(The other night, my kids argued about who was better at brushing their teeth. That one was challenging. On the one hand, I don’t mind that they are being competitive about not getting cavities. I had an emergency root canal on Monday. I want our kids to avoid that kind of thing. On the other hand, they were yelling at each other. These kind of situations happen a lot at our house, which was why when author Tim Elmore said he’d write a guest post for me for free about peacefulness in kids at Christmas, I said yes. Click continue to check out Tim’s advice.)

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The easiest way for a store to make my wife mad is to have a complicated return policy. She refuses to shop at Forever 21 for this very reason. Their return policy is so complicated that the cashiers will often read it to you when you’re making a purchase, kind of like a cop reading you Miranda Rights. “By purchasing this melon colored scarf you realize that should you ever take it out of the bag and merely make eye contact with it, that will forever be held against you in the court of no returns.”

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Last year, a bunch of us read “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan together online.

I thought it was fun and I’d like to try something like that again. Only this time, it’s not just me doing it in the morning before work or on the weekends. This time, building community on Stuff Christians Like is part of my job.

So what if we all read a book together, have me write some study questions and then find an interesting way to discuss it? Maybe skype or even a conference call or just online?

And, because Stuff Christians Like is read by more than 150,000 folks per month, we might even be able to talk a publisher into letting us all do a video chat with the author of whatever book we do.

You in?

If you are, please just respond with a “yes” in the comments section. The more yes comments we get, the easier it will be to tell the people I work for that this is something we should definitely do in 2011.

I’m certainly not asking for any kind of commitment right now, but if that sounds like it might be cool to you, please comment with a “yes.”

Thanks!

Jon

The other day, a phrase pastors have taught me can mean last week or last year, a friend of mine prayed a “Zack Morris Prayer.” What’s that? Allow me to explain.

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Last Saturday night, at the Dave Ramsey Christmas party, I saw my friend Daniel scoping out the room as he sat down. He saw that I was looking at him and said, “We’re plotting our escape route if our baby gets crazy.”

This is a classic parent move, you always have to understand exactly which path you’ll take if your baby starts free style rhyming during an important event. In the old days at church, if your kid lost it, you had to pace the halls or sit out in your car. Now though, thanks to advanced “scream technology,” life as a parent has dramatically improved with the invention of one thing – the crying room.

The crying room is like the Ultimate Fighting Championship octagon. It is a multi-sided room where the loudest, cryingest babies enter if they can’t handle the service. (This is also where toddlers who are Calvinist go in when they ardently disagree with the free will message of the pastor.)

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Last night, my family and I went to a Christmas party. At this party, our friend brought one of his photo booths. Hilarity ensued as my family got in.

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Recently, I went in search of the perfect Christmas tree for our office. I took a 6 foot 5 elf, my coworker Rachel Cruze and a video camera. Here is what happened.

(John Crist is a stand up comedian. He’s a professional funny person. He just opened up for Louie Anderson out in Vegas. And today he’s sharing an awesome, hilarious guest post. Enjoy)

I just booked my flight home for Christmas. Things are already starting to get awkward between me and my Bible.

You see, my Bible and I have the relationship of a typical church couple. In public, we get along like feltboard Joseph and Mary. But when it’s just us, we feud like Christians and anyone who opposes Glen Beck.

Every time I go out of town the same mental exchange happens. He wants to go with me, I don’t have room in my bag.

I typically goes something like this…

“You might need me,” my Bible says. “What if the person sitting next to you on the plane asks about the Roman Road?”

“Yeah,” I argue sarcastically. “And when we’re all watching the game at the bar and the John 3:16 sign pops up behind the goal post some drunk guy is gonna yell out, ‘HEY! Pause this game! What does John 3:16 actually say? Does anyone have a Bible?’”

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I feel like I say this every year, but you can’t go casually into camel choreography. This church learned the hard way as seen in this video. (Thanks for the video Finleys! And fear not, no one was hurt and the camel was fine)

How would you caption this video?

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Recently, a guy named Bart in the band MercyMe said something on Facebook that earned him a jackpot of Jesus Jukes.

What did he say?

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