Last Sunday was one of the worst days of my life.

I can say with very little Kent Brockman hyperbole that Sunday, February 14th will live forever on my top ten list of worst days ever.

Why?

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Let’s move the 24 hours of online prayer event to Saturday, March 13th. I had originally planned to do it this Saturday, but orchestrating the event has proved to be more complicated than I initially thought. And I’d really like each hour to have at least 1 or 2 people praying and I don’t know if we’re there yet. So I’ll put together the master list of folks who have signed up, post it next week and then start recruiting as we get closer to March 13th.

Thanks!

Jon

The other day in the car, my four year old blurted out, “Stupid backpack!” I slowed down and asked her what she had just said. She paused for a minute and then responded, “Sometimes my brain says silly things. Silly billy, willy scoobaleedoo.”

Although I appreciated the verbal smokescreen she threw down to cover her tracks, she still said a word we’re not cool with at the Acuff house. But as funny as her response was, it’s nothing like what happens sometimes when people swear around Christians. Have you ever experienced that? It is a truly magical moment my friend.

Usually, it’s just that a word slipped into a sentence unexpectedly. Your friend suddenly catches themselves and says, “Oh, hey, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to say that. My bad.” And then the conversation moves on. But what are we supposed to do? What should your response be when you hear one of your friends swear near you? Funny that you should ask …

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I shouldn’t be writing this one.

I shouldn’t be putting this on a blog, especially not on a day like Monday.

But there might be others out there who need this information. There might be other people who will benefit, greatly, from this. You’ll need to lean in close though, because I’m only going to say it once:

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Matthew Paul Turner has written 429 books. I don’t know if that’s the exact number but he has written a ton. He’s a consummate professional and was blogging before I even knew what that word meant.

He’s also been incredibly kind to me, helping me not make some tremendous mistakes when it came looking for a publisher. And I’m happy to announce that he’s got a new book out. (You can get a free chapter right here.)

It’s called Hear no Evil and it’s about the intersections between faith and music. It’s hilarious and honest and worth checking out.

Today, Matthew Paul Turner is giving away 5 new copies of the book to readers of Stuff Christians Like.

All you have to do is comment with your favorite song. How easy is that? Post a comment until Tuesday February, 16 to enter. Five winners will be picked at random.

What’s your favorite song?

(He’s back. He’s unstoppable. Ladies and Gentlemen, Curtis “The lightning bug” Honeycutt and a fantastic new guest post.)

Curtis here, winner of the historic Bulletin Bored contest and purveyor of fine threads like awesome Christmas Sweaters. You haven’t heard from me for a while because I’ve been embedded on a top secret fact-finding mission on behalf of SCL: I’ve been studying youth ministers. What sets them apart from normal people? Why do they have so much energy? Why so many wristbands? These are the questions that fueled my research and kept me awake during all-night dodgeball tournaments. I’m happy to report my findings to you today, in what I call “The Youth Minister’s Unwritten Uniform” -or- “Is Your Youth Minister a Communist?”.

The youth minister has taken on a style all his own. Realizing he’s the slightly-less-hip version of the metrosexual worship leader, here’s how to pick a youmin from a lineup:

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That I am aware of, my dad is not telepathic. Yes, while growing up he did seem to know if I ever made out with a girl after youth group, but that did not require special powers. That required “deacons.”

But despite that, once a year, he always exhibited an otherworldly type of power, a sixth sense as it were. If he was Haley Joel Osment in a movie he would have simply stood by the mailbox with translucent, creepy eyes and said:

“I see swimsuit photos and I throw them away.”

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Good news, the Stuff Christians Like book is now available via Kindle.

Click here to buy it.

Chances are, we’ve never met. We’ve never hung out or read comic books together or played racquetball. (Which Brian Regan calls the only sport in which you can be looking at the ball and get hit in the back of the head at exactly the same moment.)

But despite that, I do know at least one thing about you. I know that at some point, you’ve doubted that you had the talent to do whatever it is you feel called to do. Even if you don’t have a shadow of a doubt that you’re supposed to be doing what ever your “it” is, doubt creeps in. And so you don’t feel talented enough to be the one doing it.

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A week ago we held a special contest in support of the Stuff Christians Like book for a free Apple iPad.

I used a random number generator to pick the winner. I’m happy to announce that the winner is a guy named Gabriel. If you’re name is Gabriel and you entered the contest, email me so we can figure out how to get you an iPad.

Congrats and thank you for pre-ordering the Stuff Christians Like book.