(In college, I got rejected from every fraternity because I was a jerk at the time. After college I lived with one roommate and then moved home to live with my parents. Then I lived in a retirement community in a trailer park. Single wide, not one of those double fancy deals. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was missing out on a chance to live in an “intentional community” with a bunch of other Christians. What’s that you say? Erin Kutz has the answer in a great new guest post. Enjoy!)

Intentional Community. I remember when I first heard of the concept. My now-landlord and intentional community leader (it’s kinda like a camp counselor role) was looking at a house several months back and one of our mutual friends told me that he had gone to look at a house to buy so that a bunch of Christians could live there. I remember thinking that it sounded like a 24-hour youth group retreat for 20-somethings.

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One of my favorite scenes in the movie “Best in Show” is when the two yuppie characters explain how they met. They say, “We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks but we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other.”

That’s funny because it’s true. There are approximately 9 million Starbucks locations. There are two on every corner. Another way to say it is that there are as many Starbucks as there are churches in the south.

Growing up in Massachusetts I didn’t have any idea that the South was hogging all the churches. (If you’re reading this post from Switzerland and need a point of reference, I’d say there are as many churches as there are people who sell bratwurst on the streets of Zurich. Geographical shout out!)

If you don’t like the church you’re attending in Atlanta for instance, you don’t have to “church hop,” you can kind of just “church fall down.” By the time you walk out of your old church and fall the five or six feet your body would travel like a chopped down tree you’ll probably land in the lobby of another one.

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Recently, my 5 year old taught me something important about the playground, what it means to be a dad and why we eat dinner together. The awesome folks at E-Mealz gave me space to blog about it on their site. Check it out if you get a chance!

Sometimes I like to think I’ve got faith figured out. I feel like I’ve learned a few things, had a dramatic return to Christ after years of wandering, read some books, and can clap my hands together and say “done and done.” But these last few months have been a weird time of God exposing to me how broken my understanding of his love is. How twisted and how false my beliefs are. And recently he showed me that with a dead bird, a homecoming and a single letter.

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The other day I had the opportunity to grab coffee with Al Andrews. Al runs Porter’s Call, a non-profit counseling center that provides free counseling for musicians and their families in Franklin, Tennessee. It’s an incredibly beautiful ministry and the only way I was able to get some time with Al is because he finds my breakdancing skills so lyrical.

Actually, it’s because he was college roommates with my dad and has been a fixture in our family for years. I was overwhelmed by the hour we spent together and when I tried to capture it, there was only one way to properly tweet it:

“Had coffee and an amazing conversation with @itsalandrews yesterday. It felt like stopping at Rivendell in the midst of a big adventure.”

Without even thinking about it at first, I rolled out a Lord of the Rings reference, which is quintessential stuff Christians like. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized what we really like is to create obscure Lord of the Rings references.

They can’t just be standard. They can’t just be obvious. They need to come from a deep place of Christian nerddom. They have to be layered. Confused? Don’t be, here are 5 ways to make an obscure Lord of the Rings reference:

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I decided to start a new blog called “JonAcuff.com/blog.” What’s it going to be about? Here are a few of the thing I want to write about:

1. Chasing your dream

I spent 12 years in a cubicle feeling like God had designed me for something that felt out of reach. From my first blog in 2001 to Stuff Christians Like in 2008 and finally jumping out on a huge adventure with the Dave Ramsey team, I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to close the gap between a day job and a dream job. My new book, which comes out in May, will cover this topic and the blog will support my hope of sharing a bunch of ideas with other folks that feel that same tension. This is where I feel a big part of my heart pulling.

2. Writing and Creativity

Two of my favorite subjects that I can’t wait to talk about and learn about with you. For instance, what’s one easy way to make sure people finish reading what we write? Why do most of us starve our creativity and what can we do about it?

3. Blogging and Social Media

I’ve had a crash course in these topics the last few years. I’d love to share some of the things I’ve learned (how to raise $30,000 in 18 hours) and some of the things I’ve failed on miserably (too many to cram into an off the cuff parentheses technique).

4. Life and Random stuff.

If I learn something about marriage or being a dad or any of a million other topics, I can’t really put it on Stuff Christians Like. This is a concept blog so to some degree, the posts have to answer the question, “What is stuff Christians Like?” If I want to share some ideas about how to consistently create content or perfectionism or something that changed the way I’m raising my kids, I love SCL too much to say, “Stuff Christians Like #987. Three tips for blog writing.”

I think we’re just getting started on Stuff Christians Like and I’m excited about continuing this blog. I’m also excited about starting something new. Check out my first two posts:

“1 Easy Way to Kill Perfectionism.”

“Why No One Reads Everything You Write.”

The other day at Catalyst, pastor Andy Stanley told a story about the day he realized he was judgmental. As a pastor’s kid he grew up knowing all the right answers. As a pastor himself, he knew the Bible inside and out. He thought over the years he had learned not to judge other people in unkind ways, but his counselor thought otherwise. Finally, after lots of back and forth, his counselor asked him a question, “How would you have responded when Peter denied Christ three times?” Before Andy could catch himself and say the right answer he blurted, “He’s out.” The counselor smiled and said, “And how did Christ respond?” Busted, with a grimace, Andy answered, “He pretty much had Peter lead the whole thing after that.”

Now that’s not an exact quote because I was busy judging someone or something at the time and didn’t take notes. But in my own life I don’t need dramatic moments to realize I struggle with unfairly judging people. I see evidence of my own nonsense all the time and recently caught myself judging them in a completely crazy location:

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Years ago I wrote a post in which I bemoaned the fact that no church would paint a mural of the scene in the Bible where Elisha orders bears to kill a bunch of teenagers. Well, a really talented comic book artist named Wes Molebash illustrated it based on my description. Here is what I wrote:

“That story is insane and here’s how I envision the mural. Elisha is standing in the middle of all these angry, bald hating teenagers. He looks really enraged and the caption out of his mouth says, “Do you know where you are? You’re in the jungle baby! You’re gonna die!” And then in the corner of the mural are two huge bears with hockey sticks. I’m not sure why they have hockey sticks but it seems a little tougher to me.”

Well, I found out last week, a church actually painted it full size! A guy named Scott Welsh sent me this photo, which is awesome:

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(Two guest posts in one month? Curtis Honeycutt is unstoppable! Here he is with another fantastic post about something we all probably did at least once growing up. Ladies and gentlemen, Curtis Honeycutt!)

Running Off Sunday School Teachers

People called the 1940 Chicago Bears the “Monsters of the Midway” due to their aggressive, punishing domination on the gridiron. The Pittsburgh Steelers defense in the 70’s was dubbed the “Steel Curtain” because they destroyed quarterbacks. In the same decade, the Minnesota Vikings defensive line earned the moniker “Purple People Eaters”, not because they had a taste for grape-flavored people, but because they wore purple jerseys and concussed anyone foolish enough to make fun of them.

These brutes had nothing on the group of guys I grew up with at church.

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This church isn’t very friendly. Have you noticed that? We might need to change to a new church, because we’re having a really hard time connecting at this one. We’ve been coming here for six months, sitting in service, not talking to anyone, then immediately sprinting out of the building and going home. And no one has connected with us. Rude!

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