Is there a ring? You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone. Is there some sort of signet ring you get when you become a member of the pastoral search committee? Some crest you dip in wax and use to seal official-looking parchments?

Is there a secret room under the church where you hold meetings? I guess it would be more of a lair than a room. Rooms are for things like Vacation Bible School meetings. You’re plotting the future of the church. You’re more powerful than the deacons and the elders and maybe even the church secretary. So I’m hoping you have at least a lair.

The entrance to the secret room better be extraordinary. Like that waterslide in the movie Goonies or a fire pole or something. If you’re just entering the same doors at church that I use, I’m going to be pretty disappointed.

When I was a mailman–a sentence I like to throw out casually as if that whole experience was normal–the Postal Police had separate entrances to the post office. They’d walk around in covered catwalks in the ceiling, watching us all sort mail, making sure we didn’t pocket the birthday cash Grandma sent little Billy. Are you in the ceiling, too?

Do you have tunnels high above the crowd where you sit when the pastoral candidates deliver that awkward make it or break it sermon audition? If you don’t have secret tunnels, do you wear disguises in church? Eye patches or fake beards or maybe a chicken costume?

Do you each have a spiritual weapon that you’re proficient in? I mean every great team of spies or adventurers doesn’t need two guys who are great at the same thing. There’s always one guy who can break into anything, one guy who’s the muscle, one guy who’s the charmer and one guy who’s the mastermind. (I think I just described the A-Team.) Is that what you’re like? One of you is great at prayer, another at discernment, and another at intercession?

Do you ever get together and solve church-related crimes when you’re not searching for a pastor? I mean, what do you do if you’ve had a great pastor for the last 10 years? Don’t you get the “search” itch? Don’t you want to go find something or someone? Do you ever get the old gang together and look for missing dogs? I mean nice dogs, fancy dogs, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think you’re out looking for strays. I’m talking about designer breeds like the Labradoodle. Do you guys ever look for Labradoodles when there’s no need to find a pastor?

You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.

Abraham Piper recently asked me to do a guest post on his brilliant blog twentytwowords.com. (If you’re thinking right now, “Wait, Abraham Piper? Isn’t that Sheila Piper’s nephew?” I’m not sure. I don’t know his family that well.)

You can only use 22 words when you write on his blog, which is about 972 less than I usually use. So for my first ever guest post I took one of my favorite ideas and shrink wrapped it down to 22 words.

Click here to see Jon Acuff’s post on Abraham Piper’s blog. (I feel like 3rd person felt more professional there.

Despite my best efforts, the people at the Testamints corporation are refusing to sponsor me. I’ve tried several times on this site to subtly drop them hints like tiny pieces of delicious candy, “Hey, you should sponsor this site. We’ll do a campaign called ‘Send bad breath to hell.’ I’ll be able to write more. You’ll get great exposure. Readers will get free mints and more Stuff Christians Like. We’ll eliminate halitosis. It’s win-win-win-win. That’s quadtastic!”

So far though, no luck. But if they ever do sponsor me, the first thing I am going to tell them we should do is put the answer to the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people” on a mint. That way, when people ask you that, which they always do, you can say, “I’m glad you asked that. I have the answer right here and you kind of smell like pickles. So let’s take care of both those situations with a handful of mints. Enjoy.”

Doesn’t that sound a lot easier than going around and around in circles arguing about why bad things happen to good people? The challenge though is what do you write on the mint? There are a million possible answers to that question with a thousand different Bible verses you could pull from. How do you find a perfect, succinct, spearmint-sized explanation to this age old debate?

I don’t know, but recently I felt like God dropped a question into my lap or rather my red moleskine notebook, when I was wrestling with this issue. (I got red instead of black for the period I was writing my book because it felt like the bat phone from the old Batman show. I am not cool.)

Here is the question I felt like God asked me:

“Do I have the right to crack the vessel if breaking it is the fastest way to share with the world what I have poured into it?”

The truth is, I don’t have a fancy, easy answer to the question “Why do bad things happen to good people?” All I have is my own question:

Does God have the right to crack the vessel if breaking it is the fastest way to share what He poured into us?

The question is not “Does He love us?” My life circumstances do not determine that. He is love. Regardless of what happens to me in this life, that is who He is and who He will always be.

The question is not “Do we have to fake smile through pain?” I don’t think so. I’ve had friends that have buried their children and seen moms fall to cancer 5 weeks after being diagnosed. There are many, many things in this world that suck and will continue to do so. I would never tell friends who experienced tragedies to turn a frown upside down or whitewash the year my whole life fell apart with instant rainbows and fluffy clouds.

The question is not “If God is supposed to work all things out for the good, why is this situation so painful?” It’s His definition of good, not mine, that I must live with. Thankfully, mercifully, beautifully, He doesn’t promise to work things out according to my understanding of “good.” His good will always exceed mine because He can define “good” across the solar system and I can only define it with what I see with my own eyes.

The question is not, “Can I trust a God that allows bad things to happen to good people?” Although that’s tempting to get stuck on. Sometimes when we say, “How can I serve a God that would allow bad things to happen,” we miss what we might be really saying. I think what we mean is, “I could only serve a God that is good or loving according to my own personal definition of what those words mean.” But that’s kind of terrifying to me. I don’t want to worship a God who’s power is limited to my ability to understand it or who’s goodness is limited to my ability to define it. I get “good” and “bad” wrong all the time.

I thought starting my own church advertising agency was a good thing. Instead I lost $4,000 and had to apologize to the church my grandma attended for 30 years when my business partner took the money. (Turns out he’s a broken human like me, but I got nothing but love for him now.)

I thought getting rejected from the University of North Carolina was a bad thing. Instead I met my hott with two t’s wife at Samford University and started a writing career I’ve loved.

I am not equipped to tell God how He should be or understand if something He’s doing is good or bad. And the biggest truth, the one that’s easiest to miss, is that in any given situation, God is working out of love. He’s ridiculous that way. On the surface it might feel like the worst pain we’ve ever known, the darkest skies that could ever cover our tiny planet, but all the while, God is calling us, urging us, drawing us to His love. It makes no sense, but it’s true and you see it when you read things like the cocaine testimony.

The reality is, the debate about why bad things happen to good people will probably rage on for the rest of time and that’s OK. Granted, Testamints could end it today, but again, they’re not picking up on my hints.

But wrestling with the question above has helped me reframe some things in my own life and it’s what I’ll leave you with today:

Does God have the right to crack the vessel if breaking it is the fastest way to share what He poured into us?

Barry threw rocks at me.

When I walked to the dining hall in just my robe like I was some sort of 9th grade Hugh Hefner during a youth group retreat, my leader Barry threw rocks at my feet until I went back to the cabin and changed.

Barry was a bad cop youth leader.

Patty swore we could fit more people in the back of the pick up truck.

When we tried to see how many people we could cram in on the way home from youth group and yelled, “Go faster! Find speed bumps and see if we can get airborne like in the movie ‘Thrasin!,” my youth leader Patty yelled at her husband, “You heard the kids, let’s go faster!”

Patty was a good cop youth leader.

Inspired by the age old police interrogation tactic (one officer becomes your best friend, the other cop is hardnosed and in your face) the good cop/bad cop youth leader routine is a church classic. But how do you know which type of youth leader you’re dealing with? How do you know which type of youth leader you might be?

I suggest you use the Stuff Christians Like Bad Cop/Good Cop Analyserator

1. A group of youth group members are caught red handed about to pull a prank during a retreat.
A. You confiscate all their prank materials, put them in separate sleeping areas and call their parents in the middle of the night to let them know that their kids suck.
B. You tell them that what they’ve planned is a good start but they’re going to need a lot more shaving cream to get the full effect they’re going for.

2. While on a fall hayride through a scenic apple orchard, some of the students start throwing rotten apples at each other.
A. You unleash a righteous lecture on all the apple throwers that covers Eve in the garden, the insult it is to God to use His creation the apple for sport, and how there are teens in other countries that don’t have apples to eat, never mind throw.
B. You use you’re heightened adult strength and advanced wisdom to throw the apples harder and more on target than any of the students.

3. A student forgets to bring a signed parental waiver for the day at the water park.
A. You tell the student to “kick rocks” and leave them in the parking lot as you drive away to the water park without them.
B. You tell the student “We just throw those wavers into a cardboard box under the secretaries desk. Promise me you won’t sue the church and get in the van.”

4. You hear rumors that some students are sneaking out of camp at night to go to McDonald’s because the camp food is questionable.
A. You search the garbage for evidence of wrappers and use an ultra violet blue light you saw on the show CSI to search for greasy finger prints.
B. You immediately confront the teens you think are involved and place an order for a Big Mac.

5. Despite your best efforts to break down the cliques, a “cool bus” forms as you get ready to leave for a retreat.
A. You create a complicated algorithm that measures coolness and spread the cool kids out mathematically among the three vans your church has.
B. You start bringing big bags of candy in hopes that you will become the “Official Cool Van Driver.”

6. At the lock in, someone is found playing loud, non Church approved hip hop.
A. You confiscate the iPod until after the lock in is over and make the teens learn a “danceudrama” to a Carmen song.
B. You ask “Is that the new Akon? That is my jam!” and then proceed to do the worm.

7. You’re asked to give your testimony at youth group one night.
A. You treat the opportunity like one of those “scared straight” shows where they bring teenagers to jail and at least 3 people end up crying.
B. You tell your story and make references to as many teen cultural items as google could find you, at one point remarking, “I guess you could say my life was like that show ‘Gossip Girl.’”

If you answered A for most of the questions, congratulations, you’re a bad cop. I hope you’re the youth leader my daughters have when they grow up.

If you answered B for most of the questions, you’re a good cop and are probably very familiar with the phrase, “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.”

The best youth leaders I had growing up were a hybrid of both. Able to be an adult and keep things moving in the right direction but not afraid to laugh and admit how fun a life spent with God can be.

How did you score? Were you straight A’s or straight B’s or somewhere in between? Did you have good cop or bad cop youth leaders?

What’s your favorite bad cop or good cop youth leader story?

When friends tell me it’s hard to pick a new Bible because there are so many choices, I say “Poppycock!”

Then they say, “Why am I friends with you?”

And I say, “Because when I become a famous Christian I’ll take you as my guest to the Dove Awards.”

And then they say, “Seriously, why am I friends with you?”

Then I say, “Ahh fiddlesticks!” And the whole thing kind of spins out of control from there with me continuing to yell old timey swear words and them continuing to question the validity of our friendship. But, I stand by that initial “poppycock” because picking out a new Bible isn’t difficult. You go to the store and buy one or you liberate the one that’s in the drawer of your bedside table at a hotel. Two steps and you’re done. That’s even easier than that Plain White T’s song that Atlanta radio stations are playing approximately 92 times a day right now.

And to prove my point, I went to a local Christian book store and came up with the “9 questions you need to ask before you buy a Bible.”

Here they are:

1. Do you like to read your Bible while at the same time being invisible to the naked eye?
What you thought I was going to start with NIV vs. KJV? That’s too easy, let’s get into the real issues: How often do you plan on reading your Bible in the woods while being completely camoflauged? Because if you’re like me, and you want to get out in the woods, cover yourself in mud like Arnold in “Predator” and cling motionless to a tree while reading Habakkuk you’re going to need a Bible that is enrobed in Camo. Fortunately I saw one called “Mossy Oak Brand Camo Holy Bible.” I agree, it’s a little weird that the word “Brand” got top billing over the word Bible, but you wouldn’t want someone confusing this Bible with one of the other camo manufacturers.

2. Do you want a Bible that would make sense in the movie “Red Dawn?”
I thought the Mossy Oaks Bible was tough until I heard a Bible on another shelf giggling at it’s girly ways. I’m of course talking about the Outdoor Bible. It’s waterproof, snow proof, sleet proof, hail proof. (I guess I could have just said waterproof because all those other things are made of water.) And if your question is, “Yeah, but does it come with a free burlap bag?” The answer my grizzled friend is yes, yes it does. Best of all on the front it says that it’s perfect for “Camping, Hunting, Boating, Soldiers, Missions.” Is it me or does that list of activities get progressively more dangerous as it goes on? I kind of expected them to say after missions that the Outdoor Bible was “perfect for hunting the world’s most deadly prey. Man.”

3. Do you care about the sex of your Bible?
Yikes, I meant the “gender” of your Bible. Do you care if you get a lady Bible or a dude Bible? There are options you know. The easiest way to tell the difference is by color. Lady Bibles all come in pink and dude Bibles all don’t. Plus the name’s are different too. Lady Bibles are named pleasant, like “True Identity” and “Hugs Bible for Women.” Dude Bibles all have names that sound a little red bully, like “Strive.”. (And don’t just assume because you’re a dude you buy a Dude Bible. As latin sensation Bryan Adams sang, “To really love a woman, you read her Bible.”)

4. How skinny do you want your Bible to be?
We’ve given Bibles some serious body image issues. Go ahead and join the skinny Bible mania but please make sure you know exactly how skinny you want that word of God to be. Some Bibles promise thinness but you can tell they haven’t really worked their core out as hard as they should. Trust me, you can tell. Here are the options I found: ultrathin, trimline, thinline, ultraslim and compact text. Me personally? I’m waiting for the ultratrinslim Diet Rock Star edition.

5. Do you care about color?
If the answer is no, then get the straight up black, gray or brown editions. Expect a little more flair from your Word of God? How about Camel and Chocolate? Too much flair? How about a calming orchid plum. Of course if you want to show your support of Stuff Christians Like, you can always get a Bible in Razzleberry. I’m not kidding, this is real and this is real awesome.

6. How big do you want the print?
If you’ve got bad eyesight or just prefer to have it seem like everyone in the Bible is yelling at you, “MY NAME IS RUTH!” fear not because you’ve got some options. I have to admit I initially misread one version I saw as “Giant Panda.” It’s actually “Giant Print” although for a second I thought to myself, “Finally, Wycliffe Bible Translators have translated a version of the Bible for the Giant Pandas.” And I felt pretty good about recommending that option to you until I saw that there was a version called “Super Giant Print.” That kind of feels like naming the Bible, “Awesome Awesome” or “Mr. Mister” but maybe I’m wrong. The downside to the Super Giant version however is that it’s 19,000 pages long, weighs slightly more than a Kia and comes with a moving dolley to get it into your car.

7. Are you an airmen?
I know, I know, I’m hitting all the important questions right now. I’m kind of on a streak. But there’s actually something called “The Airman’s Bible” and it offers a “special prayer and devotional section for Air Force personnel.” Do the Marines have their own Bible? The Coast Guard? My assumption is that it’s got all the passages about us having our strength renewed like the eagle highlighted with a little note that says, “See, right there. That’s God talking to us. Beat Navy!”

8. Do you want it illustrated?
I’m not talking Frank Miller Sin City style, although he alone could do justice to some of the violence in the Old Testament, but do you want pictures? The store I went to had two different illustrated options which were pretty much the same thing anyway: The Thomas Kinkade Edition and the Manga Edition. Please tell me that somewhere out there a publisher is combining those two options and doing a “Mangkade” edition of the Bible. There would still be thatched roofs and idyllic brooks that babble about, but they’d be crawling with Ninjas that caused horizontal racing stripes of awesomeness when they leapt through the air to clear out the lenders from the temple. Oh man, this thing practically writes itself. Baker, Thomas Nelson, Zondervan? The world is waiting for Mangkade.

9. Do you want Max Lucado to read it to you?
I’m kidding, that I’m aware there’s not a Max Lucado audio version of the Bible available. But you can buy the Max Lucado version of the Bible or the John Maxwell version or the John MacArthur version. (I just realized that John Maxwell is kind of the nexus between “Max Lucado and John MacArther.” Interesting.) If you dig those three guys you can get their Bible. I doubt Zondervan will ever give me my own version of the Bible but maybe they’ll take me up on my proposal to do a version of “The Shack” starring Shaquille O’Neal. I’d call it “the Shaq.” I think 1,987 other Christians have already realized that The Shack sounds like Shaq, but my idea is different because instead of God being a woman, NBA star Larry Johnson, who used to dress up like his grandma in commercials for Converse sneakers, would be in it. And Shawn Kemp, the reign man would be in it too but only because he’s out of work and very available. And the soundtrack would be done by Terence Trent D’Arby. Wow, two free gold ideas in one post. Mangkade and the Shaq. Why don’t I have a multi-book deal and pants made of hollowed out diamonds stuffed with gold yet?

Hopefully in addition to learning something, you’ve found that it’s a lot easier to pick a new Bible then people try to say it is. Sure, if you search on Amazon for Bibles there are literally 493,743 different options available, but with the help of this list you’ll be able to cut that result set down to 460,000, maybe even 450,000 in no time.

How did you pick your Bible?

Last Saturday, I asked people to share an anthem, some piece of music or poetry or fragment of an idea that is playing in the background of where they are right now. If you ever need a bit of inspiration, read through the comments on that post, because they are a powerful reminder of what happens when people in a community, even an online community, share what’s going on in their lives.

Below are the three comments that really stood out to me and will be getting a free copy of the documentary “Anthem.” If you wrote one of these comments, please email me at theacuffs@yahoo.com with “Anthem Winner” in the subject line and your mailing address so I can get the DVD to you. Thanks to everyone that entered. Without you sharing your thoughts and time, this site doesn’t really exist and I plan on finding more ways in the future to get free, cool stuff into your hands.

Simon L Smith wrote:
My wife and I have had 5 children. Our oldest, Job, is 17. Our oldest daughter, Abigail, is 15. Our youngest son, Jesse, is almost 9 and our youngest daughter, Chloe, is almost 7.

Our middle child, Jude, died of brain cancer when he was 2 years, 2 months and 1 day old.

One song that has been my anthem for the last 8 years has been Disintegration by the Cure. Specifically the live version off of the Pictures of You single.

The song is about leaving – and not promising to stay until the end – and contains these amazing lyrics:

Now that I know that I’m breaking to pieces
I’ll pull out my heart and I’ll feed it to anyone
Crying for sympathy crocodiles cry for the love of the crowd
And the three cheers from everyone

Dropping through sky through the glass of the roof
Through the roof of your mouth
Through the mouth of your eye
Through the eye of the needle
It’s easier for me to get closer to heaven
Than ever feel whole again

In may ways this has been my anthem for the last 8 years.

PhoebeB wrote:
I was reared in a Christian home but ran away from God as hard as I could from age 12 until He finally made me cry uncle at age 45. My anthem now at age 73– and until He calls me home–will always be these centuries-old words by an unknown writer.

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
‘Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I’m weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

(From “Divine Hymns & Spiritual Songs”, collected by Joshua Smith, NH, 1784)

myjoy wrote:
My anthem right now is Ephesians 4:29, it’s everywhere around me, in sermons, in studies, on TV, everywhere! God is clearly trying to tell me something.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

God is challenging me to have everyone be better off than before they talked to me.

And today I just had a revelation. It’s not just directed at other people. It’s also about what I tell myself. Is my internal dialogue helpful for building me up? Or am I tearing myself down? Am I better off after hearing my own voice, than when I started? Or do I remain dejected, discouraged?

So I pray God will use this verse to change my heart, to tame my tongue, that the same mouth I use to bless His name I do not use to curse others or myself.

If you search the phrase “Christian humor” on Amazon.com here are some of the first things you’ll find on the results page:

The Magic Christian – A movie from 1969 starring Ringo Starr and Peter Sellers

The God Humor Platypus T-shirt

A poster of a kitten wearing glasses by a photographer named Christian. (There is nothing funny about feline near sightedness.)

An album called “Gibt es einen speziellen Schweizer Humor und wenn ja warum nicht?” by a dude named Christian. (You know the one I’m talking about, und wenn ja warum nicht? Exactly.)

The movie “Unleashed” (One of Jet Li’s funnier films.)

A Petra poster

There are a few Christian comedy “for a woman’s soul” kind of books mixed in to the results, but yikes.

We’re funnier than that, right? We have to be.

So that’s the question of the day.

What Christian blogs are you reading that are funny?

What comedians that are Christian do you love?

What Christian writers are creating great satire?

(I swear this isn’t my attempt to get you to answer “You’re funny Jon” unlike that time I wrote a post about Donald Miller and ended it by saying “Who will be the next Donald Miller?” That was clearly my attempt to get you to answer, “You are Jon, you’re the next Donald Miller.” Which is embarrassing but true. That was ridiculous of me.)

I’ll go first:
1. Lark News
2. Matthew Paul Turner
3. Jason Boyett
4. Tripp Crosby
5. Tyler Stanton
6. Bryan Allain, Stacy from Louisville, Nick the Geek, Matt & the church of no people and all the other Stuff Christians Like guest bloggers.
7. Lanny Donoho

So what funny Christian stuff is being created these days? My list is woefully incomplete, although I have a sneaking suspicion it should also include the Wittenburg Door.

Who is a funny Christian?

And please, feel free to self promote. Be shameless. If you’re doing funny things let us all know.

(A few weeks ago, my wife said “Jon, you have to read this blog it’s hilarious.” I said, “Jenny, hilarious? Really? That’s a pretty big word.” She said, “Seriously Jon, it’s funny.” I said, “Jenny, is it really funny or fake funny like ‘lol’ which everyone types when they IM but is rarely ever doing?” And then she said, “Jon, why do we keep using each other’s first names in our sentences?” And I said, “Because this is a guest blog introduction that has jumped the tracks, Jenny.” But I did check out the blog for Dr. Awesome and it is indeed funny. I asked him to bring his mantacular wisdom to Stuff Christians Like today. Enjoy.)

Hello readers of Stuff Christians Like. I am Dr Awesome, and I write a blog, To Every Man A Manswer, that looks at questions from men and gives them manswers. I have been gifted by God to emangelize the men and women of the world by dropping testosterbombs of biblical masculinity. Jon was kind enough to allow me to do a guest post, and suggested I talk about man church retreats. That’s fine, since I’m all about putting the Fellas back in Fellowship. So let’s roll.

Guys, let’s be honest for a second. Men’s church retreats are an avalanche of craptacularness. Tell me if this doesn’t sound familiar: you and a bunch of men go off to some remote part of the woods, where you meet some large African American lady in a Shack who claims she is God the Father and She/He tells you it is ok to cry. Wait, I’m getting confused, that’s something else. No, what really happens is that men go off together, sing camp fire songs, and learn about how important it is to be nicer to our wives. That’s all well and good, I do think it is important to be nice. But how am I supposed to get fired up about that? It basically amounts to a woman’s bible study, except you have the woods and a campfire instead of dainty floral arrangements and finger foods. Give me some powerful teaching and some powerful activities, not the spiritual equivalent of a pedicure in the woods.

Many churches and ministries have realized what I’m talking about, that men need a little more oomph in their retreats. But they’ve gone to the opposite extreme. They’ve cranked the masculinity up times eleventy billion. They don’t just take their men camping, they take them in the middle of the friggin desert and basically leave them for dead. They build a fire, then have Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego Fire Walks. Or they do trust falls off the side of a mountain. Then they sit around in loin clothes and bash themselves in the heads with rocks while howling like wolves. It’s as if masculinity is all about getting in touch with your primal Lord of the Flies instincts. Now don’t get me wrong, I love doing stuff like wrestling and dominating a grizzly bear as much as the next guy. I sometimes do that to really spice up my quiet times. But that has a time and place, and I’m not sure it’s the church men’s retreat.

That’s why I’m advocating a new style of men’s retreat. Something that junks the watered down wussitude of happy clappy campfire tea and snacks time, but doesn’t go to the opposite extreme and encourage shirtless cavemannery. It’s like our only choices are Man Vs Wild or Man Vs Mild, and I think there should be a third option. If I had to plan a men’s retreat, it would be centered around one theme: MEAT. Of course that’s an acrostic, because how can we make t-shirts if we don’t have letters that stand for something? Here is what the letters stand for:

M – Meat.
Pulled a fast one on you. Look, every guy activity I’ve ever been a part of included the consumption of delicious meat. Think about this…whenever Jesus got a few thousand people together, he didn’t just drop wisdom on them. He also had a massive fish fry. If you are going to have a retreat, you better come up with some way to feed everybody. BBQ, chicken, steaks, or even tasty hot dogs…get your men tons of tasty food, and they’ll be greased up and ready to learn.

E- Explosions.
Now I don’t mean literal explosions, at least not destructive ones, unless you just happen to have access to a cache of weaponry. No, what I mean are things that produce loud noises. When God made Adam, He genetically programmed in an appreciation for things that go boom. For centuries the only way we could make loud noises was to break wind, which provided (and still provides) hours of hilarity and entertainment. Now we have modern technology like guns and rockets and so on that make REALLY loud noises. If you can somehow arrange your men’s retreat to take place on a fully operational destroyer in the US Navy, that would be ideal. Eat a steak, shoot some cannons. In the absence of that, I recommend copious amounts of beans.

A – Athletics.
Men love competition. This envelops us in every area, from timing how long we can continuously urinate (95 seconds is my personal best, FYI (or TMI?)) to epic playstation football tournaments that last for days on end. We love to keep score. A great men’s retreat will channel this energy into something constructive. I don’t recommend anything that involves equipment…men are sinful, so even an innocent game of horse shoes will probably wind up in the head trauma unit at the ER if you aren’t careful. I recommend some sort of basic obstacle course, where you have to climb a tree, swim a river, fight off a hoard of rampaging raccoons…you know, just your every day woodsy activities. As long as this energy is properly channeled, it will be good for morale. And what wife wouldn’t be proud of her husband for coming home from the church retreat with a coon-skin cap as a present? Mrs. Awesome looks good in raccoon.

T – Mr. T.
I can’t think of a single situation that wouldn’t be improved by having Mr. T. there. From weddings and parties to your wife giving birth to your child, there’s no time that is inappropriate for Mr. T to be around. Part of the gospel is realizing you are a fool in need of pity. Fortunately, that’s what he specializes in.

I suppose if you’re going to have a church retreat, you should also have actual bible study at some point. Just make sure the topic is meaty, in a spiritual sense. It fits with the t-shirts.

So that’s my vision for the ideal Men’s Retreat of Badicalness, or ReMEAT if you prefer. Hopefully this middle of the road approach will take hold, and we’ll be done with both Pansyfest 2009 and Unfrozen Caveman Christian. I’d like to thank Jon for letting me guest post today, it’s been a pleasure. Feel free to stop by my blog and ask a question sometime, I’d love to have you. God bless you all. In the words of the immortal Ron Burgundy, you stay classy, Christians.

Dr Awesome

(For more from Dr. Awesome, check him out at To Every Man a Manswer)

Every year, during the NBA draft, the commentators from ESPN come up with new ways to measure the potential value of professional basketball prospects. One year it was “wingspan,” the distance measured from one outstretched hand to the other. You couldn’t watch draft coverage without hearing an announcer say, “He’s only 6’9″, but he has a 7-foot wingspan and plays a lot longer than he looks. Tremendous wingspan.” The next year, they talked about a player’s “ceiling,” or the peak performance that player could be expected to reach. “The ceiling on this kid is unbelievable.”

Each season, the way they describe players changes, but not so with the church. We have one word, one central label that we like to give a person. And that word has not changed for millennia. I am of course talking about calling someone “anointed.”

This is perhaps the highest compliment you can pay someone in the world of Christianity. It’s the polar opposite of saying, “God bless her,” which is just a nice way to cover your tracks after you’ve verbally annihilated someone behind their back. The word anointed is designed to indicate that the oil of God, the “major mojo,” if you’ll allow me to get theological with you for a minute, has been poured all over someone. They are blessed. They are getting the pure, unadulterated God fire hose.

Unfortunately, although we can all agree on what it generally means, there’s no chart or checklist that allows us to reach consensus on whether a person is actually worthy of the label “anointed.” I’m sure different denominations approach it in different ways and that we could squabble for centuries about an official process to figure out who is anointed.

Or we could use the Stuff Christians Like Anointed Algorithm.

It’s pretty simple, really. Here it is:

“A person’s potential to be considered ‘anointed’ is directly related to your desire to dislike them and your inability to fulfill that desire.”

Let me explain. I went to a conference once. One of the speakers was this young, wildly successful, up-and-coming minister. I confess I was trying my hardest to dislike him. Please read that sentence again, I was trying to dislike him. I brought judgment (that hair is frosted) and jealousy (why isn’t my ministry growing like that) and doubt (no one that young can be that good) and cynicism (this is just another flash in the pan young preacher) and criticism (I hate how the crowd is cheering like they’re at a concert every time his name is mentioned) to the table.

I was actively engaged in not liking him. I did everything I could, in some really inappropriate ways, to steel myself against liking him. And then I heard him speak.

I couldn’t deny it. There was something about this kid that didn’t make sense. Something illogical and beautiful and honest and true that cut through all of my preconceptions. Yeah, he had a hip haircut and cool minister clothes on. Yeah, he seemed confident in a way I wasn’t used to seeing on stage, but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered because even in the midst of the massive dislike I was trying to muster, I couldn’t get away from the fact that this guy was speaking God’s truth.

He was anointed.

For the first time ever, I used that phrase. It felt so Christianese coming out of my mouth, but I can’t help it. That pastor was anointed.

I wanted to dislike him, but I couldn’t. That’s what the algorithm is all about. The sum of your expectations held up against the sum of your experiences. Will it work for every situation?

Maybe not, in part because you’re probably nicer than me and don’t dislike people you know very little about, but at the bare minimum, it will force you to be honest about what you’re bringing to the table when it comes to other Christians. The doubt and judgments and jealousy. And being honest with all that junk might be even more important than labeling someone “anointed.”

Although I’d secretly, just once, like to hear someone describe their church to me and say, “Love the music, great kid’s department and you should see the wingspan on this pastor. He’s like some sort of prehistoric bird. Just tremendous wingspan.”

Are you going to the Orange Conference in Atlanta next week? If so, stop by the Blogger Lounge, which is directly upstairs in the front of the Gwinnett Arena at 12:30 on Thursday, April 30th. I’ll be there hanging out and will be the one that either looks like a nervous 12 year old or an anxious 14 year old depending on what Sports Clips does to my head next Monday.

And if you want to take a picture with a famous person I am more than happy to take that for you while you stand next to Francis Chan. He’ll be there. In the building, not in the blogger lounge, but in the building is probably infinitely closer than you usually get to him.

So come hang out, I think it will be a blast. I think a bunch of bloggers will be in the lounge, not just me, so it should be pretty crowded. Please just don’t make me ask you guys to capture another photo like the last meet and greet I did.

P.S. On Friday, Los from ragamuffinsoul.com will be there and he’s one of my favorite people on the planet. You should come see him too. (He and I can’t do our meet and greets on the same day because we look so much alike that people get us confused.)