In a few weeks I’m speaking at a residential rehab clinic. I’ve spoken there before and love the people that run this facility and the people that live there.

I know what I’m going to say. I’ve got a 30 minute concept called “4 words,” but despite any level of preparation I’ve done, I have a serious question for you:

“Do I have to say that I was prepared to speak on one thing but God gave me something completely different at the last second?”

Is that a “Christian law” or just a “Christian like?” Is that something we have to do, kind of like the double greeting where you awkwardly greet the crowd, express your disappointment in the quality of their response and then chastise them into greeting you again by saying, “I said ‘good morning?’” Or is that just something we like to do?

I’m starting to speak more and these are the kind of things I should probably figure out. I can just see me sitting on a plane someday, where 73% of all “God changed my sermon at the last minute” events occur, flying out to an event with an extreme degree of nervousness. I’ll have a recorder out, my notebook ready and will be talking to everyone I make eye contact with. “Hey aisle-mate, got anything interesting to say that might completely shipwreck what I think I’m speaking on when I land and send me in a different direction?”

Or, “Excuse me stewardess, I can’t be sitting on an empty aisle, I think I’m supposed to get a new message while on this flight. Could you please put my seat beside someone that looks insightful, perhaps with a beard or an exotic hat? Thanks.”

You laugh, but God loves the game time decision on the sermon. He loves the “in the shower” moment where something unexpected jumps out at you while you’re washing your hair and singing Rob Thomas’ new song “Diamonds on her shoes” and wondering if at this point, recording studios have a “Gospel Choir” button they can press when they want to make a song sound more emotionally engaging.

I think the “sermon switch up” happens primarily because God loves to remind us that He’s a creative God. I think this happens because the best creative moments are where you, the speaker, the writer, the musician, the whatever are actually the first spectator for the experience. Where you get an idea that is bigger and weirder than you can possibly take credit for and can only really sit back and say, “Really God? That’s the one? I get to share that? You’re crazy.”

And it keeps you from getting cocky. When I was preparing for the Off the Blogs event, God reminded me of something that happened to me while I was at Chuck-e-Cheese in the second grade. This one idea became the hinge of everything I said and because it was so off the wall, it was impossible for me to take credit for it.

I can be an ego drunk jerk sometimes but even I couldn’t pretend that when I was 9 years old I said to myself while at Chuck-e-Cheese, “I should remember this moment because in 24 years I’m going to want to share this with people at a Catalyst event.”

I didn’t do that. I got to experience that idea just like everyone else in the crowd. I didn’t create that moment. But fortunately I didn’t get it as I drove to the event. I worked on that idea a few weeks before and delivered it half a dozen times to my daughters’ stuffed animals in their play room. (Clifford the big red dog got saved multiple times. He struggles with body size issues.)

Other people that say, “I was going to preach about _____, but God gave me a different idea” probably have other thoughts about why they do it, but that’s mine.

Am I the only one that’s heard a pastor say that?

Or is that something a pastor has said to you too?

A few weeks ago, while walking in the parking lot at Wal-Mart, my daughters and I found two five dollar bills on the ground. My first thought was, “Nice, free money!” My second thought was, “Wait a second, this might be a Christian trick.”

That’s a weird thing to think when you find money on the ground, but before I picked it up, I tried to see from a distance if the money was real or not. My fear was that I would get my hopes up, grab it and then realize it was a salvation tract disguised as money.

That happened to me once and even as a Christian, I found it kind of traumatizing. And it’s not that I hate tracts. I think tracts can be a good thing. I don’t like that sometimes people, myself included, beat them up like some sort of Christian piñata, making fun of the people that hand them out. I think for some people, handing out tracts is an honest expression of worship. The truth is that there are probably people reading this site today that could easily say, “Someone giving me a tract on the street really meant a lot to me.”

But is there anyone that picks up what appears to be a ten dollar bill, flips it over, finds out it’s actually a message about the Bible and says, “Phew, I thought this was free money for a second. Let’s see what this John 3:16 is all about instead?”

I doubt it. The first reaction is probably anger. Followed by embarrassment for falling for a trick. Followed by throwing the tract away or bringing it home to show all your friends and family members how mean Christians are.

There are really only two ways to fix this problem. We can either stop creating tracts that are disguised as money or we can create an even worse tract so that when people do get the fake money tract they can at least say, “Wow, I don’t like this fake money but at least it’s not as bad as that other tract I hear is going around.”

I would like to pretend that this blog is powerful enough to make number one happen but let’s be honest, it isn’t. So instead, I think we should lean into option number two as hard as we can.

What would be worse than fake money? I thought long and hard about this because there’s already a fake parking ticket tract going around. Abraham Piper wrote about that a few months ago. After much consideration and a desire to be topical and relevant, I decided that the worse tract we could create right now is a fake pink slip. With as many layoffs happening and as many people finding their jobs “eliminated” or my favorite new term, “sunsetted,” I think a little tract that looks like you’re getting fired would be most horrible.

Imagine you come back from lunch and there’s a note on your keyboard. It’s pink, it’s official looking and across the top in a font that looks all serious it says, “Please pack your things and leave the keys to your desk in one of the drawers.” You open it up and inside it says …..I’m not sure.

That’s the challenge with writing a bad tract, you have to make a wild segue from “you’re fired” to “here’s Jesus.” Here are a few headlines I think we could use on our fake pink slip tract:

1. “You might not have been fired, but speaking of fire, imagine how hot hell might be.”

2. “You might still have a job, but did you know your real job is to worship the Lord?”

3. “Your job wasn’t eliminated, but you know that fear in your heart that you just felt when you thought it was? God wants to eliminate that.”

4. “Want a job you can never lose? Become a follower of Christ.”

5. “Who knows when you’ll get fired, but today you could be hired … for the Lord’s army that is.”

6. “Want to work for a Jewish carpenter?”

Those are horrible, but unfortunately not far off from what happens sometimes. Let’s stop trying to trick people into Jesus. I would love everyone that reads this blog to become a Christian and know the insane life transforming joy that I sincerely believe a relationship with Christ offers, but I have to trust that God is big and beautiful and powerful enough not to need me to help Him out by tricking people into His arms.

A lady I work with once enlightened me, “You just wait until you have kids.” I’m not sure what she thought would magically happen the instant I became a father, but it didn’t (apparently). I know this because at the time she uttered her prophetic words to me, I already had two kids… precisely twice as many as she had.

My guess is she thought having kids would make me more wise, more mature, more patient… more something. She had an expectation about what parenthood would change about life. A lot of Christians do too. And it’s not insignificant:

We think the birth of our children will reveal to us the very face of God.

While you might not use those exact words, at some point, someone in your Christian circle of friends has said one of the following things to you:

“I really didn’t know God until I had kids.”

“When I became a father, I finally understood how hard it was for God to send Christ to the cross.”

“Being a mother—witnessing the miracle of life—radically changed my understanding of God’s love.”

There’s a million ways to express “Kids = Big Faith.” And if you’re single or childless, there has to be a part of you that thinks, “Fantastic! The missing link in my faith is having a kid. I have zero kids and zero prospects. I’ll just be over here with my small, incomplete faith. Awesome.”

Good news. It’s not true. Bad news? It also is. On some level, having a kid can show you God’s miraculous love. Some Bible verses support this notion that having a kid puts faith into a unique context. “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11) That verse makes more sense if you’re seeing it unfold in your own child’s life.

However, we also way over-amplify what we expect our children to do for our faith. I personally have (many times) essentially said to my children, “OK, dad had a really bad day at work. Tonight I need you to show me God’s perfect and true love. I know you’re only two, but Daddy needs you to reconnect him in his relationship with Yahweh. Is that cool with you? You’re drooling. I’ll accept that as an emphatic yes.”

Those nights typically also coincide with the times my kids try to break me down like little terrorists. Fits are thrown, fights erupt, demands are made. The most menial tasks incite battle cries: “I do myself, I do myself!” One would assume applying the toothpaste to your child’s toothbrush when they want to do it themselves is not a cry-worthy, scream-inducing offense, but you’d be gravely mistaken.

Does God show up in parenthood? I sure hope so. Are kids a walking, talking daily reminder of Jesus? Not always. And if you go into parenthood expecting that, you’ll be sorely disappointed… or at the bare minimum, covered with pink bubble gum-flavored princess toothpaste.

You don’t do this. I know, I know, you are a prayer warrior, a veritable beacon of holiness and Christian fortitude. But me? I’ve got a lot left to learn.

The other night when our small group leader asked if anyone had a prayer request, one of the first thoughts that went through my head was “Quick, come up with something.”

I didn’t want to make up a prayer request. I wasn’t going to fabricate something out of thin air, but if everyone else had something they wanted prayer for I felt like maybe I should too. So I googled my head and heart to try to come up with an appropriate topic.

And maybe I’m not the only one that does this. Maybe you’re in a small group where people do this too. If you are, and you want to spot it and eliminate people giving into “prayer pressure,” here are the warning signs you need to look for:

1. The Long Pause
If you ask for prayer requests and your friends pause, scratch their heads and appear lost deep in thought, chances are they’ve taken a trip to the part of their head called “Oh jeez, am I really not praying for anything right now?” They’re flipping through a mental flickr photo album saying, “Family is doing OK. Check. My job is doing OK. Check. My car is running OK. Check.” If after 30 seconds of thought time their face still looks kind of like a loading bar on a graphics intense website, move on.

2. The Greatest Hits
Sometimes if someone can’t come up with a fresh prayer request, they’ll dust off an oldie but a goody and give you a “greatest hits request.” These are usually requests that have no discernible end date or conclusion. “I’m still praying for patience and work. I’m also praying that I would be kind to the people in my life.” Notice how lo fidelity that prayer is? “People in my life?” Which people? All people? You can pray about that for the next 60 years.

3. The Ferris Bueller
One of the best scenes in the movie Ferris Bueller was when one of Ferris’ classmates describes a multilayered story of how she heard Ferris was sick. She tells the teacher, “Um, he’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.” The same thing happens to prayer requests. Like searching for a car on AutoTrader.com when you get zero results in a 10 mile radius, you expand your search out a little further. If you can’t muster up a prayer request about yourself or your family, you’ll expand the prayer request to include people on your street or maybe your neighborhood or maybe your city or maybe your state. If someone ever says, “I want to lift up our solar system in prayer,” tell them, “that’s adorable” and move on.

I promise if we’re ever in a small group I’ll try not to ask you to pray for something I’m not praying for. I’m not doing that much anymore, but it’s still a work in progress. Would you please pray that I will be honest with the words I say to people in my life and perhaps the universe

Could you just lift that up?

Have you ever wanted to make up a prayer request because everyone else had one?

Thanks for the great comments, the contest is over. The winners will be announced soon.

I hope I live long enough to learn how to write as well as 21-year old Kevin Roose.

He’s the author of the recent book, “The Unlikely Disciple, A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University.”

In the book, Kevin, a Brown University student, spends a semester at Liberty University in an attempt to understand evangelical Christianity.

To be honest with you, my first thought when a friend recommended the book to me was, “Fantastic. A non-Christian wrote another ‘I went undercover in Christianity mockumentary.’ How original.”

But I was wrong (and pretty judgmental too). Right from the get go, Roose establishes his intent. “I did want to see what Christian college was like, with as little prejudgment as possible. I knew that wouldn’t be easy—you can’t neutralize a lifetime of bias overnight—but I wanted to try my best. So my second decision was: no cheap shots. If I went to Liberty, it would be to learn with an open mind, not to mock Liberty students or the evangelical world in toto.”

This book is beautifully written. It is an interesting reflection of a segment of Christianity. And even though I disagreed with some of Kevin’s arguments (which I would hope would happen if Kevin, a non Christian, and me, a Christian, are both being honest about what we believe) I think you’ll find it to be a really fascinating book. Best of all, I’ve got 5 copies to give away. (Hardcover even!)

So here’s the contest. Post a comment with your favorite stereotype about Christianity. Best 5 win. Enter until Tuesday, June 9th and then I’ll announce the winners.

What’s your favorite stereotype about Christians and Christianity?

(Matt taught us how to comment on Stuff Christians Like. He taught us how to have a super holy Christian dating profile. And now he’s teaching us how to know if we’re doing things that are “not very Christian.” Here with another guest post is one of my favorite bloggers, Matt from the church of no people.)

Hey everyone. Contrary to popular belief, Christians aren’t always perfect people. Maybe you have a bumper sticker or a bracelet that says, “W.W.J.D.,” but my bracelet says “W.W.J.L.M.G.A.W.J.T.O.I.I.S.I.W.R.S.A” (What would Jesus let me get away with just this once if I said I was really sorry afterward?) Yes, I have really big wrists.

Sometimes Christians just do ‘Bad Things.’

‘Bad things’ fall into two categories: ‘Sin’ and ‘Not Very Christian.’

Bad things that are ‘Sin’ are obvious, because they’re in the Bible. They’re things like playing cards, dancing, wearing hats in church, getting tattoos or piercings, reading Harry Potter, or women wearing calf-length skirts. ‘Not Very Christian’ things are not in the Bible, but are also obvious, because as soon as you do something, hopefully a Christian will be nearby to say, ‘That wasn’t very Christian of you!’

Yes, even the best of us slip up in certain situations. The Bible doesn’t always tell us what we should do, so we do something that Jesus probably wouldn’t. But let me pluck that speck from your eye! Take this quiz to find out how ‘Not Very Christian’ you might really be at the right place and time.

The Official Test of ‘Not Very Christian’ Christians

1. The obnoxious neighbor kids are riding their bikes in your yard. What might you do?
A: Pray fervently that they will go away.
B: Offer them leftover donuts from church.
C: Toss the leftover donuts from church into the street to lure them out of your yard.

2. You have just moved your groceries from the cart to your trunk. What might you do as your ‘witness’ at the grocery store?
A: Take your cart to the corral if it’s not too far.
B: Take your cart and another person’s back to the store.
C: Casually let the cart roll into the nearest ‘Coexist’ bumper sticker.

3. You realize you do not have enough cash to leave a good tip. What could be your plan?
A: Leave the restaurant, find an ATM, pay $2.50 in service fees, leave a good tip.
B: Go to Chick-Fil-A like a Christian would’ve to begin with instead of that God-forsaken Applebee’s.
C: Decide that your ‘restaurant witness’ will be to not say grace before dinner so that at least when you’re a cheapskate to the waitress, she’ll also think you’re an atheist.

4. A flock of geese have overrun your neighborhood streets. What should you do?
A: Praise God with a hymn for the beauty of such graceful creatures.
B: Leave plenty of bread crusts on the ground for the geese to enjoy.
C: Leave plenty of bread crusts in the pockets of the obnoxious bike-riding neighbor kids.

5. You are sitting next to a stranger on a plane. What might you do?
A: Casually unpack your extra large type illustrated Study Bible with built in reading light.
B: Join hands across the aisle in prayer for ‘traveling mercies.’
C: Tell your neighbor it’s ‘my treat’ as you firmly insist on buying two sets of headphones so you can both watch ‘Barber Shop 2.’

6. Your church serves real bread for communion. What might you do?
A: Tear off a small piece of crust, ensuring there is enough for others.
B: Bring an extra loaf of bread from home and place it on the tray, just in case.
C: Stick your whole hand in the bread, grab a huge wad of the soft doughy middle, double dip it in the juice and say out loud, ‘Communion is the most important meal of the day!’

7. A friend asks why you haven’t been to church recently. After an uncomfortable silence, what holy sounding made-up excuse might you hope your friend believes?A: “I was…at the homeless shelter…serving soup…to homeless people?”
B: “I was…on the street corner…handing out gospel tracts…to homeless people?”
C: “I was…at my…yoga class…doing yoga…with homeless people?”

8. Jon has just written an especially sweet SCL post. How might you respond?
A: By forwarding the post around to your friends.
B: By making a thoughtful or humorous comment.
C: By commenting, ‘OMGosh! Jon that totally reminds me of an awesome post I just wrote on my own blog!!!!!!!!!11 Come check me out! ilovejesusthiiismuchblog.blogspot.com. Luv your site, John. LOL!’

9. Your friends are excited about the next U2 concert. What might you say?
A: “I am so pumped! Their last album was so deep, it made me cry!”
B: “U2 is so worshipful in their music! It’s going to be awesome.”
C: “I’m getting backstage passes so I can knock those ridiculous goggles off of Bono’s sanctimonious face.”

If you answered ‘As’ or ‘Bs,’ then you are a good Christian. Perhaps…too good to be true? If you answered ‘C’ on any of them, then let me be the ever-helpful one, and with my finger in your eye say, ‘That’s not very Christian of you!’ I know they aren’t very Christian, because they are the exact opposite of what I would do! Maybe you thought I was trying to say that Bono’s vaguely religious lyrics and piles of charity cash are canceled out by his giant obnoxious potty-mouth. But don’t worry, homie. I’m a good Christian. U2 rules.

What about you? How did you do on the quiz? What totally ‘Not Very Christian’ things have you never ever done, or even thought about doing under any circumstances?

(For more from Matt, make sure you check out his blog the church of no people)

Two weeks ago when my wife and I were walking out of the sanctuary at church, I found myself behind a guy from my old men’s group. Although I knew him from the larger portion of the group, 100+ guys, and not the smaller portion (the 6 guys I met with regularly) we used to chat in the halls when I use to attend. But in the last year since I quit, we haven’t really talked.

I didn’t quit out of anger or any sort of problem. I loved that small group. It was just a long way from my house and I wanted to invest in some relationships with guys in my own community. But he didn’t know that. It’s hard to read someone’s thoughts from the back of his head, especially if they have a tapered haircut, “tapered” being one of those words that has a very elusive definition according to the ladies at the Sports Clips barber shop I go to, but here was what I was thinking when I saw him.

“Oh snap. It’s Josh. Hey, why am I saying ‘oh snap’ all the time these days? That’s becoming a problem. That phrase is like some sort of verbal eczema spreading through my internal conversations. I need to keep an eye on that one. But oh snap, there’s Josh. I wonder if he thinks I quit small group because I’m backsliding? I bet he thinks that all of the sudden I just stopped doing my quiet time, starting sinning like it was my J.O.B. and dropped out. I guarantee that if he turns his shoulder at a 15 degree angle and sees me, he’s going to look and me and think, ‘Didn’t that guy used to go to my small group and love Jesus? I bet both of those things aren’t true anymore.’

Is there a good way out of this? Should I just tap him on the shoulder and find a way to work in a quick story about the new men’s group I’m part of right now? Do I have to essentially read him my spiritual resume to let him know I’m still down with the King? What’s the most succinct way to establish that I’m still in love with the Lord and walking with Him on a daily basis and not living in the pig pen of life like the Prodigal Son?

Is there a way to quickly say that in a passing conversation in the hall? Maybe I should just yell, “Jesus!” like one of those guys at concerts? Or I could talk about my men’s group really loudly to my wife like people at coffee shops talk loudly about all the cool things they’re doing because they want you to know how cool they are. Should I do that or just slow my gait down just enough to walk behind him, essentially dragging behind him like a race car who allows someone else to break all the wind resistance?”

Thoughts like that went through my head for 2 seconds and then I made my move. I started walking really slowly, (it was slower than my normal walk but faster than how I do the worm when like Nelly Furtado I get my freak on if that helps you picture the pace I was traveling.) My wife noticed too, and teased me about it later when I revealed the reason for my pitiful pedestrian progress. (Alliteration!)

I didn’t want to catch up to him and have to justify the entire last 12 months of my spiritual journey in a single sentence or be forced to scream “Jesus!” in the middle of the toddlers Sunday School area.

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Am I the only one that feels this way?

Last week I watched a little of the television show, “Jon & Kate plus 8.” They’re all over the tabloids right now so there’s no need to rehash in detail what’s going on, but if you’ve never seen the show, here’s a summary:

A few years ago, a young Christian couple with two kids had sextuplets. They invited TLC to tape their lives as they raised 8 kids, renewed their vows in a marriage special in Hawaii last season and last week addressed some painful marital issues that have become paparazzi fodder.

I wasn’t going to write about the whole situation. A million people already have and reality TV tends to be a great hiding place to avoid dealing with our own lives. But in watching the swirl of conversation online about Jon and Kate I realized two things I think are true regardless of if you’ve ever seen the show.

1. When we say, “They got what they deserved” we forget that we didn’t.
Did Jon and Kate introduce new risks and rewards into the structure of their family when they invited television cameras and millions of viewers into their home? Without a doubt. Does fame and celebrity come with consequences that are often toxic? Without a doubt. Did Jon and Kate get what they deserve? I don’t know. I’ve seen other Christians express this opinion but I don’t know Jon and Kate. I know me. And I didn’t get what I deserved. I got grace. I got forgiveness. I got Christ. I got rescued from the ruins of a life that seemed beyond redemption. I got a second chance and a 10th chance and a 300th chance. I didn’t get what I deserved. And when we say that someone, “Got what they deserved,” whether we’re talking about a reality TV couple, our relatives or our neighbors, we lose sight of grace, which is the undercurrent of our entire faith and a gift we do not deserve.

2. “That could never happen to me” is a dangerous sentence.
I don’t know the devil, but I have to assume that when he hears a Christian judgmentally proclaim, “That could never happen to me,” he does what I do when I hear the Black Eyed Peas song, “Boom, Boom, Pow,” and that is the robot. He absolutely loves when we say that. It’s not inherently a bad thought, it’s just that often when we say “That could never happen to me” we don’t take the time to answer the question, “Why?” Why wouldn’t that emotional affair you’re writing off as just “your flirtatious personality” multiply what’s already poisonous and turn into a physical affair? Why wouldn’t a week of late nights at the office turn into a month of late nights at the office turn into a year of late nights at the office turn into you knowing your kids as little as your dad knew you? Why wouldn’t a small compromise on your dream turn into a bigger compromise on your dream turn into you being an accountant when you’ve always felt called to paint? Life is littered with moms and dads, pastors and CEOs that believed in the fake comfort of “that could never happen to me” and woke up one day to find a surprisingly broken life on their doorsteps.

I don’t really want to analyze Jon and Kate today or discuss where things went wrong or pick apart things they said on the show. I don’t really even have a good wrap up that kind of ties things together. All I can really say is that we are not immune to the woes we see in pop culture.

You don’t need a million dollar house or flock of paparazzi to hurt yourself and your marriage. I didn’t anyway. At times, my marriage has been able to be wounded without the aid of a reality show. But whether you’re name is Jon and Kate Gosselin or Jon and Jenny Acuff, God loves love, and His ability to repair it will forever exceed our ability to deserve it.

I spoke with the Zondervan marketing folks last week. They said they’ve got some ideas about giving away fun stuff via facebook, via the Stuff Christians Like facebook group and via twitter when the book comes out in 2010. I’ll also be using those tools to announce events and meetups.
So click here to friend me on facebook.

Click here to join the facebook group.

Click here to follow me on Twitter.

And if that’s weird to have me, a stranger, as your friend, don’t sweat it. Folks who don’t have facebook or twitter will get hooked up too when the Stuff Christians Like book comes out.

My name is Jon Acuff and I’m a former member of the Confessorati.

You might not know us by name and that’s intentional. Much like the Illuminati featured in the new Tom Hanks movie, “Angels & Demons,” we’ve tried to keep our name a secret. (Topical reference! Check out the relevance on Brad! Whoa, a Pulp Fiction reference within a reference? I’m on fire.)

But despite the lack of notoriety we may have, I promise you have felt our wrath at some point if you’ve been in the church for very long.

We, the Confessorati, are the group of people that judge whether you’ve properly confessed your sins and shortcomings. We, upon hearing what you share in a small group or in Sunday School, will analyze whether you’ve been penitent enough. And if you haven’t, we will “love on” you by pointing it out.

Our current favorite topic is lust. If you confess to struggling with lust within our hearing we will judge you for not confessing what’s really at the heart of the matter, “pornography.” If you give in and admit you’re talking about a problem with “pornography” we will then judge you for not saying “masturbation.” As it says in the Old Testament, “unless thou sayeth the M word, thou haven’t really confessed.”

Speaking of the Bible, our favorite verse is James 5:16. Not familiar with that one? You should also go ahead and confess to having whickity whack Bible knowledge. It says:

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

The Confessorati interpret “to each other” to mean “anyone a Christian makes eye contact with.” So if you’re on an elevator and someone asks, “How are you?” The proper way to answer that question, the Biblical way, is to reply, “I fear my uncle might be cheating on my aunt, I use food as a comfort mechanism when I get nervous at work, and three minutes ago, while I was walking in from my car, I sinned four times in my heart and once in my ears.”

We don’t believe in boundaries. We don’t believe in growing relationships over time. If you come in our circle, except to get a firehouse of confession sprayed on you like Sylvester Stallone did in that prison scene in the original Rambo movie. Which, I confess to seeing. Not even the TBS version, I’m talking full on, unedited Rambo.

How did I get involved in the Confessorati? My life blew up. I had a colossal failure, a pit so deep that only Christ could draw me out of it. I was broken in half and walked through a painful confession process with a lot of people in my life. Eventually I started to define that experience as the only way a Christian could be a “real Christian.” I started to say things about people like, “Well they just haven’t been broken for the Lord. Someday, when they confess the exact same way I did, they’ll understand.” And then I got a secret Confessorati badge.

I’m out now though. I retired. Judging other people was really exhausting and tended to blind me to my own issues. Plus the group meetings were really horrible and long. You get five members of the Confessorati in the same room and they try to “out confess each other” both in level of depravity and detail. Each meeting lasted roughly 19 hours.

How do you stop them? How do we fight the Confessorati? Two ways-prayer and spray bottles full of grape Kool-Aid. When you see someone in a small group trying to enforce their personal definition of what a “real confession” looks like, give them a little grape Kool-Aid in the face.

Confessorati hate to be sticky.