I wrote a short piece about hate mail on 97secondswithGod.com.

Check it out if you get a chance.

I sent the manuscript of the book version of this site to a few friends last Wednesday. I wanted to throw up a little or a lot but I think that’s to be expected to some degree. It’s a little scary to say, “ta da, here’s what I’ve been working on at 5 in the morning for the last three months.”

I turn it into my editor at Zondervan in March. One of the things I’m still playing around with is the title. Since I’ve published approximately 0 books before, I’m not sure if there’s someone that works at Zondervan whose sole job is to come up with wicked awesome book titles all day long. Like maybe I call him up and say, “My book is about _____” and he instantly spits out the most ridiculously cool book title ever and then I go about my way. (This person has a handlebar mustache in my mind.)

But regardless, I still want to turn the manuscript in with a fantastic title.

So that’s the question today. No “should this chapter go in the book.” No “what movies are you watching.” Just straight up simple.

I think the title of the book should be “Stuff Christians Like: and then some sort of witty subhead that captures the funny outer shell and chewy nougat of honest faith center.”

What do you think? Any ideas on what the title of the book should be?

Bear in mind that you are often funnier and in most cases, taller, than me. I’d love to hear your suggestions, no matter how off the wall. (And thanks for getting in the sandbox with me on this thing.)

What should the title of the Stuff Christians Like book be?

(What can I say about Curtis. He continually drops hilarity on Stuff Christians Like and is incredibly generous with his willingness to guest post. Today he shares a letter written by that sad, Bible left in the lost and found. That’s right an open letter from a lost & found Bible.)

An Open Letter from a Lost & Found Bible

Dear Framanda Alvins,

This is your Bible. Remember me? You left me at GracePointeLifeTruthHouseNorthRiverElevate. Last March. Remember, you had heard about its wonderful children’s’ ministry that had a breakdancing worship eagle piñata at its Fall Family Fun Festival last year and thought you’d give it a shot. You were probably sitting there in church thinking to yourself, “Oh, cool, they’ve got the Bible on screens now. This must be the contemporary service. I don’t need to lug this old thing around anymore.”

You even branded your name on me in official Bible gold-plated cursive…you really liked the way “Framanda” flowed in that gold lettering.

Well, I ended up here in the dusty black hole I like to call “lost and found”…not the “I once was lost, but now I’m found” “Amazing Grace” kind of found, but more of a “someone left me here and now I have to hang out with some baby’s misplaced teething ring” found.

Welcome to the island of misfit Bibles. On my left is a Bible with a p.h.a.t. (purely holy and theological) fabric cover with a Thomas Kincaide church scene on it. To my right is a Precious Moments Bible with one of those scary looking big-eyed angel babies on it. I think it is riding a sheep. Get me out of here!

Anyway, just thought I’d write you a letter letting you know that I miss you. I remember when you used to highlight me and stick old bulletins between my pages. Now you probably look up Bible passages on your iPhone. Sure…that’s why you’re on your phone at church.

Your Friend,
Lost & Found Bible

(For more from Curtis make sure you check out his site justwallpaper.wordpress.com )

Recently my father-in-law re-gifted me a 2009 daily organizer that one of his vendors gave him for Christmas. As I flipped through it, I noticed that in addition to the standard organizer pages like calendar, address book, etc., the publisher added three full pages of “Common Text Messages & Chat Room Abbreviations.”

The abbreviations on the list are ridiculous and seem to have been put together by someone that has never written a text message in their life. For example, did you know that “AFAICT” is an easy way to say, “As Far As I Can Tell?” Isn’t that simple? Just tell your friends, “AFAICT” and they’ll know exactly what you mean. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that perhaps Christianity needed a similar list. We’ve done the emoticon thing before but have we really put our heads together and come up with common abbreviations we can all use? Have we developed a good list of Christian acronyms? I think it’s time.

Here is a list of real abbreviations from my 2009 organizer and how I think we can adapt them to Christianity;

1. SUITM
Original Meaning = See You In The Morning
Christian Meaning = Saw You In The Message
Usage: Sometimes a sermon isn’t for you, it’s for your friend. And since that friend wasn’t at church, the best way to communicate that the pastor was dropping the elbow of knowledge on an issue they are personally struggling with is to simply text them and say, “SUITM, SUITM my friend.”

2. JOOTT
Original Meaning = Just One Of Those Things
Christian Meaning = Jesus Once Organized The Temple
Usage: Everyone knows that if you’re a Christian and you get really angry you’re supposed to quote the verses about Jesus clearing out the temple. It’s a great justification for whatever rage-ahol you’re drinking at the moment. (Yay Simpsons reference.) And now you can feel even better about being mad over a text message by typing, “JOOTT!” I personally think it’s kind of a fun thing to yell in conversations too. “Why are you so upset right now?” “Don’t judge me. JOOTT! Don’t forget, JOOTT!”

3. WOTAM
Original Meaning = Waste Of Time And Money
Christian Meaning = Worship Organs Today Are Missing
Usage: You’re old school. You like a little hymn, a little choir in robes and above all a little worship organ action. So if you go to a new church and they’re way too contemporary for you and your wife says, “How did you like service?” Just reply, “WOTAM baby, WOTAM.”

4. MWBRL
Original Meaning = More Will Be Revealed Later
Christian Meaning = Missions Will Blossom Radical Love
Usage: You go on a mission trip. You fall in love. You need a quick text message to explain to your friends how this is different from all the other times you’ve fallen in love on a mission trip. So you text them, “MWBRL, that’s all I’m saying, MWBRL.”

5. MIHAP
Original Meaning = May I Have Your Attention Please
Christian Meaning = May I Have Applesauce Please
Usage: What you ask in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School when it’s snack time. They’re still going to give you goldfish and perhaps some bootleg cookies that kind of look like Oreos but are in fact, not Oreos. But at least this way you’ve been polite and brief in your quest for applesauce.

6. SMEM
Original Meaning = Send Me E-Mail
Christian Meaning = Someone Mentioned E Maybe?
Usage: What to say when you’re starting a new church and are trying to come up with a name. Throw an unexpected “e” on the end of it and you’re good to go. Lifepointe. Crosspointe. Truthpointe. It works on a lot of words.

7. DQMOT
Original Meaning = Don’t Quote Me On This
Christian Meaning = Don’t Quickly Move Our Toddler
Usage: What you can say when your toddler gets older and it’s time for them to move to another Sunday School class. It’s a lot faster than “Oh no, we just got her used to this class. She really likes these teachers and is no longer doing the screamo cry fest at the doorway when we drop her off.” Just say, “DQMOT, please. DQMOT.”

8. OWTTE
Original Meaning = Or Words To That Effect
Christian Meaning = Our Worship Takes Three Eagles
Usage: What you can tell your friends and coworkers when you attend the church I am going to open. We’ll have three worship eagles. Bottom line. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, when people tell me they want to change the world the first thing I tell them is, “You’re going to need some trained eagles because although we love doves and the lion and the lamb thing, nothing is going to unite a church like the beauty and terror of a worship eagle that might sweep down upon you with feathered fury if you don’t give to the offering or forget your Bible.” This is why a lot of churches ask me to consult. Not really.

9. OTTOMH
Original Meaning = Off The Top Of My Head
Christian Meaning = One Time This Orangutan Mauled Hank
Usage: OK, this one is kind of a niche phrase. I admit, you won’t get to use it often. But if you ever go on a mission trip or a retreat or simply have an orangutan outreach program during church service and one of those orangutans mauls someone and that someone happens to be named Hank, you are going to be so happy that you read this post and can immediately text all your friends, “OTTOMH! OTTOMH!”

What a time saver this list is going to be. I’m not even sure what I’m going to do with all the extra free time I’ll have now that I can yell out “JOOTT” in the church parking lot as I sit in traffic trying to get home. But surely I missed a few.

What abbreviations would you add to this list?

I wrote a really short idea called “the cause and the source” today on 97secondswithGod.com

Check it out if you get a chance.

We’re going through a period of tough economic times right now and advertisers are starting to get pretty desperate. People aren’t spending money like they used to, so brands are forced to make some outlandish claims.

My favorite is one I recently saw Harley Davidson make in last week’s issue of Sports Illustrated. Here is what the subhead of their magazine advertisement said:

“For over 100 years, we’ve unleashed a lot of souls. We’ve made men bolder, women stronger and shrinks poorer.”

That is adorable.

The idea that sculpted metal and rubber from a factory in Milwaukee is going to unleash your soul is so over the top ludicrous that it travels passed ridiculous and comes all the way back to hilarious.

And I’m cool with Harley. I think they have a great brand, an amazingly loyal fan base and an important role in American pop culture. I like all those things, but what I like the most is how upfront they are about wanting to be your idol. Rarely does something desiring our adoration come right out and say, “Think of me less as a motorcycle and more as a soul liberation machine.”

I wish all our idols were that obvious. I wish that when I got a glimpse of something I was tempted to idolize, I would laugh at it like I laughed at that Harley Davidson ad and move on. But I usually don’t. Usually I sit and stay awhile. I feed my idol an hour here, an hour there until it grows big enough to start eating weeks and months. Even something that starts good, like a new job opportunity, can grow into a monster of attention, as I start to ask it to rescue me, to save me from boredom and give me adventure and happiness and complete me. To unleash my soul.

If I’m being honest, the book I’m writing and this blog are two things I constantly find myself attempting to idolize. There are some mornings when I wake up and think, “Oh magical blog, please validate my worth today, through the power of Google Analytics and web traffic, tell me I’m somebody special and important. Free me from my normal life and grace me with your awesomeness.” And just when I started to deal with that in counseling, the book came along and I was back on the idol band wagon, “Oh book, you’ll probably be able to cure cancer and poverty and the bird flu within the first 15 pages. If I sell enough of you, I can retire and buy a Galaga machine and never need to stress out again. Let’s vacation together on a book tour and get one of those double bikes and splash each other in a water fountain like the cast of Friends. Here’s every free minute I have today, take them, they are all yours. In the immortal words of Chris de Burgh’s famous whisper, ‘I love you.’” (Yeah that’s right, I just referenced the song “Lady in Red.”)

So what am I doing about it? Giving the book and the blog back to God hourly, sometimes even minutely. (I didn’t know “minutely” was a word until about 2 seconds ago, interesting.) I keep letting go of them, over and over again. But it’s hard, because unlike the Harley ad, the blog comes with an air of holiness. “You’re writing about God. Come on, it’s about sweet baby Jesus, don’t you want to be a good steward of your talents and your time. Give in.” And that’s true, but I can still take that good thing and corrupt it. I can still take something well intentioned and pollute it with my ego, my selfishness and my brokenness.

And that’s why idols are so tricky, because even good things like our kids, our marriages, our jobs, our books and blogs, can become idols if we’re not careful.

So what are you idolizing right now?

Am I the only one that wishes every idol was as honest as Harley Davidson?

The first session of the Stuff Christians Like Book Club is meeting today. We’re reading Francis Chan’s “Crazy Love.” Come join the conversation at prodigaljon.com.

(Francis Chan said he wouldn’t do an interview for the book club. OK, he didn’t say that but I thought it might be good to start this thing with a little controversy. So let’s pretend that Francis Chan reads this site and is going to punch me in the left kidney when he sees me at the Orange Conference.)

A few months ago, while speaking at a college retreat, I locked eyes with someone that was medically incapable of laughter. That was my personal diagnosis anyway as I paced the stage like some sort of panther trying to get this one audience member to break his Easter Island like stare and actually smile.

It didn’t work, no matter what I said he was not going to budge, but that’s OK, at least he wasn’t asleep. That hasn’t happened yet, but it will if I speak more than three times in my life. At some point while I try to scatter insightful nougats of wisdom into the crowd, I’ll catch someone deep in slumber.

But what if you are the one that falls asleep in church? How do you reenter the atmosphere once your body has done that awkward, “Oh snap, we’re asleep in church” jerk that kind of feels like you just Quantum Leaped back into the sanctuary? I have a few ideas.

What to do when you wake up after falling asleep in church:

1. Pretend that your head bob was just a deep, long nod of agreement.
The first thing you want to do after you wake up is try to recreate whatever weird shudder or spastic head nod you did that snapped you to attention. If you do one big jerky motion and then sit there like a bank robber that’s frozen against the wall in a spotlight, it’s going to be obvious that you were asleep. Instead, do a series of head nods that look like you were shaking your head in agreement with something poignant that the minister said. “Nothing to see here folks, just really feeling this sermon. Just brushing the dirt off my shoulder and nodding along to the message.”

2. Check to see if anyone saw you.
God did, and probably Jonah too because catching people asleep in church seems like the kind of thing he’d take great pleasure in, but make sure no one else did. Assess the immediate area around you. If you lock eyes and get a judgmental “I can’t believe you fell asleep” stare from anyone, rock their world and make the international “I’m drunk” symbol with your hand by putting your thumb to your mouth and sticking up your pinkie finger as if pantomiming a bottle. As a friend of mine who recently got unfairly kicked out of a small group said, “I have officially become one of those people some folks will be surprised to see in heaven.” Guess what? So have you my sleepy friend, so have you. Might as well go all out and make the surprise that much bigger and at the same time have some fun messing with someone that is ignoring the sermon by judging you.

3. Resist the urge to pretend you were praying.
Apparently, much like Val Kilmer’s character in the movie Tombstone, “my hypocrisy only goes so far.” Resist the urge to pretend that you were locked deep in holy commune with God. That’s hard though because as a kid, the best way to sleep in church was to lean over with an elbow on each knee and prop my head up with a hand on each side. On top of that, God tells us to rest. How can sleeping be sinful? Over and over again, God reminds us of the dire need to slow down and be still with Him. The Sabbath is actually one of the Ten Commandments. Whether or not God’s intention is that we execute that desire in the middle of a sermon is up for debate. My guess is no.

At some point maybe I’ll write a post about what to do if you catch audience members sleeping. It just hasn’t happened to me yet, so I don’t have any real experience to pull from. Falling asleep in church? That I can flow on all day. But know this, when I do catch my first audience member falling asleep, they are going to deeply regret that I travel with a backpack full of ferrets.

I once told a group of bloggers that my goal was to become the male Anne Jackson. I’m not sure I was joking. Anne is a Christian blog pioneer with flowerdust.net, one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met and 88% cooler than me. (I would have said 89 but I’m getting a haircut this week and I have high expectations of what the people at Sports Clips can accomplish with my head.)

Anne’s first book, Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic, is coming out soon and is poised to do some wonders for anyone that has ever worked at a church, volunteered at a church or thought about working at a church. She was kind enough to include me on her blog book tour. (To pre-order the book, click here)

Here is my question and Anne’s answer.

I asked:
Your book, Mad Church Disease, is the kind of book that should be handed out with every diploma from seminary. Given the potential and deserved success of it, what plans have you put in place to avoid burning out from the promotion of a book about burnout? What are some ways we can expect you to be living out the great truth of this book as you hit the road, virtual or paved, in support of Mad Church Disease?

Anne replied:
That is such a great question!

It would be a terrible irony to burnout promoting a book on burnout. And to tell you the truth, I nearly burned out writing it. I have a full time job on staff at a local church, do the blog thing, and decided to throw a book in my schedule as well. Why not?

It takes an INSANE amount of self control, which I have learned I do not exhibit well. So, I’ve learned to listen to what it is God wants me to focus on, and then lean into the people around me to tell me when I’m being stupid and over committing myself…Oh, and I am learning how to accept help from others.

Several close friends have access to my calendar (which I put EVERYTHING on) so they can see where I am spending time and if I’m not taking adequate time to recharge or be with my husband. They can say things like “looks like you’re traveling a lot in February, so don’t even think about doing anything in March, little missy” or “Who is Joe and why do you have a four hour meeting with him?”

I also have enlisted the help of a friend who manages all my speaking opportunities — from travel to the contracts — and that takes a HUGE load off me. Another friend of mine has offered to help me manage some of my email. I realize not everyone gets this lucky (trust me, I am SO grateful!) so in the times where I didn’t have help, I would simply make rules for myself and follow them as best as I could. Sometimes that meant not emailing someone back right away. That means not following everyone on Twitter, or getting caught up in blog conversations. It means saying no to some opportunities I’d like to say yes to. It really takes a hard core commitment to focus on the big picture of what God is calling me to do in this season and..don’t get me wrong…it’s been tough (and still is)…to not be a people pleaser.

All that rambling to say…heck, pray for me. I’m not totally immune from burning out and I have NO idea what the next few months will look like. So to be totally honest with you and your readers…it’s great to have all these boundaries up and really good intentions…but without a ton of protection and prayer from other believers…I could be in big trouble. So send a little love up for a sister?

You can pre-order Anne’s book here.
You can read her blog and get a free sample chapter at flowerdust.net.

I wrote a new piece about what happens at 5:09 AM on my site 97secondswithGod.com. Check it out if you get a chance.