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Stuff Christians Like

Singing friends are friends forever at camp.

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There used to be an unwritten rule when it came to the last night of any Christian event: you must sing Michael W. Smith’s “Friends are friends forever.” For me, that meant a guy named Jaime would bust out the electric piano and belt out the song that had all of us a little teary eyed. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to all the new friends you’d made at Christian camp but would probably never see again. Take us out with the chorus Michael. Send us home happy:

Though it’s hard to let you go In the fathers hands we know That a lifetimes not too long to live as friends.

Stryper

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Sure, the world may have had Led Zeppelin and Ozzy and a whole host of hard rocking, hotel room destroying musicians at their disposal, but we Christians had Stryper. And when everyone else was enjoying their “devil music rock n’ roll” we could always find comfort and inspiration in the melodic stylings of “to hell with the devil” or the aptly named album, “yellow and black attack.” Admit it, you owned some Stryper.

Answers to the John Mayer Bible Quiz

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Here are the answers to the John Mayer Bible Quiz

1. Bible – Psalm 4:7
2. John Mayer
3. John Mayer
4. Bible – Psalm 10:14
5. John Mayer
6. John Mayer
7. Bible – psalm 6:6
8. John Mayer
9. John Mayer
10. John Mayer
11. Bible – Psalm 13:5
12. Bible – Psalm 14:3
13. John Mayer
14. Bible – Song of Solomon 2:16
15. John Mayer

Songs with bottomless lyrics.

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Have you ever gone to a church and sung one of those songs that feels like it has 984 lines? I have. We love to sing songs that the worship leader can stretch depending on how the “spirit is moving him.” Growing up, our church had one that went, “in our ______ Lord, be glorified.” In a heartbeat you could grow the song by saying, “in our home, in our church, in our schools, in our town, in our municipality, in our scooter riding cat owning club Lord, be glorified.” Good times.

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Bootleg cookies.

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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.

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Books with people on the cover.

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I almost didn’t read the book, “War & Peace” because a picture of Tolstoy wasn’t on the cover. But there’s no denying that when it comes to Christian books, we love seeing the author on the cover. Something about someone having really nice teeth and long fingers let’s us know the content is going to be solid and biblically sound. I wish I had longer fingers.

Reading "love is patient" at your wedding.

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If you’re a Christian and you’re getting married, this is almost a requirement. Honestly, if you don’t read 1 Corinthians 13 at your wedding there are some people that won’t come. It’s the go to verse for Christian weddings, like playing the song “We will rock you” at football games.

And if you’re going to have it read at your wedding try to give it the the “silver medal” friend. This is the friend that you like a lot, but just not enough to actually ask them to be part of the wedding party. So you give them the role of “bible reader” and hope they won’t notice they’re only making a cameo in your special moment and not actually being an integral part.

If you read this verse at your wedding, post a comment.

Saying "bless her heart."

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Admit it, you’ve used this phrase. I know I have. Whenever you have something kind of mean to say about somebody but you don’t want to be spreading gossip, you always punctuate your thought with the phrase, “bless her heart.” Here’s an example of how it works:

“Well you know her husband left her because she ran up so many credit cards he didn’t know about. And she got fired me her job and her roots are awful. But, bless her heart, she’s trying as hard as she can.”

See how subtly I worked it in there? I was horrible. I was cynical and a jerk but I felt like I could say it and still feel OK because I ended it with “bless her heart.”

I heard someone once call that phrase, “vinegar pie.” That is, it seems like dessert. It seems nice, but at the end of the day it’s made of vinegar.

Putting a God Spin on Popular Secular Ideas

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Oh the irony. One of our favorite things is taking popular secular ideas and putting a coat of God flavor on them. Case in point, that Adidas logo that has been creatively titled with “Add Jesus.” And yet, here I’ve done the same exact thing. I took the wildly popular site “stuff white people like” and tweaked it just a little to make it about people that worship God. But “creatively borrowing” ideas from the world is only one of the things we Christians like to do.

And that’s what this site is going to be, a tongue in cheek exploration of all the silly things Christians like. From Carmen to books about the rapture to crowns of thorns you can buy for $49.99 at the local Christian bookstore. It will be sarcastic, mildly funny and if some of these things hit too close to home, perhaps a little offensive.

© 2008 Jon Acuff Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Why create "Stuff Christians Like"

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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.