Fun and thoughtful find

I don’t know if this counts under Joe Carter’s encouragement to link to material that others haven’t, because a quick look at Technorati reveals that it has become quite popular, but this evening I stumbled on to some of the best writing I have come across in the Christian blogosphere. Not only does Prodigal Jon write beautifully, but his posts are a delightful blend of humor and serious reflection. The site is called Stuff Christians Like and the post below, “Church names that sound like clothing stores” made me laugh out loud. This is #24 out of 197 he’s written so far.

My cousin goes to church at a place called "Warehouse 242." There's another church in his area that recently started called, "Elevation." Across town from my dad's church is a place simply called "The Summit." I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point we started naming our churches after stores that sell designer jeans. And I'm cool with that. I don't think you have to name something the "Back to the Bible Holiness Church" which is outside of Atlanta in case you want to attend. And more than that, it opens up some good conversations with people. Imagine you're at work on Monday and someone says, "What'd you do this weekend?" You can reply "I hung out at Elevation." Your friend will then say, "Is that the new salsa/techno/hip hop/Southern Cambodian traditional dance club? I've heard the girls in that place are ridiculous." At which point you can then say, "No, it's a church" and then proceed to share the entire gospel with him. OK, maybe you shouldn't do that, but at the bare minimum, saying you went to "Elevation" is going to at least keep the conversation rolling where if you said, "I went to 'God is Awesome, Praise Sweet Baby Jesus Cathedral' over the weekend," your friend is going to throw an imaginary smoke bomb and climb out of a window to get out of the conversation. So maybe interesting names are a good thing.

Here’s another great one, #159 The Pray if You Feel Led Prayer. This one hit especially close to home because it’s a regular part of our worship service. Check Jon out.