Last weekend, I was one of the breakout speakers at the North Point Community Church Single’s Retreat. (When they first invited me, I thought they said “breakdance speakers” and got my breakin’ 2 electric bugaloo cardboard square out.) I did two different topics, one of which was called “Date Less Jerks.” (Yes, “fewer” would have been technically correct but that has no flow.) In that message I encouraged folks to avoid dating and becoming a jerk. (Unfortunately a lot of that one is drawn from my personal experience of being a jerk.)

In preparation for the event I spoke to a couple of my friends, Misty and Tim, who work in the Singles Department at North Point. In addition to giving me some speech pointers, they challenged my knowledge of church hugs that are currently popular amongst singles.

“Hey,” I thought, “I know all about church hugs. I wrote the side hugs post forever ago. I made a t-shirt celebrating my love of the hug. I’ve got a PhD in hugging.” Wow was I wrong.

Maybe I’ve been out of the game for too long. Maybe I was never that good at hugging to begin with. It’s possible that people just felt bad and didn’t want to break it too me that I was horrible at hugging, and although externally they smiled, internally they were dying slow deaths of awkwardness and Acqua Di Gio cologne every time I embraced them. Hard to say, but I don’t want you to be as pitiful at the church hug as I am. So after much research, a few usability tests that I ran with my wife in our living room and more bar graphs than I care to count, here is a list of the varieties of church hugs you need to be prepared for.

1. The Three Strikes and You’re Out
Apparently, if you’re single and someone pats your back three times when you hug, that’s to let you know that you’re out of any possible dating contention and are firmly locked into the “friend-zone.” When someone hits your back three times, “pat, pat, pat,” in your head you should imagine that hand beating out the chorus to the song, “You’re a friend, just a friend. It’s the end, you’re a friend.”

2. The Circle of Something Something
If instead of a pat, the person hugs you and rubs their hand in a circle on your back, there might be something something a foot. “Hey, maybe we could go on a date. This hug at the end of a group get together just got circlicious. Is there something here?” There is my friend, there is. You don’t casually do the circle on someone’s back, that’s only two steps removed from a massage. This could be love.

3. The Multitasker
Guys will hug, as long as one of their hands can be multitasking in some sort of complicated handshake at the exact same moment. It starts with the handshake, which gets flipped into some sort of knuckle grab which then pulls you into a one armed hug that culminates in a three strikes and you’re out. Some people will tell you that it should be concluded with one or both guys saying, “dawg” but those people are gravely mistaken.

4. The Over Under
Although I’ve been very honest about my desire to never interlink fingers with you during an “everyone hold hands” moment at church, I’m surprisingly not opposed to an over under. What’s that? It’s a hug where someone goes over the shoulders with their arms and the other person goes under the shoulders. Executed in the right context, it’s an incredibly kind way to comfort someone during a trying time or a sad moment on a church retreat. Executed in the wrong context, like someone has just scored a hole in one in God’s favorite sport Frisbee golf, and it feels like you’re trying to slow dance in the eighth grade. (To Millie Vanilli’s “Blame it on the Rain” in case you were curious.)

5. The A Frame
Epic fail on my part. When I wrote the side hug post I thought the A frame was actually just another name for a side hug. Nope. An A frame is kind of a half committed full frontal hug. You hug, but you only touch clavicle to clavicle. Your torsos don’t actually really touch and from the side, it looks like you and the other person are forming an A. It’s a perfect hug to do during the “greet the people around you” moment at church. Instead of trying to escape out of the row or aisle, you can lean over, with the pew between you and hug someone’s neck.

Hopefully we’ve cleared up a lot of hug misconceptions today. No one wants to lean in for a deeply moving over under hug and instead be greeted by a multitasker but unless we’re all on the same page, hug train wrecks going to continue happening in churches around the world.

Are you a hugger?

What’s your style?

Did I leave any off the list?

If Zondervan lets me write a second book, I’ll probably title it “How to grow a huge church in 1 easy step.” And inside the book, which I will insist on having my picture on, will be a single piece of paper. (Talk about being green!) And on that piece of paper will be the secret to instant church growth.

Want to know it? Want a sneak peek or really I guess it’s not a peek so much as it is the whole book? Here it is:

“If you want to grow your church instantly, do a sermon series about sex.”

Many of you have probably already stopped reading this post and are currently hanging billboards around your town advertising the new sermon series your church is going to do. But maybe that book needs a second page. Maybe that one sentence is not enough. Maybe it’s not easy to name a sex sermon series. So I did some research and put together a little quiz that will hopefully help you think through what you should title your series. Below are a bunch of names for sex sermon series, including some websites. Some are real and are from actual churches. Some are fake and are from my head. See if you can guess which ones are which:

Sexy sermon series or something Jon made up?

1. “Yourultimatelover.com”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

2. “Great Sex for You”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

3. “Bringing Sexy Back”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

4. “Electric Sex”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

5. “Whatsbetweenthesheets.com”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

6. “Desperatesexlives.com”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

7. “Solomon is the OT’s version of the musician Prince. Love notes from a man whose awesomeness with the ladies eventually brought him to ruin.”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

How’d you do? Want the answer key? OK, they’re all real. Each one of those titles was from a church sermon series. Whoa, curve ball. I zigged right when you were expecting a zag, I bobbed when you were expecting a weave, I Marloned Wayans right when you were expecting me to Kenan Ivory Wayans. Or maybe you saw through the whole thing, even the fake one I threw in at the end.

I’m not sure what the approach some churches are taking with the subject of sex says about us. Are we talking about it too much? Are we using it as a subject because it garners lots of attention? Or are we not talking about it enough?

I’m torn on this one. On the one hand, the world has a loud, noisy, colorful campaign about sex. They are constantly bombarding us with messages about it and for us to remain silent or to allow the world to try to claim that topic as their own domain seems foolish. I cheer that the churches on this list are sharing God’s word with our culture with creativity and funk. But at the same time, I think it’s really tempting to use that topic as a neon sign that will attract people to a topic but maybe not the Lord. Pastor Craig Groeschel dropped some bombs on this subject at a conference I went to when he talked about the foolishness of doing a sex sermon series just as a way to make your church look cool. And I confess that even as a silly blogger it’s tempting to write about controversial subjects in the hope that controversy will attract more eyeballs.

Where do you stand on that?

Does the church talk about sex too much?

Or not enough?

I used to write advertising for a company that specialized in rental tuxedos. One of my jobs was to answer all the emails that people sent to a fictional girl called “Jenny.” So on any given day I was emailing wedding advice to anxious would be brides about everything from what color cummerbunds would match a bridesmaid’s dress to how to politely ask groomsmen to pay for their own tuxes.

The idea of me giving girls advice about color schemes and wedding dresses is absurd. I was horrible at that part of my job and I regret if you ever got some ridiculous email signed by “Jenny.” That was me. I thought chocolate was going to be the new black and coral was darker than salmon. My bad.

But despite my woeful color schemes, I do think I can help you plan the ultimate Christian wedding. I’ve been in a few, I’m about to do one and over the last year you shared a lot of ideas about them. Plus, after “Surviving Church as a Single” became the biggest post ever on Stuff Christians Like I felt like the married readers needed some love too. Without further ado, I give you:

The Ultimate Christian Wedding Scorecard

1. You have someone read a Bible verse at your wedding. = +1 point for each verse

2. You have someone read 1 Corinthians 13, love is patient at your wedding = +2 points

3. You have someone read verses from Song of Solomon in the message version of the Bible and the verses sound vaguely like a Prince lyric and somehow include the phrase, “let’s make out.” = +3 points

4. The person you ask to read the verse is not a Christian and your primary purpose in asking them is that you hope that touching the Bible will rub off on them via osmosis. = +1 point

5. You do a unity candle. = +2 points

6. You weave three ribbons (representing you, your spouse and God) into a single strand that cannot be torn asunder. = +2 points

7. You refuse to hold a bachelor party because they’re evil. = +1 point

8. You hold a bachelor party but call it a “guys that love Jesus golfing together party” = +3 points

9. The pastor that does your ceremony cracks a joke about sex = +3 points for every joke

10. You and your spouse take communion during the ceremony = +3 points

11. You and everyone at the wedding take communion during the ceremony = +4 points

12. You take a love offering during the ceremony = – 3 points

13. The pastor mentions the “don’t let the sun go down on your anger” principle = + 1 point

14. You have a live bird of prey at the podium with you and your bride in order to symbolize the “mount up like eagles” Bible verse = +10 points

15. You receive a, “As for me and my house” plaque for a wedding gift = +1 point for each

16. You receive a Thomas Kinkade painting for a wedding gift = +1 point for each

17. You receive the first 15 volumes of the Left Behind book series in a commemorative wheelbarrow because the girth of that many books is physically staggering = +5 points

18. You don’t have dancing at the reception because it’s held in a church and that church doesn’t approve of dancing and you miss your chance to dance, dance, dance the night away Jon Acuff. = -1 point

19. You have dancing at the reception and your grandmother gets on the floor and dances to Fergie’s song “Fergilicious,” Bennett Acuff (my little brother) = +1 million points

20. At any point during the ceremony a Shofar horn makes a cameo = + 1 point

21. The favor you give everyone is a Bible = +3 points

22. The Bibles are Gideon editions you stole from the hotel all the guests are staying at. = -4 points

23. Your pastor can’t resist the temptation of a captive audience and ad libs the entire gospel message in the middle of your vows = +1 point

24. Your pastor asks you to take a seat for a minute so that people have room to come forward for the altar call. = +2 points

25. Your pastor mentions the phrase “covenant relationship” = + 2 points for each use

26. Your pastor tells the story of Adam and Eve = +3 points

27. Your pastor highlights the verses about “wives submitting to their husband” = +1 point

28. Your crazy aunt boos or hisses from the crowd when she hears this = – 2 points

29. The church you get married in lets you know upfront that they only allow “sacred music” and if you get married there you better expect the organ to be the main instrument used. = +3 points

0 – 10 Points = Not a big fan of God huh? Didn’t feel like inviting Him to your wedding? Didn’t think you could find a tux big enough for Him? Interesting.

11-20 Points = I don’t want to call you “lukewarm” but it’s possible you registered for gifts at that store, “I’m kind of a Christian.”

21+ Points = Welcome to the big leagues. Your wedding is just like church except there’s cake at the end. Onward Christian soldier.

How did you score? I hit over 30 because we got married at a conservative church in Atlanta.

How about you?

What other Christian wedding staples did I miss?

What did you do at your wedding or weddings you’ve been to?

Sure, my wife and I went to pre-marital counseling. Are you kidding? We wanted to start our marriage on a solid foundation of communication and respect and love. It was great working with that counselor to really understand the differences we bring to this relationship and how God can use those to create oneness in our hearts and our home. That’s just what you do before you get married. Every Christian knows pre-marital counseling is critical.

Post marital counseling? Is that what you’re suggesting we do? Who told you our marriage was in trouble?

It was Frank, wasn’t it? Ugh, that Frank. Plank in his eyeball! Our marriage is fine. We’re happy, things are great. Sure we have ups and downs like any marriage but unless my wife has had an affair, secretly developed a secret credit card debt or has some sort of weird willow tree figurine habit that I don’t know about, I don’t think we need to go to post marital counseling.

We don’t need maintenance. The principles we learned during pre-marital counseling became magically cemented in our souls when we put our rings on in front of friends and family members. Those lessons we learned had a 60 year guarantee. I feel like our pre-marital counselor might have mentioned that we needed to continually work on the strength of our marriage and nurture our love continually with a great degree of intentionality, but it’s weird because as soon as we got married, those things just naturally started happening without any discernible effort on my part. Pretty cool, right?

And plus, everyone knows post marital counseling is the last stop on the “your marriage sucks” train line. It’s where you go when your house is on fire, or there’s some sort of relational komodo dragon that’s come between you and your wife. It’s not somewhere you go for a tune up. I wouldn’t even know who to ask to find a counselor. The minute I did, people at church would whisper about us and pray for us because they’d know things were dire.

Nope, I’m good. I did all the learning I needed to do before the wedding ceremony. After the ceremony it was time for living. See that? That was alliteration. Learning vs. Living. How could I possibly need counseling when I’m able to alliterate at that level?

If anything I should be giving other people counseling, in how to be awesome.