The new site

The new site.

A few years ago I was asked to create a press release for a CEO of a company. My client wanted me to write something extolling how dedicated to being honest about sales results this particular CEO was. The only problem was that she wasn't.

She was known for being a bit blurry when it came to the reality of the sales the company was generating. The press, the stockholders, the employees, everyone that knew this lady was going to see right through my press release and instantly think, "No way am I listening to this lady. I know her past."

What I wanted to do, which was eventually rejected, was come out with the truth. I wanted to disarm the readers by opening up with a statement that said, "In the past, numbers have not been my greatest strength." If I said that, all the readers would have to pause before throwing a rock at us. In essence I would have removed the biggest objective they had to reading the rest of the press release.

The same thing happens with Christianity.

We do some things really well and we do some things less than really well. But when we pretend we're perfect, people see right through it and won't believe anything else we say. And that's the point of this project. I want to be honest and upfront and hopefully a little funny about the issues the church and Christians struggle with sometimes. I want to say, "Whoa, whoa, please don't judge me or God by Christian radio." I want to admit the times we've dropped the ball on issues or ideas that people called to love their neighbor should have knocked out of the park. I want to engage all my friends that aren't Christians that don't go to church in an honest, open conversation. I want to blow up misconceptions and preconceptions about what it means to be a Christian.

That's why I created, www.stuffchristianslike.net

The good thing is that doing something simple and small like this won't take away from my other two sites. The entries on the new one are about 100 words each and more importantly I hopefully won't be writing them all. For the first time in my blogging experiment, I want to open up the posts to other people. Got an idea about "Stuff Christians Like?" Email me or post a comment. If it fits the theme of the site I'll put it up and give you all the credit. And make no mistake, I took this concept directly from a wildly popular secular site that uses the same approach. Read "#1. Putting a God Spin on Popular Secular Ideas" to see what I'm talking about.

Or, read one of these things that I think are Stuff Christians Like:
#8. Singing "Friends are Friends" forever at the end of church events.
#5. Bootleg cookies.
#3. Reading "love is patient" at your wedding.

p.s. lots of folks are doing similar sites right now in response to the site that spawned this idea. Some might be worth checking out too.