest Post’

Tangible Sermon Reminders

Mar 12th by Jon
#727.

(John Crist, you fantastic, completely unexpected guest poster. This showed up in my email one day, and I thought it was very true and very funny. I hope you do too.)

For those of us that have been to a Christian conference, retreat or youth camp in the last decade, we know the power of the Tangible Sermon Reminder. The TSR usually occurs when multiple speakers are up against each other, all vying for your inordinately short attention span and space in your pre-worn journal. We’ve all been victim of the TSR and it usually takes the form of a small, post-sermon giveaway that is meant to drive home the sermons’ main point.

As Christians, we don’t remember any of the sermons we’ve heard in the last ten years but I ALWAYS remember the TSRs.

Traditionally, the TSR comes in many forms. It can be as simple as a small cross or as complex as a bracelet with six different colored beads on it, all representing a different stage of the roman road.

But with TSR competition heating up in the last several years, Christian conference speakers have taken TSR use to new heights. It usually happens after the closing prayer (any earlier and the speaker could risk loosing the attention of the audience) and it typically comes in the form of a small trinket or memento. Before you’re inspired to change your life as a result of this gift, keep in mind that it was purchased with your tithe.

Now, everyone please look under your chair and find out the three most common TSR’s of 2009.

#718.

(Hooray, a female preacher’s kid has checked in. For years I have been writing very guy slanted pastor kid tales of woe. But thanks to Janna and this guest post, the ladies are about to have their time in the sun. And I’ve got another great guest post from a female pastor’s kid coming in a few weeks, enjoy.)

Nearly everyone knows Dusty Springfield’s hit, “Son of A Preacher Man,” but the song that speaks a bit more personally to me is called “Preacher’s Daughter,” by a little band known as The Refreshments. I first heard the song when my husband put it on a mix CD he made me when we were still dating. I liked it because it was loud and rocky, and the idea of some guy falling for a girl before he knew “the lady was a preacher’s daughter,” was a notion I could appreciate. In fact, more than once during my high school career, I wished for that same thing to happen to me.

Abraham Piper guest post.

Feb 19th by Jon
#713.

(I met Abraham Piper last year. If you’re thinking, “wait, the nephew of Bill Piper?” the famous Bluegrass guitar player? I’m not sure, I don’t follow Bluegrass that closely.

Abraham has his own site called twentytwowords, on which he writes 22 word blurbs. He also just started a new project called “down hill both ways.” Recently he asked if he could provide a guest post about Zakk Fouteknote’s brother, the metrosexual worship leader, who helped raise money for Vietnam. I read it and realized it wasn’t typical SCL fare but that it was an important message, almost like one of those NBC Public Service Messages where Blossom tells you not to drink malt liquor and then the rainbow flies across the screen. I’ve said too much. Without further ado I give you …)

The Youth Minister Uniform.

Feb 12th by Jon
#708.

(He’s back. He’s unstoppable. Ladies and Gentlemen, Curtis “The lightning bug” Honeycutt and a fantastic new guest post.)

Curtis here, winner of the historic Bulletin Bored contest and purveyor of fine threads like awesome Christmas Sweaters. You haven’t heard from me for a while because I’ve been embedded on a top secret fact-finding mission on behalf of SCL: I’ve been studying youth ministers. What sets them apart from normal people? Why do they have so much energy? Why so many wristbands? These are the questions that fueled my research and kept me awake during all-night dodgeball tournaments. I’m happy to report my findings to you today, in what I call “The Youth Minister’s Unwritten Uniform” -or- “Is Your Youth Minister a Communist?”.

The youth minister has taken on a style all his own. Realizing he’s the slightly-less-hip version of the metrosexual worship leader, here’s how to pick a youmin from a lineup:

#698.

(This is a guest post from David Crowder and Michael Hogan. They are famous musicians that have hilarious senses of humor and apparently kindness too, because they are about to drop the biggest guest post ever.)

Hi. This is Hogan and Crowder, and we want to welcome you to our guest-blog here at SCL. Before we continue, perhaps some introductions are in order? Mike Hogan and David Crowder play in a band together called, conveniently, The David Crowder*Band. It is called this because David is the lead singer, the “front man” if you will, in the band. So right off the bat there should be one thing that is totally obvious: We are awesome at picking band names. There are two other obvious things that we should point out. 1) Note the definite article that starts the band’s name. It is a recent addition, seeing as how for the first 9 years or so we, as a band, concerned ourselves greatly with such quandaries as, “what if we aren’t the only David Crowder Band out there?” The fact is we didn’t want to be presumptuous. And so we were adamant about the definite article’s exclusion. But we’ve been at for a while now without incident, so we felt justified in its formal inclusion. Also, it looked really good in the font we wanted to use on our new website. And 2) There is an asterisk in our name. It is a detail full of mystery and obscurity (this, according to Wikipedia), and we are not going to get into it here.

Meeting Jon Acuff.

Jan 8th by Jon
#684.

(I recently reconnected with my counselor. With the Stuff Christians Like book due out, I knew I’d be in danger of getting a seriously massive ego, even if it only sells 100 copies. So I’m scheduling some new sessions with him to make sure I stay grounded. If that sounds dorky, it’s because I am in fact dorky. But this whole book thing has been kind of wild and people have started to ask me weird questions. Like this one: “Do you get recognized at church a lot?” That was a question someone asked me at a conference once. I had to laugh because here are a few other people who also attend the church I go to: Jeff Foxworthy, NFL great Jerome “The Bus” Bettis, MLB pitcher John Smoltz, Andy Stanley, etc. Needless to say, I don’t get recognized at church. But at Catalyst I did get spotted by my friend Matt from the Church of No People. He’s hilarious and in an effort to make sure I never start to think I’m some sort of fantastical big headed blogger, he wrote today’s guest post. I love the absurdity of it and think you will too.)


There are only a few truly important moments in each person’s life. Wedding days, the birth of a child, and baptism all rank at the top of the list. However, there is one day that every Christian should look forward to:

…meeting Jon Acuff.

I should know, because I recently did so, and it was everything I could imagine. However, like weddings or your child’s birth, meeting Jon Acuff is an event that requires a lot of preparation and planning, much like meeting the President or David Caruso. I’m here to help you with that …

#668.

(You can’t stop Curtis Honeycutt, you can only hope to contain him. When he’s not tearing it up over on Just Wallpaper he’s been known to drop a funny guest post on Stuff Christians Like. He’s back today with, Subtle Sunday Distractions. Enjoy.)

Subtle Sunday Distractions

Some Sunday mornings are no match for my wandering mind. I’m sitting there, in the back corner of the sanctuary (a few of us fondly refer to it as “sinners’ corner”), where I can see everything that is going on during the Sunday morning worship service. I feel like Simba looking out on his domain, except my domain consists of subtle distractions that keep me from focusing in church.

Everyone can spot a major distraction. There’s the classic screaming kid. The pastor’s mic doesn’t work. Randy Johnson sits in the pew in front of you so you can’t see anything except for the back of his formerly-mulleted cranial region. Those are easy.

I’m talking about those subtle worship distractions that you notice—you may just not notice that you notice them. I’ve taken the liberty to assign point values to each distraction so you can rate the severity of your problem of focusing on Sunday morning …

#652.

(I like to think I’m funny and have big faith until I meet people like Michael Kelly. He’s a writer with a hilarious wit but it’s his heart that struck me most. When I first met him, he told me, “I was headed down this path of being an author until my two year old son got leukemia and my priorities changed.” He’s years down the road on that journey and it’s been a great privilege to learn about the miracles God has worked in Michael’s family. Today, in further proof that big faith and big funny can live in the same person, Michael joins us for a guest post on Stuff Christians Like. Enjoy.)

Secretly Believing the Prosperity Gospel

There are a few whipping girls and boys for conservative evangelicals out there—you know, the ones where we sit down and drink non-alcoholic beverages together and talk about how screwed up the way those people think about God is. It’s a pretty distinguished list, when you think about it. Of course, there are those you expect to find: Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Brad Pitt.

But then there are also those on the “whip it” list that would only be known to the non-drinkers. And many of these people—Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar—get the nasty stick because they preach what has become known as the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel, in a nutshell, is that it’s never God’s will for you to be sick, or sad, or poor. Those with the greatest faith are also the most prosperous, and so “blessing” from God is basically incurred in a cosmic flea market. You bring the Big Guy your good stuff and He gives you some of His good stuff from the heavenly storehouse. You give money away then you gain it right back and then some. You pray with a holy handkerchief and your shingles go away.

Reprehensible, right?

Right . . . except that there’s still a piece of us that kind of likes that idea. It would, after all, be a lot easier than the whole “grace” and mysterious sovereignty issue we unfortunately have to deal with. So we keep this little piece of the prosperity theology tucked away in our treasure box, and only break it out late at night when none of our Bible-thumping buddies can make fun of us.

Here’s a few ways in which we secretly believe the prosperity gospel, but shhhhh…. Don’t tell anyone…

#647.

(I’ve been thinking for a while now about how to write a post about when we claim not to have some general spiritual gifts. I know there have been times in my own life where friends have said things like this to me, “I just can’t get into the Bible, I don’t think reading it is one of my spiritual gifts.” That seems a little silly to me, but I couldn’t figure out a good way to write about that topic. Until I received an unexpected guest post from a guy named Christopher Madin. He didn’t mean to send me a guest post, he just emailed me a funny story. But as soon as I read it I knew it needed to be shared on Stuff Christians Like. Without further ado, I give you brand new guest post…)

Not having the spiritual “gift of helps”

A couple years ago I got in a heated argument with a fairly well-known Christian author when he was guest speaking in our Sunday school class. He was talking about how we each have spiritual gifts, which is totally valid, but by way of example he happened to mention that you would never find him sweeping up the church because he didn’t have the “Gift of Helps.”

I have to admit that I kind of went after him on this in a way that, looking back, bordered on inappropriate. I pointed out that I didn’t see “helps” mentioned as a spiritual gift in any Bible I’ve read. I told him that it doesn’t take any particular spiritual gift to clean up or help out around the church – unlike prophesying or healing the sick, anyone can swing a broom.

I suggested that the idea of a gift of “Helps” was invented by people who were too lazy to pitch in and help out around the church. I asked him if he was seriously suggesting that he couldn’t put a chair away because he didn’t have that spiritual gift. “I see that those chairs need to be put away, and I’m just standing here. I wish I could help, I really do. If only God had blessed me with the Gift of Helps!”

That’s about when our college ministry pastor got up and closed things out for the day. I was such a jerk, I know, but what a load of nonsense.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever claimed not to have the spiritual gift of helps so that you could get out of doing something you didn’t want to do?

(For more great stuff from Chris Madin, check out his blog.)

#602.

(How do you become humble? It’s difficult right? I mean it’s not like there’s one magic step that makes you humble. It’s actually seven steps and they’re all here today at Stuff Christians Like thanks to unstoppable guest blogging machine Curtis. Enjoy.)

Trying to become humble, a Seven Step Guide

One of the stupidest things I’ve ever done is prayed for God to make me more humble. I think this might be one of the only prayers that God will always answer with an emphatic “YES”.

Below is a seven step guide to becoming humble. I’ve found that I am often humbled participating in church activities, many of them in incredibly public situations. Some of these scenarios are autobiographical; I’ll let you decide for yourself which ones have happened to me and which ones are made up.

1.) Be the back-up right fielder for your church’s softball team.
It doesn’t get much less important than this, unless your role is team bat boy. The college minister’s four year old son is already pretty good at that, so when you’re riding the pine while your team is out to even the score with the Methodists, you’ll get really good at spitting sunflower seed husks and heckling the umpire “in Christian love.”

2.) Get demoted to page turner for the pianist.
So you can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Who knew the men’s choir didn’t need any bropranos? Your new job is to turn pages for the pianist (what they didn’t tell you is that it’s an a capella choir called “In One A-Chord”).

3.) Be the low man on the hand bell totem pole.
You know the hand bell that looks like the Liberty Bell pre-crack? Yeah, you’re playing that one. It get’s thumped once every seventeen offertories. But, hey, at least you get to wear those fancy white gloves. Maybe you can use them to practice being a Christian mime or something. After all, wasn’t it St. Francis of Assisi who said, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words”?

4.) Get booed off the stage at a nursing home.
Sure, it’s a nice idea to go and sing to residents at the local nursing home. But just because you own a guitar doesn’t mean you are a guitar player, especially when you also aren’t a very good singer. Sometimes no visitors is better than visitors who ruin Frank Sinatra songs.

5.) Get cast as understudy for the felt board storyteller.
Sure, Framanda is like the Tiger Woods of felt board storytelling. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get your time to shine (especially when you’ve created your own custom felt board version of the rapture story for the five year old Sunday school class).

6.) Sort out the green M&Ms for the diva worship leader.
Someone has to do it. Otherwise he just won’t go on. After all, the green ones are the holiest. Maybe one day you’ll be promoted to “faux hawk re-geller” so you can keep the awesome cranked up to eleven before the worship leader goes out and flexes the golden pipes during the special music portion of the worship service.

7.) Get nominated as Frisbee caddy for the pastor’s son by the recreation committee.
You’ve really hit rock bottom if you find yourself wading through ponds and crawling around in poison ivy looking for the pastor’s son’s Frisbee at the local disc golf course. Maybe instead of praying for humility you should be praying for a new serving role at your church.

I think we could all use at least a small dose of humility (points to self), but be careful what you pray for. If any combination of these things happens to you, you’ll have some stories to trade with Job when you get to heaven. Just don’t go out and get a shirt that says “Who has two thumbs and is really humble? THIS GUY.” That really defeats the purpose.

What are some ways (funny or not) that you’ve been humbled?

(For more great stuff from Curtis, check out his blog justwallpaper.wordpress.com)