“Do you consider yourself a pastor?”

Someone asked me that once during a Q&A at a conference. That one threw me for a loop and I answered it the best way I knew:

“I consider myself terrified.”

That’s the truth. I don’t know how to do most of this, so these weird moments are a mix of abject fun and slight terror. Like the time I mentioned having struggled with porn in the past to a reporter. You know what the first line of his article was? “In addition to many other problems, Jon struggles with P.” Awesome. Thanks fella. “Many other problems.” Fantastic.

But no one tells you how to do smart interviews. So you do dumb ones and then realize later, that was dumb. And part of the reason this whole thing is so weird is because I’m boldly and bravely tackling such hard issues. Like today’s. I don’t see Mark Driscoll or Rick Warren stepping to the plate on this one. But I am. We are. Today we’re going to settle something that is divisive and critical and currently tearing the church asunder:

Is God Mac or PC?

That is, up in heaven, is he cranking away on a Mac or a PC? Does he love the iPhone or is he currently listening to Michael W. Smith’s greatest hits on a Zune? Does he have a little apple sticker stuck anywhere?

I feel like lists work well on blogs, so let’s break it down list style and weigh all the facts.

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What’s your blog?

What’s your cause? What’s your band? What’s your book?

What’s the link you want people to see more than anything else?

I hereby declare this “Shameless Saturday.”

Post a link to whatever it is you’re all about with no shame or apologizing or feeling like you’re making a comment on a post you really don’t care about but are instead secretly trying to pimp your own blog. (I’ve done that myself many times. The best way to do it is to say, “That’s an interesting post. It reminds me of something I wrote recently on my blog ….” Sometimes when people do that it’s actually a good link to something they wrote that is similar to what was written on another post. But when I was coming up, on 8 mile, just trying to rock the mic at any chance I was given, that was definitely one of the techniques I employed.)

Please, use the comments this weekend to let us know about your blog or your cause or your band or your whatever. The Internets are so big it’s hard to find everything cool. (I try to do Shameless Saturday once a season, so please consider this the Winter edition.)

Tell us what’s up with a link.

(I recently reconnected with my counselor. With the Stuff Christians Like book due out, I knew I’d be in danger of getting a seriously massive ego, even if it only sells 100 copies. So I’m scheduling some new sessions with him to make sure I stay grounded. If that sounds dorky, it’s because I am in fact dorky. But this whole book thing has been kind of wild and people have started to ask me weird questions. Like this one: “Do you get recognized at church a lot?” That was a question someone asked me at a conference once. I had to laugh because here are a few other people who also attend the church I go to: Jeff Foxworthy, NFL great Jerome “The Bus” Bettis, MLB pitcher John Smoltz, Andy Stanley, etc. Needless to say, I don’t get recognized at church. But at Catalyst I did get spotted by my friend Matt from the Church of No People. He’s hilarious and in an effort to make sure I never start to think I’m some sort of fantastical big headed blogger, he wrote today’s guest post. I love the absurdity of it and think you will too.)

There are only a few truly important moments in each person’s life. Wedding days, the birth of a child, and baptism all rank at the top of the list. However, there is one day that every Christian should look forward to:

…meeting Jon Acuff.

I should know, because I recently did so, and it was everything I could imagine. However, like weddings or your child’s birth, meeting Jon Acuff is an event that requires a lot of preparation and planning, much like meeting the President or David Caruso. I’m here to help you with that …

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“Don’t stretch those out.”

Once again I have to begin a post with a statement from my wife. In this statement she was saying I have a big head. Not ego wise, just physically. I have a large melon.

I didn’t realize this, or that I have a hammer toe, until I got married and my wife pointed both things out. (I always just thought my big toe liked to spoon with the toe next to it.) Sure, hats never seemed to fit that well and when Mike Myers said, “Look at that boy’s head, it’s like an orange on a toothpick,” in the movie “So I married an axe murderer” I took it a little personally. But I never knew my head was larger than average until my wife stopped letting me borrow her sunglasses on road trips.

Turns out the width of my cranium stretched out the arms of her sunglasses, rendering them useless for her. So that night when I asked to try on her new pair of reading glasses, she wisely said, “Don’t stretch those out.” Fair enough.

As a Christian, I’m used to conversations that center around our head. In fact, every good Christian knows that one of our favorite things to say is actually about the head. I’m of course talking about the ubiquitous statement,

“The hardest 12 inches to travel are from the head to the heart.”

You might say it differently. You might have instead heard, “I believed it in my head but not in my heart.” Or perhaps, “I had the Sunday School answers, I had the head knowledge, but not the heart knowledge.”

But it’s a new year. This is 2010 we’re talking about. That phrase is so 2000 and late and if you’ve seen my Christmas card I believe you know I am so 3000 and 8. Here are three possible ways we can freshen up the old “head to heart” statement.

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If you change clothes in a handicapped bathroom stall at work, never start with your pants.

For some reason, people in other stalls freak out if you strip your pants completely off in a bathroom. I find it’s best to start with your shirt or sweater. Focus on your torso until the bathroom is empty and then change out of your jeans.

These are the valuable lessons that people like Max Lucado refuse to share, but not me. I’ll tell you everything, because right now, everything is weird.

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Leave a comment on the post on March 5th to enter. Any comment will do.(Don’t comment on this post)

Winner will be chosen randomly. No purchase necessary.

If you are chosen, you will be notified by a post on the site Stuff Christians Like. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Entries can be submitted until Monday, March 8, 2010, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!

Click here to return to contest.

Good seat, good seat. I’m feeling alright about my selection today. Few rows back from the front, good entry and exit points. People in front of me look to be of average height, unlike that freakishly tall family I’ve been sitting behind lately. It’s going to be a good Sunday.

Wait, what’s this? The guy next to me has a pack of gum out. I love gum. So many flavors, so many varieties. They’re doing so many fun things with the packaging and the presentation too. You can buy it in little hip cylinders or flip open packets like 5 and it lasts longer like Stride and it even whitens you’re teeth when you’re not looking. And don’t get me started on Orbit Mint Mojito. Unlike their pomegranate flavor which disintegrates the second you put it in your mouth, that Mojito is like a taste bud log flume ride.

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I used to write a blog called “97 seconds with God.” The goal was to pack truth and hope and challenge into a really short bit of text or 97 seconds.

When I started writing the Stuff Christians Like book, I had to stop writing that site, but the desire to write short firecracker bursts of Bible was not something I quit wanting to do.

So starting on Wednesday January 6, I’m going to write a single thought about each chapter of the book of Psalms. Day by day. Chapter by chapter. We did that with Proverbs a few months ago and it was a lot of fun.

To find it on Twitter, follow me @prodigaljohn

To read it on Facebook, let’s be friends.

If you’d like to add your own thought, there were some great ones during the Proverbs experiment, use this tag on twitter “#sclp.” That way we can all see them.

Looking forward to reading Psalms with you.

Jon

If your name is listed below, you’ve won a new iPod shuffle from Stuff Christians Like.  Email me with “shuffle” in the subject line and the color you’d prefer.

Thanks!

Winners:

sherrymeneley

samluce

Darcy Knight

One of the most popular Stuff Christians Like posts of all time was #550. Surviving church as a single. But recently, a friend who is single came to town for the holidays and I realized I had missed whole chunks of awkwardness in describing the bottomless joy that is “Being single during Christmas at church.”

So instead of simply remixing an old post, I decided to create a holiday-focused scorecard. Think of it like a seasonal ale they put nutmeg in during January. It only comes around this time of year. Without further ado, I give you:

Being single during Christmas at church:

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