My good friend Jon Acuff, who I’ve met once and had dinner with, has a fairly successful blog at www.stuffchristianslike.net. It’s obviously about stuff that Christians like (a truly brilliant title). His snarky sarcasm mixed with genuine affection for Christ really encouraged those traits in my own personality and is at least partially responsible for the start of www.songofsloman.com. Since we here at Song look up to Stuff as a big brother in many ways, it’s only fitting that we imitate to most sincerely flatter (at least until Jon asks me not to). With that said, here is the first thing that Christians like.

Christians like their friends, but they love their Christian friends even more, especially their Christian friends from their own church. A recent incident really brought this to light in an awkward way. I had extended a noncommittal invitation to some friends from church saying, “We’re probably just watching the Mavericks’ game at our place Sunday night. We might have some people over, so I’ll let you know.” Little did I know, my wife had set up plans for us to watch the game with one of her co-workers and her husband and daughter. Now this is no problem. Said co-work and family are Christians so we are good to go there, but I floated that partial invite and had no way of retrieving it. And unlike the U.S. military I will leave things behind. It doesn’t matter if you’re a person, place or thing, if you’re about to drag me down into a pit of embarrassment or undue responsibility, you better believe I’m dropping you like a bad habit.

But my invitation was not only to another couple from our church (The Village Church (Best Church in the World)), but more specifically our very own home group, and here we are cheating on them with these other Christians that attend Valley Creek Church. I don’t think they’re even Baptist. Heaven forbid they might be Presbyterian, Methodist, or (dare I say it?)… nondenominational. How will we ever explain ourselves if the word gets out? Will we be voted out of our home group? (Of course this wouldn’t happen since we are the leaders.) We don’t have any other friends. (Well, except for that couple that caused all this trouble in the first place, but I’m not sure they could handle how needy we are by themselves.) I’m sure my wife was completely unaware of the fallout that could ensue from this innocent engagement. Then again maybe this is a cry for help. I need to make an appointment with a marriage counselor stat.

Do you cheat on your church friends with other Christians?