Hey God, it’s me, Jon. This has been one amazing retreat. Thanks for showing up in so many cool ways this weekend. Those moments were all just appetizers though, pre-gaming for the big event, the Saturday night session. You ready for this? This is kind of like the grand finale of the retreat. Time to do some crying and some laying down of things.

Remember last year? That was crazy. They actually had a wooden cross and I went down front and gave up a bunch of stuff and felt drawn to your altar like a magnet. That was an insane time of closeness and awesomeness. I don’t want to be demanding with my expectations, but that is exactly what I am expecting this year.

Alright, there’s the first song and there’s the first “if you want to get right with God, come on down” message from the minister. You ready? It’s go time, right? This is the part where you drop some profound wisdom on me. You want me to journal something first? Want to have me flip to an unexpected Bible verse and lay some truth on me that way? I’ll leave it up to you. I’ll be right here in my chair, like a tightly pulled slingshot ready to burst toward the altar.

OK God, we’re on the second song now, last year we were down front the whole time. Trying something a little different this year, huh? Mixing it up? I feel ya, I feel ya. We’ll just chill in this seat for a while longer, but keep in mind, this is a retreat, this is kind of where you’re scheduled to show up the loudest. Well here and sunrises.

Wow, third song God and still nothing? I’m beginning to get a little worried. A lot of my friends have already gone down front or at the bare minimum are crying in their seats. I don’t want to be the one guy that stays in the aisle as if he’s not connecting with you on some sort of deep level. I mean it was OK when I went to Catholic high school and our entire gymnasium bleachers would empty for kids to go take communion, leaving only me and a smattering of Hindu kids sitting alone in the empty acres of seats. I was Baptist and took communion with my church not my school. But this, this is getting kind of embarrassing.

Fourth song, fourth song and nothing God? Really? I keep going to that place inside me where I find you most and it’s just calm and peaceful. It’s still and quiet, but I was kind of hoping for something turbulent right now God, some sort of fireworks and life change that exploded out of me. But if that’s not happening, I’m willing to negotiate. How about one or two small sentences of just fresh wisdom? Kind of like a fortune cookie of faith. Can I get one of those?

Remember that time three years ago when I was all frustrated because I wanted to be Donald Miller and no one knew I existed and I asked you what you wanted me to be that year and what you wanted me to do? And I felt like you said, “Be Jon Acuff. Not a smarter, better version of Jon Acuff, but just be Jon Acuff.” That seemed really simple at the time, but looking back on it, that was awesome. Because I didn’t know what that meant and you’ve continued to show me that, you’ve continued to reveal to me what it means to know you and be known by you. You’ve continued to show me what it really means to be “Jon Acuff.”

So can I get even a smidge of you? Break me off just a little piece of wisdom? What am I supposed to tell my friends when we got back to our cabin tonight and they all talk about the ways you rocked their worlds? I don’t want to make something up. Lying about something God told you is like a double sin or something. You sure you don’t want to follow my schedule, my expectations, my menu of what an amazing God moment looks like? This retreat has been on the calendar for months. I feel like you’ve had ample time to prepare.

Nothing?

Really?

No life change tonight? OK, well you’ve got the Fall Retreat in a few months. Maybe you can hit me with the triple mojo then.

Being funny is easy when you’ve got all the words in the world at your disposal. It’s easy when you can ramble about with big loopy paragraphs and ideas that seem to unravel like cotton candy made of laughter. But being funny on Twitter? That’s hard. And I’m not there yet. (For one thing my twitter name has an H in it. My name is Jon. How do you spell your own name wrong, @prodigaljohn.)

Yesterday, three of my friends @bryanallain of bryanallain.com/blog/ , @trippcrosby of trippcrosby.com and @TylerStanton of tylerstanton.com challenged me to raise my game or in layman’s term, get funnier on Twitter. They are all very funny and you should follow them and then say, “Whoa, Jon those guys are funnier than you,” and then I’ll get all inspired and start running laps in my cul-de-sac just yelling out 140 character jokes over and over again as a method of training.

But who else should I be following? Any ideas on who is really funny when it comes to writing on Twitter?

Recent @prodigaljohn tweets
1. Few things in life make me feel as strong as when someone asks me to move a piece of wicker furniture.

2. My wife & I made a pact today to never own/ride/be in a photo with one of those double bikes with 2 seats, 2 wheels & 2 ashamed riders

3. The new Axe bodyspray commercials where the guy is made of chocolate or maybe just smells like chocolate baffle/terrify me.

4. Sports Clips barbershop is like hair roulette. No appointments. No rules. No idea if you’ll walk out with awesome cheap or gruesome cheap

5. My wife makes PBJ sandwiches as if we were in the midst of a global jelly shortage. I believe in a 2 to 1 jelly to peanut butter ratio.

6. Do you ever wonder where all the ex members of Menudo are? There were like 400 over the years. You probably saw one today without knowing it

7. In jr high I tried to start a trend where people called me “A-tuff” instead of my last name “Acuff.” It did not take.

8. I hate shirts with bad button placement where if you button the top one it chokes you but if you leave it open, you look like a gigolo

9. Just saw a banner ad with this headline “Enter for a chance to win your hair back.” Made it sound like the hair was taken hostage.

10. Someone should make a CD of the sound the UPS truck makes when it comes to deliver a package. Few songs make me as happy.

11. I wish Hallmark made a card you could give the guy who heats up old seafood in the microwave at work. Front = photo of Cod. Inside = “Stop.”

12. I wish I had more reasons to start sentences with the phrase, “Here’s the thing you’ve got to remember about cougars …

13. God won’t ever hold us accountable for blog traffic #s. If you must choose between writing what’s popular or what’s true, chose the latter (I must have written that one on a serious Wednesday.)

Who do you follow on Twitter? Who is funny on Twitter?

As a pastor’s kid I have listened to roughly 87 million sermon illustrations. More than that, I’ve actually contributed to several, with the nonsense I got into as a child. And that’s fine with me, because my dad would pay us a dollar for every time he name dropped me and my siblings in one of his sermons.

But I realized recently that despite having heard a lot of sermon illustrations, I’m still a little unclear about what makes a good one. Does it have to be funny? Does it need to just intro the sermon and then leave the sanctuary like that guy that pretends he’s going to the bathroom but never comes back or do the best ones weave themselves throughout the whole message like a poignant tapestry of adjectives? How do you rank and rate them so that you know you’ve just received a quality, high end sermon illustration? If only there was some kind of sermon illustration score card.

The Stuff Christians Like Sermon Illustration Score Card

1. Sermon illustration contains a cute dog or cat. = +1 point

2. Sermon illustration contains a cute dog or cat and so does the pulpit, a fact that is revealed ten minutes into the sermon when the dog bites the pastor in the ankle. = + 2 points

3. Sermon illustration compares boiling a frog slowly in water to how sin works. = – 2 points

4. Sermon illustration references a famous professional athlete that beats tremendous odds, thus inspiring us all = +2 points

5. That same athlete gets arrested outside a strip club in some sort of melee or “donnybrook” the next weekend. = – 1 point

6. Pastor calls his wife on stage and they tell the illustration together. = + 1 point

7. They use some sorts of “dancing ribbon” and an acoustic guitar to tell the illustration. = – 5 points

8. The pastor uses his own kids as examples of spiritual awesomeness during the sermon illustration. = +2 points

9. Everyone in the church knows those kids are actually punks. At least the oldest one whose name might start with J and end with “on Acuff.” = – 3 points

10. Sermon illustration calls to mind a world event that happened within the last month. = + 1 point

11. Sermon illustration calls to mind a world event that happened within the last week. = + 2 points.

12. Sermon illustration calls to mind a world event that hasn’t happened yet but eventually does. = +spooky

13. Sermon illustration involving wild animal goes awry and eventually animal control is called in to remove the panicked beast from the baptismal. = +2 points

14. During the previously mentioned animal rampage, pastor swears, animal control handlers decide to give their life to Christ and someone’s toupee is wrestled off by the frightened creature. = +22 points

15. Sermon illustration came straight from the pages of Chicken Soup for the Soul = no points

16. Sermon illustration came straight from the posts of Stuff Christians Like = +bajillionty points

17. Sermon illustration is clearly about one particular person in the church, but the pastor thinks that by saying “someone told me recently” that he has provided an adequate blanket of anonymity for the now greatly embarrassed person. = – 4 points

18. Pastor uses some branch of knowledge that he clearly knows nothing about, is using words that sound weird in his mouth and tries to play if off as “so I was reading about sub particular atomic cold fusion studies the other day as I’m prone to do in my free time.” = – 3 points

19. Sermon illustration is so perfectly crafted that you can repeat it at the watercooler on Monday morning at work and 47% of the people in your office become Christians on the spot. = + 10 points.

20. At the beginning of the illustration you think, “I have no idea where he is going, this can’t tie back to God” and at the end you think, “that makes perfect sense.” = +3 points

21. Sermon illustration contains one sports reference. = +1 point

22. Sermon illustration contains a complicated mix of sports references, “e.g. God wants us to hit it out of the park so that we score a touchdown and win the race.” = – 1 point for each reference.

23. You get the distinct feeling that this illustration came from a 2 minute search on google for “sermon illustrations about mountains.” = – 2 points

24. Despite having used the same sermon illustration every year for the last 14 years, the pastor still says, “So the other day I was talking with my wife.” – 2 points

25. Sermon illustration contains one of the following phrases: “my only option was to fight the cobra with my bare hands,” “and that’s when I knew there were too many ninjas on that boat,” or “so that’s when I decided to buy cotton candy for the whole congregation.” = +5 points

26. The sermon illustration is actually an urban legend that could have been proven false with a 14 second search on Snopes.com = – 3 points

27. During the middle of the sermon a prop connected to the sermon illustration (a wall, a pole, a ladder, etc.) falls over and hits the pastor knocking him out cold. = no points

28. While he’s out cold none of the worship band standing on stage is willing to give him mouth to mouth and a nurse has to scale the stage from the crowd to revive him. = – 10 points. (for shame, worship leaders, for shame.)

29. Your pastor actually died during a sermon series called Reaching Higher/Daniel/Mounting Up Wings Like an Eagle when a ladder fell on him/lion broke free of its handler/mechanical eagle he was riding into the sanctuary fell out of the rafters and I now feel horrible. = – 100 points for me.

If you or the pastor at your church scored more than 30 points, congratulations, that’s SIM country. (Sermon Illustration Master.) If you scored under 30, keep reading, keep writing and eventually you’ll get there. If you scored under 10, you need some serious help and I’m going to say two words that might solve all your sermon illustrations: Komodo Dragon. People love Komodo Dragon stories.

That’s today’s list, but surely I missed some.

What’s your favorite sermon illustration story?

Recently I got some strongly worded opposition to the Stuff Christians Like blog. And I think that’s OK. When I get what feels like a personal attack, I also receive two gifts:

1. A chance to spend time in the Bible making sure I am not misrepresenting God’s word and truth and hope.

2. A chance to live out Matthew 6:8 where Jesus says “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”

Let’s be honest, those are not my first knee jerk reactions when someone piñatas me. I usually want to write something horribly sarcastic back to the person or at the bare minimum print their comments on a novelty belt buckle. But if I take the time to pray and think about it, God usually brings me back to those two points.

The truth is, sometimes it’s easy to focus on the squabbles or the negativity or anything else that gets stirred up in our days. So even though it’s a Sunday and I usually don’t post on Sundays, I wanted to share with you an email I got last week. Although it was addressed to me, it’s your email too because you’ve made this site a community. You’ve made this free, silly blog a place where honest conversations are taking place. Here’s an email from a reader:

Jon,

A while back, after several events culminated in my leaving Christianity and beginning to consider conversion to Judaism, a friend emailed me a link to SCL with a simple message that she understood my problems with Christianity, but that if I had been given the opportunity to develop my own spirituality in a healthy environment (I was brought up nominally Christian, until the day my grandparents joined the Branch Davidian church, and it all went downhill from there), that this was the kind of Christian she thought I’d be. I read some of the posts (Booty, God, Booty especially stuck with me), laughed a bit, told her she was right, you’re the kind of Christian I look up to and respect, and went about my business.

A couple of years, a nervous breakdown, a lot of prayer and soul searching and quality time with the Scripture later, and I’m at a point in my life where I’m seriously considering coming back to Christianity. I’ve been attending church with my boyfriend, who has been absolutely amazing about talking to me about religion without pushing or pressuring me, and I’ve been doing a lot of reading and praying on my own — I think it says something that even after the Branch Davidian debacle and a serious crisis of faith surrounding some health issues, among other things, the farthest I can really get from Christ is to follow the faith He followed during his time on earth. And I’ve started rereading SCL, and reading Prodigal Jon a bit more in depth.

Anyhow, I guess I just wanted you to know that your blogs have been comforting and helpful to me, and even in the tongue in cheek entries, I’ve found a lot to think about in my ongoing search. I don’t know what your intentions were when you started the blog, or your motivations in continuing it for as long as you have, but you’ve honestly touched at least one life and made it better. Thank you.

There are going to be people that don’t like this site. Part of the risk of “going first” is that you create a target for people to fire at, but you know what? By going first with your story, with your faith and your hope, you also create a lighthouse. You also create a neon sign that says, “Jesus is here. Jesus is real. Jesus loves laughter. Jesus loves you.”

And that’s what I hope you and me and a lot of other people with blogs keep doing.

Jon

Next month, I’m speaking at my sister-in-law’s wedding. I’m not an ordained minister, so I’ll be sharing the responsibilities with the groom’s grandfather who is a pastor. My mother-in-law asked me to tell her daughter’s story, share some marriage advice and do kind of a humor/insight thing. (She asked me after seeing me speak at the Off the Blogs event and that she wants me to do this is no small miracle because for at least four solid years before God rebuilt my life she experienced a season of life I would call “Wow that Jon Acuff is a jerk.”)

And this is the first wedding I’ve spoken at. Sure, I’ve been the silver medal friend that’s not in the wedding and is instead asked to read a Bible verse, you know the verse I am talking about, but never actually spoken at one. So I was curious, what’s the best marriage advice you’ve ever heard? Clearly I know what I’m not going to say, but what should I say?

If you’ve never been married, what’s the best advice you’ve heard?

If you are married, what’s the best advice you wish you had heard?

What would you tell a young couple about marriage?

(You don’t read this blog to stay on top of current events. Other than the Jon & Kate post and maybe the Michael Phelps sermon illustration post, I don’t focus on having the blog reflect the most up to date information in pop culture. And I had a guest post ready today from Mrs. Hucklebuck, which I think you’ll really love in a week or two. But it seemed foolish to ignore yesterday and I thought the best thing to do today might be to revisit a post I did about the song Michael Jackson gifted church youth groups across the country with, “Man in the Mirror.” It’s a great song and at the bare minimum, the Grammy performance at the bottom of this is worth a watch.)

The 11 signs of a wicked awesome mission trip interpretative dance song.

When I was in high school in the early 90s, I went on a mission trip to Dominica. Our youth group wanted to sing a popular song that we could also choreograph some simple dance moves to. At the time, there was a church law that you had to use one of the following three songs:

1. Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”
2. Gloria Estefan’s “Coming out of the Dark”
3. Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”

So we learned Man in the Mirror and Coming out of the Dark, strung together a handful of dance moves and then proceeded to perform for the general populace of one of the Lesser Antilles. It all made sense at the time.

But times have changed. I have to believe we’ve collectively retired those three songs. Despite the 80’s love due Miss Tyler deserves, surely, we are not still singing, “Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I’m only falling apart, there’s nothing I can do, a total eclipse of the heart.” And though I remain a firm believer that the rhythm is gonna get ya, maybe even tonight, Gloria Estefan is no longer rocking youth groups.

So what are the new songs we should be learning awkward dance steps to and performing on our mission trips? What pop culture nugget can we shine up with a mime intro and wow folks with? And most importantly, how do we make sure that the songs we do pick, will be as excellent as those three above?

We look for the 11 signs of a wicked awesome mission trip interpretative dance song:

1. The song features snapping, the easiest “dance move” ever.

2. The song has a “songversation” in the middle, where two people go back and forth, like the weird dude that just groans, “Turnaround bright eyes” in “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

3. The song is inspired by a personal crisis like Gloria Estefan’s car crash.

4. The song includes a whistling solo that even the least talented member of your group can handle.

5. The song contains a section that’s perfect for a gospel choir to magically appear from behind a curtain.

6. The song has lyrics that practically beg for you to mime things like Jackson’s “As I, turn up the collar on my favorite winter coat, this wind is blowing my mind.”

7. The song is cheesy enough that years later when you hear it with your mission trip friends you will all immediately break into the dance routine.

8. The songwriter clearly wrote the song about his girlfriend but with some creative editing you can pretend he’s singing to God.

9. The song has a solo section for that one girl in your youth group that can just belt it out.

10. When you return from the mission trip and put together a black and white slideshow of your photos you can play the song in the background and make everyone cry.

11. The song allows you to stretch it out to 14 minutes if you need some filler while other parts of the service get ready.

How did you score? 10 for 11? 2 out of 11? And what songs are we performing these days on mission trips? I told you my three from back in the day and even included a video clip of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.” In fact, I wanted you to know what you’re up against so below is his 1988 Grammy Awards performance. I don’t think we’ll ever have a better song to do an interpretative dance to, but maybe I’m wrong.

So what’s your favorite mission trip interpretative dance song?

You shouldn’t do this. I think there’s a verse in 2 Thessalonians that mentions the need to have your eyes closed at all times when the pastor is praying at church. But if you do, if you willfully decide to crack your eyelids for a peek, the very least I can do is prepare you for what you’ll find.
It’s a church wonderland.

It really is. When you open your eyes during a prayer it’s like going snorkeling for the first time and being shocked at how much life is going on under the surface of the water. All the years you were clutching your eyes shut, you had no idea what you were missing.

The removal of instruments? The magical set changes or pulpit vanishing acts that happen on stage? That’s during prayer. The way ushers seem to materialize out of thin air with the offering buckets when the prayer is over? That’s accomplished during a prayer. In fact, the momentum of the church staff doesn’t stop when it’s prayer time, if anything it speeds up the moment you close your eyes. But that’s housekeeping stuff. What about the underprayer wonders you’ll see?

A few of my favorites include:

The guy that thinks he’s invisible when he’s praying.
You might know him by his more common name, “Nose pick guy.” He’s made the assumption that everyone has their eyes closed and he is therefore invisible. (My youngest daughter does this when we play hide and seek. If she can’t see you, she assumes that you can’t see her so the only body part she’ll hide is her head.) As soon as people bow their heads in prayer this guy suspends all social graces and has no problem combining a prayer with a ferocious session of nose-picking.

The bathroom jail breaker
She has got to go. And like Tom Cruise hanging from the ceiling in Mission Impossible, she knows this is her moment. She quietly gets up, moving with the deftness of someone playing the game “Operation.” And the second she breaks free of her row and gets in some open space, she starts powerwalking. The clock is ticking. If she’s going to make it to the bathroom and get back to her seat before the sermon, she knows she has to hustle.

The little kid who knows silence amplifies his yelling.
This rascal had his yelps and giggles hidden under a warm blanket of worship music, but no more. It’s quiet now and this is his time to shine and shine he will. Standing up in his seat he’ll fill that quiet time of reflection with loud talking, highlighted when his mother whispers, “be quiet” and he yells back “Why?” But if you’re really lucky, if you’re special, you’ll witness a “little kid call out” and will actually hear him yell, “Mom, that man is picking his nose.” Oh, so rare. It’s like seeing a unicorn fish floating about the reef. A creature so rare I had to make it up for the purpose of this paragraph.

The only thing that ruins a good open eye exploration session, other than that you might be missing the point of prayer, is when you make eye contact with someone else doing the same thing. It’s like bumping into a family of other tourists when you’re snorkeling. Some of the wonder of being in a completely foreign undersea world disappears when in the midst of floating about gently in a clear blue sea you bump into a guy wearing a “Fear This” t-shirt. Look away. Look away quickly and either close your eyes and jump back into the prayer or try to find a bathroom jail breaker you can time with your watch. Will she make it back? Will she get caught off guard by an unexpectedly short prayer and end up interrupting the sermon with her reentry? Ohh the intrigue.

Have you ever opened your eyes during a prayer at church?

(P.S. big shout out to Jered R. for suggesting this topic, or what he called “The cone of silence.” I completely forgot to mention him and that is my bad. The best ideas come from readers and this is one of them.)

I’m speaking at the Catalyst Conference this October in Atlanta with Anne Jackson and Carlos Whittaker. We’re doing something called “Off the Blogs” and I think it’s going to be awesome.

Another thing that is awesome is getting to go to Catalyst for as cheap as possible. Today is the last day of the early bird registration. If you’re thinking about going, today is the day you want to sign up.

Here’s the link to register. Hope to see you there.

(Rob Bell, Francis Chan and Malcolm Gladwell will also be there. Probably not literally there as in “in the same room with me” but I’m wiry and can probably find my way into the green room and tell Gladwell that I loved his book Tipping Point before the Gwinett Arena security guards can catch me.)

Jon

A few weeks ago, I called one of my accountability partners and confessed that I’d been listening to techno music lately.

Whoa, Footloose’s John Lithgow, what’s wrong with techno music?

Nothing. There’s inherently nothing wrong with techno music or electronic music or drum and bass or a million other iterations of that genre of music.

And twelve years ago, when I was in college in Birmingham, Alabama I loved techno music.

If the question is, “Yeah but did you ever go to a rave and wear reflective pants?” The answer is “Yes.”

Did I spin and dance around with glowsticks in my hands? Yes.

Did I have futuristic sunglasses that looked like I might be driving a motorcycle from the year 2065 that can also travel up the side of walls? Yes.

We could play that game all day, but simply put, I jumped into rave culture with both feet, which meant that on some weekends, I took ecstasy from strangers, danced in a dark warehouse for eight hours and then crawled my way back outside into a sunshine that felt accusingly bright and painful.

Fast forward twelve years and life is different. I am different. Who I know God to be is different. But on a Tuesday afternoon a few weeks ago, I noticed that techno music had crept back into my life.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with techno, but for me, it’s the soundtrack of a period in my life that is pretty dark. And when I listen to a lot of techno, there’s a part of me that wants to “reminiscence” about that time. Despite the hurt and the pain and the emptiness that came from those moments, there’s still a part of me that likes to put rose colored glasses on.

And perhaps bigger than that, there’s still a part of me that wants to hide. When things get tough, when the pressures of trying to fulfill a lifelong goal like writing a book start to pile up a little, I still reflex to a degree into my old ways and try to hide. So for me, techno music becomes an escape. A chance to close out the world, close out my day and be surrounded by a steady, faceless, wordless beat.

For me, techno is a small step toward stupid.

Have you ever noticed those in your own life? This is the first time I saw techno that way. What usually happens is that I listen to a lot of techno. I start to pull away from friends and family. I get more secretive with how I’m spending my time. I make small bad decisions that grow into large bad decisions. And I start hiding deeper and deeper in the shiny objects I used to care so much about when I used to care about nothing.

Then a few months later, I crash. It all falls apart and with a great degree of surprise I proclaim, “How did I end up here? I never saw that coming.”

Meanwhile, all along, I was taking small steps toward stupid.

You know who else did that? The prodigal son.

For most of my life I just assumed that the son, upon getting all his inheritance from his father, immediately left the farm on a fast track to hookers and pig sty living. But that’s not what the Bible says. In fact, in Luke 15:13, the moment after he got his money is described this way:

“And not many days after the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.” (KJV)

I’ve written about this before because it blows me away. He didn’t leave instantly. You get the sense that he packed his stuff. He got his things together and prepared for the long journey deep into the heart of stupid. He took small steps.

I don’t know if you discount your small steps toward stupid, but if you do, if there are patterns you’re missing, I challenge you to think about them today. What are they? What are your small steps toward stupid? Techno is one of mine, but I’ll go first with a couple more of mine in the hope that they’ll spark some of your own.

Two more of my small steps toward stupid:

1. My weight
I don’t think I’ve talked about this before, but my weight fluctuates by about 30 pounds. That might not seem like a lot, but going from 135 pounds to 165 pounds is a fairly big shift. When things feel chaotic, I tend to control what I can and end up not eating enough and being skinny. After a period of that, I tend to let everything go and pendulum swing back the other direction and gain so much weight that the button of my pants could spring off and kill someone.

2. My quiet time
When I’m taking small steps toward stupid I tend to stretch the boundaries of what “quiet time with God” really means. For instance, last June and July I started to lie to myself and say, “Well since Stuff Christians Like is about God, writing it kind of counts as a quiet time.” That’s not true, but when I’m headed toward stupid, my quiet time tends to disappear.

Those are a few small steps toward stupid I take. Yours will be different. Gaining weight and listening to techno might mean nothing in your life but chances are, you have your own small steps toward stupid.

What are they?

And how can we all stop taking them?

My good friend Pete Wilson has asked me to speak at Cross Point Church on July 19th in Nashville, Tennessee while he’s out of town.

I’m a big fan of Pete, his blog is withoutwax.tv, and I’m really excited about the opportunity to come be a small part of the big things that are happening at Cross Point.

Come hang out if you get a chance. I’ll be speaking four times that Sunday: 8:30, 10:30, 11:45 and 6:00. Here is the address of the Nashville campus: 4301 Charlotte Ave, Nashville, TN 37209 and here’s the church website: www.crosspoint.tv

Hope to see you there.

Side hugs and leg drops

Jon