Did you know that Christmas trees have a pagan background? I’m almost positive that’s true or that I read it online, which makes it at least kind of true. Or maybe someone told me that once when we were talking about Halloween.

I’m a little fuzzy on that detail, and sometimes I get exhausted typing things into Google when they don’t auto finish the words for me. But what I am clear on is the idea that the Acuff girls are going to attempt to collect their body weight in free candy come Monday night. To practice, we’ve been doing wind sprints in our backyard and running up and down stairs carrying sacks of granola bars.  (Even though I think I’m supposed to hate Halloween.)

What about you?

What are your plans for Halloween?

Trunk or treat at church? Neighborhood party? Dressing up as Carrie from Sex & the City (The TBS edited version of course)? Going as a character from True Blood? (That was a test. You shouldn’t even know exist.)

What are you doing for Halloween?

Last April, I wrote a post called “Pre-judging a church based on the quality of its website.”

It was a confession of sorts but also a list of things I thought churches could do to make their websites instantly awesomer. (Spelling aside, not my strong suit.) I suggested things like:

1. Don’t make finding your location like navigating a labyrinth. (It kills me when your actual address is hidden under 19 levels of flash graphics and searching for it is like solving a rubik’s cube.)

2. Don’t use that font that makes it look like the letters are on fire. (I don’t know what that font is called, probably “Brimstone.” It’s not good.)

Months later, a would be sponsor of SCL called SiteOrganic approached me about helping churches radically simplify and improve the way they do their websites.

The question I always ask in situations like this is, “Would this service help my dad’s church?”

I don’t like recommending things I wouldn’t use. But, since I’m not a church, my criteria for things like SiteOrganic is to think about whether my dad’s church would benefit. As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up watching him try to make miracles out of a ridiculously small church budget. And in the last few years, I’ve really tried to encourage him about what it means to share the gospel online in his community of North Carolina. So I talked with SiteOrganic and here’s what I liked:

1. They are passionate about helping churches maximize online ministry budgets.

2. They actually have real, live staff members who are available to talk you through any web questions you have.

3. They make it incredibly easy for your staff to take care of daily/weekly updates.

4. They’re not just doing “billboard websites” that are pretty one or two-page experiences. They’re doing advanced features like sermon library management, podcasting, online giving, event registration and a million other things.

5. They’re geniuses at creating mobile-friendly sites and analytics and integrating with social sites and all the stuff that really matters right now in the online conversation.

So here’s my pitch: If you work at a church, check out SiteOrganic. I’d recommend them to my dad and his church and feel great about recommending them to you.

And if you don’t work at a church, I have one question I’d love for us to talk about today:

Question:
What’s one feature you’d love to see on your church’s website?

(It’s guest post Friday! Here is a special Halloween edition from SCL favorite Some Guy. If you would like to guest post, here’s how.)

Halloween Costumes by Some Guy

I’ve been wondering why we wear costumes on Halloween.  I checked on the World Wide Web, (Have you been on that thing? It’s got everything, weather, sports, stock quotes. I mean everything.) And the Internet gave me a couple of different reasons.

Here’s why we apparently wear costumes:

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Didn’t buy the Stuff Christians Like book? Feel like books are so 2000 and late? Waiting instead for someone to take the book and reinvent it as a one-person, performance art-type play? Well, your wait is over my friend.

Someone sent me this video a few months ago, and I was blown away. This high school student named Chandler reenacts scenes from the book with intensity, passion and hilarity. Check it out and see SCL through a whole new lens.

If Men’s Health magazine was true, you would never need to buy more than one issue. If the articles that promised flat abs and less stress and better sex really worked as promised, you’d never need to have a subscription because every issue is the exact same thing. This was the thought I had while standing at the magazine rack at Wal-Mart watching my daughters read My Little Pony books. (Long live Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie by the way. Toola-Roola is a punk. I don’t even know what Toola-Roola is into, at least Rainbow Dash is all about rainbows.)

As I stood there, though, I noticed something else kind of weird. The promises that the front cover of men’s magazines make were eerily similar to the promises that the back cover of Christian books make. So I thought it might be fun to play a little guessing game and see if you can figure out which is which:

1. “Build your perfect life and strip away stress for good”
A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

2. “The Secret to Effortless Success”
A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

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It is with much shame that I confess that I am down with the S.

I didn’t know I was. Three years into writing a blog about faith and Christianity, you would think I knew better. I mean I wrote a book with Zondervan, the people who publish the Bible, and I still didn’t know.

For the life of me, I thought it was “The Book of Revelations.”

A few weeks ago, when I used the word “Revelations” in a post, someone called me out on it in the comments. They said “referring to the last book of the bible as ‘Revelations’ is nails on a chalkboard to me.”

I scoffed in my head. Oh you misinformed grammarian you! Of course there’s an S! What do you think: there’s only one Revelation in the whole book? That it’s a single Revelation? Poppycock! Or dare I say fiddlesticks, your logic is so cattywampus.

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Dear people who pray out loud with British accents,

Thank you.

I know that your prayers don’t travel on a more direct route to God than mine. I am well aware that there is not an “express prayer lane,” that gets prayers to heaven faster. But every time I’m in a prayer group and someone prays something with the “Queen’s English,” I’m pretty sure that prayer gets heard by God first.

Why do I think that way?

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I love books.

When I was a kid, I used to bring books to read at sleepovers.

I can recognize the sound a UPS truck makes from a mile away because they’ve delivered so many Amazon packages to my house.

When I travel, my backpack weighs 97 pounds because I stuff it so full of books.

But I have a problem.

So many books are available these days that it’s hard to pick one to read. And maybe you’ve had that problem before too. You go to Barnes & Noble and there’s just this ocean of options. So how do you choose which book to read? Here are the 10 things I look for when I buy a new nonfiction book:

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(It’s guest post Friday! Today’s post is from Robert Bruce.  Robert is a writer for the Dave Ramsey team, a blogger and a marathon runner. His blog about reading through the Time Magazine’s 100 greatest novels is brilliant. You can also find him on Twitter. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how.)

Grocery Store Makeovers – By Robert Bruce

Rob Bell started it. Or maybe it was Andy Stanley.

Twenty years ago, the abandoned Krogers and Kmarts of the world were a community eyesore—a harsh reminder of once-thriving businesses that served fresh zucchini, abundant nutmeg, and a wide variety of colorful, sugar-laden cereal.

But one day some ingenious pastor was walking down the deodorant aisle and said, “Hmmm. I wonder what a set of drums and a bass guitar would sound like about right here,” as he eyeballed a veritable potpourri of ocean-scented fragrances. (My Old Spice says it smells like “Freedom!”) Or maybe he glanced over to the paper products aisle and envisioned a pack of three-year-olds sitting in a circle and singing “Father Abraham.” Do the kids still sing that? They should, because that dude had many, many sons.

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Dear Sunday School teachers,

You were the first lyric in a song that took 25 years to unfold in my life.

Sometimes, it’s hard to teach a 5 year old or an 8 year old because you never get to hear the end of the song. We’re such a “progress” and “productivity” and “results”-focused culture. And with kids, sometimes the second verse in the song God is writing doesn’t roll around until college, or maybe not even until your students bring children of their own to Sunday School decades later.

It’s easy to feel like you’re not making an impact. But you are! You are loving the very people Christ called all of us to be like. And I can’t thank you enough for that, in my own life and the lives of my own two daughters.

Keep singing. Little ears listen.

Jon

Question:
Sue Barnes was my amazing Sunday School teacher. Who was yours?