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My cousin goes to church at a place called “Warehouse 242.” There’s another church in his area that recently started called, “Elevation.” Across town from my dad’s church is a place simply called “The Summit.” I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point we started naming our churches after stores that sell designer jeans. And I’m cool with that. I don’t think you have to name something the “Back to the Bible Holiness Church” which is outside of Atlanta in case you want to attend. And more than that, it opens up some good conversations with people. Imagine you’re at work on Monday and someone says, “What’d you do this weekend?” You can reply “I hung out at Elevation.” Your friend will then say, “Is that the new salsa/techno/hip hop/Southern Cambodian traditional dance club? I’ve heard the girls in that place are ridiculous.” At which point you can then say, “No, it’s a church” and then proceed to share the entire gospel with him. OK, maybe you shouldn’t do that, but at the bare minimum, saying you went to “Elevation” is going to at least keep the conversation rolling where if you said, “I went to ‘God is Awesome, Praise Sweet Baby Jesus Cathedral’ over the weekend,” your friend is going to throw an imaginary smoke bomb and climb out of a window to get out of the conversation. So maybe interesting names are a good thing.

Have you ever gone to a sporting event, concert, debate, or any other area where you are clumped together with a bunch of people you don’t know and thought to yourself, “I wish I could shake a few of these strangers hands and have an awkward 6 second relationship with them?” Probably not, but if you come to church, get ready to briefly meet a few people. We do it because we hope it will plant the seeds of community but I think there are a few things you need to know:

1. Don’t shake anyone’s hand if they look like they have a cold or the flu. Give them at the maximum a fist bump.
2. Don’t remember a stranger’s name and then the following week say, “Hey Shirley” because chances are Shirley didn’t remember your name and is going to do that uncomfortable thing where she says, “Hey buddy, hey pal, oh, hey you.”
3. Don’t give your husband a neck rub during the entire sermon. This is off topic, but seriously, it’s a little gross. You know who I’m talking about lady in Atlanta.

Why create “Stuff Christians Like?”

This is one of my personal favorites. At some point in 1996, everyone decided to call satan, “the enemy.” I don’t know how it happened but I have a guess at why it happened. I think it happened because we’re afraid to look weird if we talk about the devil. And it’s a weird thing to do, I agree. In a world governed by logic and science and reason, to associate your life with a pure evil entity that is hellbent on destroying you at any given opportunity is a little freaky. That’s why you rarely hear someone say, “Wow, satan was really attacking me last night.” Instead, we say the enemy because it’s a much safer word. Everyone understands what enemy means, it’s just someone or something that is against you. So instead of feeling weird, we feel OK when we say, “Wow, the enemy was really attacking me last night.” How far will we take the softening of the words we use to describe satan? We’ll see, but I wouldn’t be surprised if given his immense Public Relations magic we eventually call the devil, “the opponent” or maybe even “Mr. red hot pants.”

Why create “Stuff Christians Like?”

We love adding stuff to our churches. A lot of mega churches are starting to call their buildings, “campuses” because they are. They’re installing gyms, coffeehouses, schools, and dozens of other things that make the church less of a temple and more of a community. Which is good on some level, but the challenge is we’re also called to go out and reach people in the world. And that’s difficult to do when your kids take karate at the church, you buy your morning latte at the church, you do your financial education classes at the church, you take aerobics at the church, you … the list goes on.

Why create “Stuff Christians Like?”

Thomas Kinkade is known as “the painter of light” because he dabs little bits of light into his cottage themed artwork. And sometimes he dabs little crosses or messages that speak to us of the timeless beauty of both Christ and thatched roofs. So we love him. That’s why there are tons of Kinkade stores in malls across the country and more than 2,000 items for sale on Amazon.com. Do we mind that he doesn’t create the paintings himself anymore? Nah. Is it weird that a home developer built a Thomas Kinkade themed neighborhood? Nah. Should I quit writing, grow a wise looking beard and start painting? Probably.

The other day I got a catalog from a Christian book store chain promoting their new Easter products. One of the items you could buy was a “crown of thorns.” For a mere $49.95 you could own a crown for your desk? Your mantle? Where do you properly store/display a crown of thorns? Do you think the Roman soldiers that made it at the time said to each other, “You know, some day this is going to make a really sweet paper weight.” But what can I say, when it comes to Easter and Christmas but shut your mouth not Halloween, we love us some weird memorabilia.

If you ever went to Vacation Bible School then you know exactly what I’m talking about. For some reason, Christians love finding ways to save money on cookies. That’s why instead of Oreos you always had to eat “chocolate sandwiches” or some other cookie with a generic sounding name. And they aren’t the same. I know they told you that “jungle crackers” were the same as “animal crackers” but you knew the difference, you knew.

Read more stuff Christians like.

A few years ago I was asked to create a press release for a CEO of a company. My client wanted me to write something extolling how dedicated to being honest about sales results this particular CEO was. The only problem was that she wasn’t.

She was known for being a bit blurry when it came to the reality of the sales the company was generating. The press, the stockholders, the employees, everyone that knew this lady was going to see right through my press release and instantly think, “No way am I listening to this lady. I know her past.”

What I wanted to do, which was eventually rejected, was come out with the truth. I wanted to disarm the readers by opening up with a statement that said, “In the past, numbers have not been my greatest strength.” If I said that, all the readers would have to pause before throwing a rock at us. In essence I would have removed the biggest objective they had to reading the rest of the press release.

The same thing happens with Christianity.

We do some things really well and we do some things less than really well. But when we pretend we’re perfect, people see right through it and won’t believe anything else we say. And that’s the point of this project. I want to be honest and upfront and hopefully a little funny about the issues the church and Christians struggle with sometimes. I want to say, “Whoa, whoa, please don’t judge me or God by Christian radio.” I want to admit the times we’ve dropped the ball on issues or ideas that people called to love their neighbor should have knocked out of the park. I want to blow up misconceptions and preconceptions about what it means to be a Christian.

And I need your help. For the first time in my blogging experiment, I want to open up the posts to other people. Got an idea about “Stuff Christians Like?” Email me and if it fits the theme of the site I’ll put it up and give you all the credit.

So check out the posts. Laugh a little. Get mad a little and if you finish here, don’t forget to stop by ProdigalJon.com and 97secondswithgod.com .

p.s. this is a direct rip off from a really popular secular site and started on March 21. Instead of cramming the first 40 posts on one day that would never have been scrolled through, I went back and loaded all the content day by day starting with January 1st. That way the days are all evenly laid out and when you click on “March” you don’t just see one thick day trying to carry 40 posts. See post 1 for more details.