Last Monday morning, I had a meeting scheduled at 11:30AM to discuss the title of my new book with Dave Ramsey. He’s sold millions of books and written a couple of New York Time’s Bestsellers. I was eager for his advice.

The weekend before, I practiced my ten-minute, “Here is why this title is the best one,” monologue like it was a speech. I sat down in our spare bedroom, because I knew I’d be sitting in the meeting and recreated the meeting as closely as possible. (I am wicked weird.)

(more…)

(This post had a life of it’s own. CNN.com picked it up and ran it on their homepage, which was fun, but often caused friends we hadn’t heard from in years to email my wife and say, “I saw your sex life on CNN the other day.” Awesome. But I think it’s a good discussion to have and I might be going to a Christian college to do a talk about this post this spring. I think that will be a blast. Here’s the #6 most popular post from 2010.)

Sex

The other day, pop princess Katy Perry said something interesting:

“I think when you put sex and spirituality in the same bottle and shake it up, bad things happen.”

I disagree.

(more…)

One of my goals for 2011 is to do more video blogging. Today felt like a good time to start that.

The team at Dave Ramsey put together this 3 minute clip of me talking about two things:

1. Why people ignore our ideas and how to change that.

2. Why just dreaming about what you want to do isn’t enough. (The core of my next book.)

Check it out after the continue.

(more…)

Friday is usually guest post day, but today I wanted to do something a little different. I recently got two really exciting updates about the projects readers of Stuff Christians Like did in Vietnam and Uganda. I’d like to share those with you.

(more…)

(The age old debate. Wizard vs. Wizard. Mano y Mano. Wand to Wand. This was the 7th most popular post on SCL in 2010)

Hating Harry Potter, giving Gandalf a free pass.

Once upon a time, there was a wizard. Though his background was shrouded in mystery, there was little doubt he was the most powerful wizard in the land. He had a deadly enemy, but good friends, including a red headed guy he always hung out with. People that should have loved him, once instead made him spend his nights in a small, prison like room. He rode the backs of winged animals and had a bitter rival who hated him. Christians had an incredibly strong reaction to the books he was in, which were written in the United Kingdom. I am of course talking about …

Gandalf.

(more…)

I don’t have a tattoo because sometimes I get bored of a certain flavor of gum pretty quickly.

(more…)

When I started Stuff Christians Like, I was writing it for about an hour every day, in my kitchen before work. It was something I would have honestly described as a “fun hobby.” I loved doing it, but it was at best, a sliver of my life.
(more…)

I didn’t cry when I got back in the car with my mother-in-law, but it was only because I didn’t want to miss my flight. Plus, when flying out of Atlanta, it’s always best to save your tears for the airport. It will break you. It’s a mashup of Mad Max’s terrordome, the Lord of the Flies and flights that run at ish time. As in “you’ll fly out at 4-ish,” or “Your plane isn’t here yet but should be soon-ish.”

(more…)

Last August, I put together the 32 things every Christian needs to remember about Twitter. I might add some new ones to this at some point, but I still think these are all true. Especially #11.

Twitter.

Last week, Rick Warren tweeted something that got people all fired up.

I didn’t see the original tweet at first but based on the reaction, I thought he had said,

“I stole the idea for ‘Purpose Driven Life’ from an episode of Saved by the Bell where Zack realizes his band Zack Attack is not his purpose”

(more…)

A few years ago, when we lived in Atlanta, my oldest daughter said something about a Bible story that caught me off guard.

(more…)