Jon Acuff's Blog, page 156

#9 in 2010: Loving or Hating Glee.

I've still never seen a whole episode of Glee. Not because I don't like the show, but more that I'm waiting for them to do an Emilio Estevez themed episode. I feel like 87% of all celebrities have been on that show at this point. But folks love that show. Or they hate it, it's definitely one of those. Here is the number #9 most popular post on Stuff Christians Like from 2010.

Loving or Hating Glee.

As the nights turn cold and the days grow short, I can't help but think of one thing. As leaves burst with color and wood fire places light across the Tennessee hills I find myself in, there is one thought that I can't shake. As the season and sunsets turn into a kind of Thomas Kinkade/Yankee Candle mashup worthy of Double Rainbow strength awe and wonder, one thought is bursting across the landscape of my heart and soul …

It's almost time to break out Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas album.

Easily the greatest Christmas album of all time, Merry Christmas is a steady jam of the best holiday songs ever. From the ridiculously awesome "All I want for Christmas is you," to the gospel choir backed, "Jesus, Oh What a Wonderful Child," the whole album is a mistletoe flavored cotton candy explosion of perfection. And there's a part two being released this year. (She should title it either, "Merry Christmas II, the revenge," or "Son of Merry Christmas." You can have those for free Mariah!)

But when I tweeted about the album recently I was surprised how the responses only came in two varieties.

Some people loved it.

Some people hated it.

There was absolutely no middle ground. No one "kind of liked" it. You either passionately recognized it as the gift to humanity it is or you blindly missed how wonderful it is.

And the same thing is happening with Christians and the show "Glee."

If you've never seen it, heard about it, been shamed by a friend who is mad you're not watching it or "Modern Family," then let me quickly describe it. Glee is a comedy/drama/musical centered on a glee club at a high school. Despite leaning heavily on "theme episodes," they often tackle tough social issues in some surprising ways. It's blown up in the last year. So much so, that bands who initially refused to let them use their music have come around. When I tweeted that Coldplay said no to Glee, people told me that was because Coldplay had too much "integrity." Then the ratings exploded and Coldplay apologized to Glee and asked them to use their music.

But what I keep noticing is that there are two popular Christian reactions to Glee:

1. You've got to watch it!

In church on Sunday a friend described to me some of the Christian undertones and discussion that often peppers the script of Glee. Then someone else tweeted me and implored me to not only watch it, but write about it. "It's awesome! You would be crazy not to be watching it!" That's what some people tell me.

2. I can only assume that satan is the executive producer of Glee.

Worst show ever. In addition to butchering Journey songs, they're pushing a really horrible agenda on us. It's garbage. I would sooner slow dance with the Golden Compass or share a sleeping bag with a bunch of Harry Potter books. I hate that show and all Christians should.

There's no middle ground. You hate it or you love it. Or so it would appear. I've not watched a whole season and don't have a firm opinion on Glee. (I don't love it as much as I love the new music from Mumford and Sons for instance or Alpha Rev.)

How about you though?

Do you watch Glee?

What's your take?

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What are you reading?

One of my goals this year is to finish at least one book a month. Notice that I did not say "read." I often read one or two chapters of a book and quit. This happens because I get bored, distracted by a different book, it's a 20 page idea that got stretched into 240 pages, I look up something on my iPhone and never come back or I end up thinking about building a fort instead. I tend to have the attention span of a pomeranian who has drunk the contents of a hummingbird feeder.

This year is going to be different. This year, I'm finishing books.

So what are you reading right now that you'd recommend is "worth finishing?"

And what makes a book worth finishing? Non-fiction or fiction?

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Top 10 SCL Posts of 2010

Recently, I saw Tony Morgan do a great countdown of his top ten posts of the year. I loved that idea. And it was a really full year at SCL. We published two books, raised more than $30,000 in 24 hours for malaria nets (update on project next week!), and gave away a 66 pound box of awesome. (Big thank you to sponsors like Samaritan's Purse, Scorely and many others.)

It seemed like a shame to not pick out the ten best posts after going from #680 to #927.

So I went through the last year using a potpourri of traffic numbers, number of comments and general sense of "that was fun" to pick out the top ten. Some you might have seen, some you might have missed. Here is post #10 from 2010. (I'll post one each day, in addition to new SCL.)

#10 –  Reacting to Anne Rice

Christian blogging law requires that you write a post about what world famous author Anne Rice recently said about Christianity.

I wasn't going to, but Cornelius, the white dove who brings me official Christian blogging rules, made it pretty clear I had little choice.

So what did Anne Rice, who wrote about vampires long before it was all twilighty and cool, say? Here is what she posted on Facebook:

"For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."

Yowsa! I'm not sure she could have received more heat if she had said, "My next book is going to be about Harry Potter using a Golden Compass to figure out the DaVinci Code." (Anyone else notice that she used 7 "anti" statements, the most Christiany number of all. Coincidence?)

But nonetheless, in addition to the heat, I heard these 3 reactions:

1. Wait, what? Anne Rice is a Christian?

I would say surprise was probably the biggest reaction I heard. Finding out Anne Rice considered herself a Christian was a shock to a lot of people. It reminded me of a satirical headline I once read on the Onion that said, "Listerine invents, cures gingivitis." I felt like news headlines about this story should have read, "Anne Rice is a Christian, now not a Christian." A lot of people who read the Rice comments felt like they were being punked by Mr. Demi Moore. (And how powerful is Ashton that a show cancelled five years ago is still in our cultural vernacular? No one ever says, "Aww man, I got cop rocked.")

2. Christian Democrats continue to get no love.

If a famous Christian came out in a major way on a site more popular than Google and said, "If you are a Christian, you have to be a Republican," folks would get fired up. So why weren't more people upset that Anne Rice said, "I refuse to be Anti-Democrat?" For certain, one need only look to the comments on last week's SCL post that discussed politics to see what she's talking about, but to say you have to renounce Christianity to be a Democrat seems as extreme of a stance as the girls who said they couldn't date me in college because they were dating God. All I wanted was a blooming onion from The Outback, I'm not sure we needed Yahweh involved in that.

3. Christian is just a label.

Donald Miller wrote a great piece that touched on this point. And it's true, Christian is a label referenced in the Bible, but not by Christ. It's just a label. But so is "no longer a Christian." So is "retired Christian" or "outsider." They might be different than "Christian" and carry less of the stigma from some of the whackness of Christianity in the past, but anytime humans are involved, particularly broken humans, some degree of nonsense is bound to occur.

I ultimately thought that Anne opened up some great dialog on her facebook page and a good conversation ensued. I even read her first Jesus book and really liked it. The thing that stung the most in her post though was the statement that she refused to be "anti-life." Maybe that was meant to say, "anti-war," although none of her other statements were vague. She specified "artificial birth control," so I can't imagine "life" was supposed to translate into "war." But what's tough about that isn't Anne Rice specifically, it's that people think that.

The second half of John 10:10 finds Christ saying, "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full." As Christians, as followers of Christ, as outsiders committed to Christ, we are called to have life. Big life. And regardless of what you think about labels, I hate to think that our faith has become associated with the antithesis of life.

What do you think?

Have you ever had mixed emotions about the label "Christian?"

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Comparing our situations to Job.

(I'm doing a chronological read through the Bible plan right now and we're in Job. So when I got this guest post from John Crist, it felt like perfect timing. Someday I hope to share the stage with this guy. Why? So I can take notes and learn. He's a hilarious writer, a tremendous guest poster as exhibited last month and a great comedian. Hope you dig the post as much as I did!)

It's hard to meet girls in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

If New York City is the City That Never Sleeps, Colorado Springs is the city that gets eight hours of sleep on a tempurpedic mattress…and a pillow with extra lumbar support.

So when you do find a girl in church that's everything you've ever dreamed of, you gotta make a good first impression. That's why I lead with the perfect question:

"What's your stance on premarital spooning?"

Yep, that was my intro line. That got me a first date.

On our second date, or as Christians like to call it 'getting engaged', I went to pick her up at her house. She opened the door and I said confidently, "Baby, Let's go to Jared's." she freaked out and started calling all her friends in the familiar "He. Went. To. Jared's!" tone.

Not gonna lie, she was pretty upset when we pulled into subway.

She dumped me after I told her my five-year plan was to Eat Fresh.

I found myself sitting on the curb outside of Subway, single, lonely and heartbroken. And you know what I did next? I made an even bigger mistake. A mistake that undoubtedly ever Christian has made.

I started to compare my situation to Job.

Let's get one thing clear. Job lost all his family, his house, his livestock, his wealth and his own health. My girlfriend of two weeks dumped me. Those are not comparable situations.

Job is one of the saints of our faith. He sits right next to Jesus when the secretary brings in the prayer requests everyday. (The secretary is probably Esther, we all know she's confrontational and she demands to be called an administrative assistant, not a secretary). I digress. When Jesus shows Job these types of prayer requests, he probably just laughs.

Also, as Christians, let's remember…we're gonna meet this guy Job one day. Are you gonna introduce yourself and say, "Hey, your story really encouraged me when I picked up some coffee, drove ALL THE WAY HOME and realized it was a single pump, not double. I was crushed, I read your story and felt better." I hope not.

For me, the breakup has been hard. Sometimes I feel like there's only one set of footprints in the sand.

But I think some good can come of it. Please help me and call out your Christian brothers and sisters when you hear any variation of the following sentences:

"My flight was delayed for 20 MINUTES!!! I totally understand what Job was going through."

"They could only give me store credit and not a refund, I instantly thought of Job."

"After I got a flat tire last week and had to wait for AAA for 30 minutes, I read the book of Job with a new sense of understanding now."

As for me and the girl, you ask? We eventually worked through it. I just sent her grandparents a save the date…to when the new meatball sub comes out.

They're Italian. I figured they'd like to know.

(John Crist is a standup comedian. Visit his YouTube page.)

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Editing someone's prayer, mid prayer.

Last night, my 7-year-old yelled something from her bed that I've never heard before.

Her favorite thing to say is "I can't fall asleep," approximately 19 seconds after we've put her to bed. She also likes the classics, "I need a drink," "it's too dark in here," and "it's too bright in here." I have no proof of this, but I think some nights she just tries to break her own personal record for number of times my wife and I will come up to hear her case. Last night's statement, was a new one though. Here's what went down:

L.E. yells down, "Mom, I need you."

Me, expecting the water trick: "What do you need L.E.?"

L.E.: "I can't stop thinking that my American Girl Dolls are going to come alive."

She didn't yell that in a "Wouldn't that be awesome if they came alive like Pinocchio?" kind of way. It was more in a "I can't stop thinking that my American Girl Dolls are going to come alive and eat me," kind of way.

That, is at last, a legit concern.

If you're not familiar with the American Girl Doll, and I wasn't until the purchase of said doll threatened to bankrupt our family, they come in two varieties, "Historical," and "So 3000 and 8." Those are not the official terms, but you get the point. The historical ones are from different periods in time, which is the route our family chose.

The dolls are great, but every now and then, the American Girl Doll company will decide to "Archive" one of the historical girls, or as I like to say, "murder her." This isn't like the Disney Vault, where they put a movie in and then bring it back out years later. Once you're archived, it's over. It's like an American Girl Doll mob hit. You no longer cease to exist. You've been removed from the Matrix.

I think L.E. is nervous because she's sleeping next to Kirsten, a blonde haired Swedish doll who met an unfortunate end a few years ago when she got too "mouthy" around the American Girl Doll factory. (Again, conjecture on my part.) L.E. is worried that Kirsten will come alive, becoming an American Girl Doll Zombie if you will, and ask her, "Why did you let them get me L.E.? Why did you let them archive me? Socks, socks!" (I have to imagine an American Girl Doll Zombie would be too polite to eat brains, but would have no problem eating your frilly pink socks.)

So L.E. yelled out "I can't stop thinking that my American Girl Dolls are going to come alive." Which although funny, was not the funniest thing she said last night. My personal favorite happened at dinner and it's something I think has probably happened to some of you too.

While I was praying over dinner, I mentioned being thankful that L.E. enjoyed the playground that day. I'm not sure if you know this, but for kids, the playground is like a Mixed Martial Arts Octagon. Was Janet mean to you? Did some punk first grade boy try to kiss you on the cheek? Did you fall in a big puddle? The risks are endless.

So one of the things I prayed was, "Lord, thank you that L.E. had such a great day on the playground." In the middle of the prayer, L.E. leaned over to me and immediately said, "We didn't go on the playground, it was raining. We stayed inside."

She edited me, mid prayer.

I messed up the details, and she rectified that, mid prayer.

At first I wanted to say, "Only kids would do that. They say the darnedest things!" But the more I thought about that, the more I realized I've seen that happen amongst adults and I've personally wanted to do it. Why? Three reasons:

1. A "just grenade" just went off.

I've mentioned before that our favorite word when we pray is "just." We say things like "Lord, just hear us, just guide our steps, just lead us. Just, just, just." Sometimes I just want to just edit out some justs.

2. The person praying didn't listen to the prayer requests.

This happens sometimes. The person closing the prayer didn't listen to the requests people really made. We talked about this in the Stuff Christians Like book. If they refuse to put the onus for remembering the details on God, "Lord, you know all our requests," and instead try to wing it, jumbling all the details, I feel like editing. Martha's having foot surgery, not Martin is trying out for a football team. There is a critical difference between those two.

3. The person praying is using prayer as a way to call out someone in the room.

When you pray, "Lord, help us surround your followers, who have ginger colored beards and who make bad financial decisions and buy houses they can't afford in subdivisions that are named after rivers," we know who you're talking about. If you're legitimately going to ask for public prayer for that person, edit out some of the defining details.

Most times, without juking myself, I try to withhold the desire to edit. I don't want to be a jerk, analyzing worship and prayer and other moments that are bigger than me. Unless you tell me you're worried about Martin's NFL tryout. I might have to step in at that moment.

Have you ever seen someone edit a prayer? Have you ever felt like doing that?

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The wrong type of fishing.

Whether it's a spiritual attack, the creative stress of writing a book, a severe lycopene deficiency or a potpourri of all three, lately I've been having a hard time sleeping.

I'd be no means say I'm struggling with insomnia, but the last week has been a difficult one. Reflecting on it, I think there are a few contributing factors:

1. I'm writing a book.

When I asked people to tell me their story for my new book, more than 600 people responded. From around the world, some of the most amazing/heartbreaking/beautiful stories poured in about the tension we all face when crushed between a day job and a daydream, between doing what we feel called to do and doing what pays the bills. I feel an overwhelming burden to write this book. And as I've said before, the devil only attacks things that matter to the kingdom. So it might make sense that as I sit down to do what I feel led to do, I keep hearing this steady chorus, "Who are you to think you can do this? A 65 year old should write this book, not you. You're woefully under qualified. Your first book was just a satire and 'doesn't count.' This is a 'real' book. You'll never do it."

2. We're trying to buy a house.

We sold our house in Atlanta, which was a tremendous blessing. Now we're trying to buy one. It's definitely one of those moments when, despite your age, you look up and say to your wife, "Hey, where are the adults? Seems like there should be some adults involved in this process. What's that? We're the adults? Oh no." House inspections, negotiating closing costs, old roofs in 25-year-old houses, these are not fun things.

3. Sometimes I feel like I'm failing at blogging.

Not all time and not in a "lack of gratefulness" kind of way. When I wrote my other blog for a year that a handful of people read every day, I would have killed to have something like Stuff Christians Like. But the weird thing about blogging is that you're never "done." There's always a different technology you could be using or a new platform all the smart people are on or a better post you should be writing. Plus, it's so easy to measure yourself in a 1,000 self-esteem crushing ways. Just yesterday someone came in my office and said, "How come that guy's Alexa rating is so much higher than yours?" So you start to compare and realize that other people are better at responding to Twitter conversations than you or have more followers or a million other things that make you feel like you're not doing it "right."

So the combination of those three pressures and a few others, has left me wracked with doubt and anxiety these last few nights. I roll around in bed like a dog turning circles 17 times before it sits down. I close my eyes and a failure parade that spans decades marches into my subconscious. Friendships I didn't maintain. Opportunities I let slip through my hands. Commitments I broke. They all get loud.

In those moments, I often look for the one thing I can do that will "fix" things. Out of the tangle of fear I want to find a fix, to this feeling of failure. But in looking for the fix, I often miss the father.

I lose sight of what his love letter says about stress and panic and fear. There are countless verses, but one I come back to time and time again is 1 Peter 5:7. It says:

"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

I love the word image I get from the idea of casting, but I often misinterpret it. I think of casting my fears on God like a deep-sea fisherman. From the 7 minutes I didn't spend throwing up during my one deep sea fishing trip, I remember what it meant to cast in that context. You baited your hook, cast as far as you could and then waited. Some of the time we just had the lines dragging behind the boat while we moved to another spot. We waited until someone got a hit, then we'd jump into the chair and wrestle the fish in.

That's how I've looked at casting my anxiety on the Lord. I do it once a day at best. It's something I do in my quiet time in the morning and then maybe at night if something is really bothering me. It's a singular event, like throwing out a deep sea fishing line.

But in the last few days, I've started to feel like I might be wrong about that. What if casting your anxiety is more like fly-fishing. Have you ever seen a fly fisherman? It's a surprisingly active form of fishing. You have to keep your fly, or lure, in almost constant motion, tapping the water repeatedly in an attempt to attract a fish. The fly is no chunk of bait like in deep fishing either. It's a delicately crafted, insanely detailed decoy that looks like any of a thousand different types of bugs. Fly fisherman are artists, with magnifying glasses and tweezers to craft their lures.

That is how I am with my worry. I am like a fly fisherman in the basement of my heart, slowly, obsessively working on the things I am worried about. I tie on new thread and different colors to my worries. My money concerns aren't just about money, they reflect that I'm a bad husband or a bad father. My book sales thoughts are not just about book sales but actually about whether I'll ever be considered a "real author," a fictional creature I've created that always seems just out of reach.

And into that space, into my panic and tangle of worry, I am told to cast all my anxiety on God. Not like a deep-sea fisherman, throwing out one line and waiting. But more like a fly fisherman, constantly sending out line. Constantly giving up my fears and worries to the Lord. Not as a single act, but as a lifestyle of surrender. As a constant release to the Lord. Why?

The verse doesn't say, "Cast all your anxiety on him because that's what good Christians do."

It says, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

He loves us. He wants us casting all day.

Your job fears.

Your divorce.

Your concern that it's only January 5th and you've already blown your resolutions.

Your belief that it's "too late" to do whatever it is you're called to.

Cast it.

Cast it.

Cast it.

You will never exhaust God with your worries. You will never reach the end of his ability to hear or handle your fears. You will never disappoint him with the amount of times you cast your anxiety on him.

Why?

Because he cares for you, he cares for me, he cares for us!

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Sinning in jealousy over people who got iPads for Christmas.

I don't mean to start an argument, but it's pretty clear that God would use an iPhone and not a Blackberry. That is of course if he didn't choose angels, bushes or donkeys, methods he relied on in the Bible. And his call would never get dropped, even if he was at the Catalyst Conference and 13,000 other people were trying to tweet at the same exact time.

Why would he prefer Apple over Blackberry? For one, the fruit used to symbolize the knowledge of good and evil was an apple. The blackberry doesn't even make a cameo in Genesis. And he wouldn't need actual buttons to press like on the Blackberry. He's God. You think he needs a full size keyboard to get down? In fact, he wouldn't even touch the iPhone, but merely just pass by and where he had been, the right letters would have been submitted.

It seems pretty clear to me, but again, I'm what they call a "Titan of Theology." Something else that seems pretty clear to me is that right now, sinning in jealously over people who got iPads for Christmas is at an all time high. Why?

The signature Apple puts in emails you send from an iPad.

At the bottom of every email that goes out from the device, there is a sentence that reads,

"Sent from my iPad."

This is not new. For years the iPhone has said the same thing, "Sent from my iPhone."

For Apple, it's a brilliant marketing strategy. They are essentially attaching an ad to every email you send to every business contact or friend you message. And it is costing them $0.

But the first time I saw that, I didn't read it the right way. Here is what it said:

"Sent from my iPhone."

Here is how I read it:

"Sent from my iPhone, a magical happiness device that you don't have Jon Acuff. If you purchased one your life would be 42% more awesome almost instantly but financially you can't afford one right now, in large part because you are a loser. Enjoy pushing the buttons on your borderline Amish phone. What is that thing made of, cedar? Touch the screen on your junky phone all you want, nothing is going to happen you caveman."

Now clearly that was not the intended message from my friends who sent me emails. A lot of them didn't even know you could change the signature. Which is what I did, when I got an iPhone. I changed it to, "This is short and not funny because it was sent from my iPhone." That felt a little better.

But now with Christmas a few days behind us, there are thousands of new iPad owners sending out emails, that might make us feel a little jealous. That's why when someone gave me one this year, I decided to change the email signature to one of three things:

1. Sent from a device that justifies, if not warrants, spelling mistakes, grammar errors and sarcasm that will initially be misinterpreted as unkindness but later explained as insight by me.

2. Sent from a device I use to read the Bible, paper being so wildly inconvenient.

3. Sent from a device that was a completely unexpected gift from a very generous person. I am grateful and am aware of the current unemployment rate. Quit writing that Jesus Juke response email you're working on right now.

Feel free to use any of those. Those are free to you, the SCL readership.

But be honest, have you ever been jealous of someone who owned an iPhone, iPad or Mac laptop? This is a safe place. You're amongst friends. Let it all out.

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Already being behind on your read through the Bible in a year plan.

Today, gyms across the world will be full. Folks with new workout clothes and resolutions that have not yet broken will be climbing about strange looking gym equipment like spider monkeys with the fervor January always ushers in. This is the adult version of the college student working out before spring break. I did that. A week before we went to the beach, I would go into the gym and do only two exercises: Bench press and bicep curls. Then, if that didn't "take," I would do push ups right before we went out onto the sandy shores of Panama City Beach for "Beach MTV." I distinctly remember debating whether a push up was worth putting my bare hands on the floor of the incredibly seedy motels we would clown car 7 guys into each Spring Break. (The "core" didn't exist when I was in college in 1998 or I might have worked that out too.)

What's the Christian version of the gym resolution? Reading through the Bible in a year. And even though it's only January 3rd, some of you have already fallen behind on the plan. (A year starting on a Saturday is so unfair. Today should be day one. Nobody starts something new on the weekend. New was made for Monday!)

But if you haven't fallen behind, if you're trying to stay on track, please accept some pointers from someone who usually reads through a year study in about two and a half years.

1. Don't get suckered in by the stories.

In most front to back Bible plans, you've only read Genesis 1-7 so far by January 3. That's Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Noah. That's like the Die Hard trilogy! Action packed! But beware, some "begets" are coming, lineage is on it's way.

2. Look out for lineage.

I'm not sure if you know this or not, but the sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek and Tiras. That's where you're headed my friend, right into the land of lineage. I'm not sure if Biblically we're allowed to skim sections that say, "Gomer beget Ashkenaz," (We need a ruling on that from someone who has gone to seminary) but there will be some random nuggets mixed in there. For instance, Nimrod was a "mighty hunter before the Lord." Not sure if that's the first image we all think of with that name anymore.

3. Don't get hung up on translation updates.

I'm reading through the updated NIV right now and in Genesis 4:1, it says, "Adam made love to his wife Eve." I felt like I had never heard that before and looked in my older version of the NIV which says, "Adam lay with his wife." Those are two very different phrases to me. One is what I assumed folks in the OT did. The other reminds me of Prince and Boys II Men. At this point, I'm thinking, "this is what it sounds like, when doves cry," and have completely lost my train of thought. Don't be like me. Stay focused.

4. Make it easy.

We Christians get crazy legalistic when it comes to reading through the Bible in a year. "It's got to be my black leather Bible, in this chair, at this time of day, with this pen in my hand, while having a peppermint mocha coffee heated to 120 degrees or my reading doesn't 'count' that day." Don't be that guy to yourself. I'm going through the Bible with a group of guys right now and we're reading it on YouVersion. It's online, it's easy to use and with an iPhone in my hand it eliminates the excuse, "I can't find my Bible, oh well, guess I'll skip my reading."

5. Go through it with friends.

I might be the first person in history to talk trash about a Bible reading plan, but that's probably going to happen if one of my friends misses a day. I'll follow the James model of rebuke, but also probably take some pointers from my fantasy basketball league on how to call out a friend on a blog in love. Going through the Bible with friends makes it fun and a whole lot easier to stay honest about your progress.

6. Start mentally preparing for Leviticus.

That book will break you. I promise. Unless you have some very specific questions about mold. It's a beautiful book, but 87% of all read through the Bible plans jump the sea cow right here. (That will make sense once you get to Leviticus.)

I'm three for three so far this year and just finished reading Genesis 11 this morning. I even made it through some begets while learning about the linage of Arphaxad. Remember that guy? He used to hang with Lud, but definitely not Hazarmaveth. I digress.

Any tips you'd suggest to read through the Bible in a year?

Have you ever done that? Are you doing it this year?

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Blog reviews start this week!

A few weeks ago I did a blog promotion with my new book "Gazelles, Baby Steps and 37 Other Things Dave Ramsey Taught Me About Debt." If you bought the book on a certain day, I offered to do a review of your blog. About 350 folks took me up on that, which is awesome. Now that Christmas is over and we can all focus on blogs, I'm beginning to go through the reviews. Over the next two months, if you participated, I will review your blog and email you a couple of ideas on things you could do to grow it.

We might do something like this again when the book hits Amazon and possibly some retail stores so folks outside the country can participate. But for the meantime, thank you for supporting the book and expect an email from me!

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Thank you.

If you don't follow me on Twitter, you might have missed what I said last night when the clock turned over to 2011:

"Happy New Year! Thanks for reading the SCL blog/book and being my friend. Your kindness in 2010 was life changing."

I wrote that because it's true. Without you reading this blog and supporting what we've done all year I wouldn't have been able to publish two books, move my family to Nashville, travel the country telling people they're not naked, work for Dave Ramsey and most importantly save 3,300 people in Uganda from malaria. (The 1st batch of nets were delivered a few weeks ago and GPS coordinates are being processed. I'll do an update in the next two weeks.)

Maybe next week I'll do a recap of the year, but for today, I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you for a great 2010. We've got some crazy things coming in 2011. You ready?

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