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singer’s life…or maybe God did. Hard to tell, especially since you strip all the pronouns out. Tricky. (By the way, if you want to use that lyric, you can. That’s yours for free. Keep that one somewhere safe.) Before you know it, your fans will be saying to each other, “I love this song because it reminds me of this girl I dated in high school and also my life-redeeming relationship with the Lord.”
THROWING OUT VERBAL CANARIES
    Lean in close and I’ll tell you a little secret. Sometimes, Christians throw out ideas when we’re with other Christians to see if they will judge us for something we secretly like. We’ll say, “Yeah, this guy I know went to that new nightclub and said it was crazy.” Then, we’ll pause and observe their reaction. If they say, “Dancing is evil. I hate nightclubs and so does God,” we immediately agree with them, “Amen. God wants to smite them. Probably use sulfur, if I had to guess.” But if they say something like, “Let’s go check it out,” we’ll respond, “I’ve heard that place is good too. We should go sometime.”
    It’s kind of like how coal miners used to have a canary down in the shaft with them. If the bird died, something was wrong with the air quality. Well, what we do is introduce a verbal canary. Then, if someone kills it, we can still look holy and say something like, “Yeah, that bird sucked anyway.”

TREATING THE STREET CORNER PREACHER LIKE A PIÑATA
    We have a love/hate relationship with that street corner preacher who yells about repentance on the sidewalks of cities around the world. We love to use him as a sermon illustration of how not to do God and church and the gospel. And we hate that we get lumped in with him when someone says, “I don’t like Christianity. It’s so judgmental and screamy.” It’s true, you’re not an official street corner preacher unless you’re sweaty and have a sign with all caps and an abundance of exclamation points and at least one mention of satan or hell.
    The challenge, though, is that the repent message—the “get your stuff together; it’s about to get real” message that street corner preachers proclaim—is actually the first sermon Jesus gave. Matthew 4:17 says, “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’” That verse doesn’t elaborate or tell us the rest of his message. There’s the sense that this was his entire sermon, like it was written on a sign: REPENT!!!!! FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS NEAR!!!!!

USING WATERFALLS AND BUTTERFLIES AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO GIVE EVOLUTIONISTS THE MIDDLE FINGER
    Regardless of the specifics you believe about the creation of the earth—God did it in six literal days; “days” meaning something different in his economy; he set things in motion that havegrown and changed over time according to his plan, etc.—you’re required by Christian law to sarcastically proclaim, “And it was all an accident!” when you encounter something amazing in nature.

    Whether it’s a beautiful mountain range, an ocean ecosystem functioning perfectly in a tidal pool, or the birth of a child, you have to let everyone you’re with know that God created it. And the smarmier you can be about it the better. Sure, you could always just say, “I personally believe God created this,” but where’s the fun in exclaiming that?
    It’s much better to say, “And it was all an accident.” Not only do you give God a quiet little shout-out, you also get to say, “How dumb are people who believe in evolution and the big bang and a million other ideas?” Which is completely in line with Jesus’ whole “love your neighbors through sarcasm” thing. I think that’s in the book of Mark. I’d look it up, but the sun is rising right now in my office, and tender beams of light are tickling trees thick with leaves that seem to stand sentinel to the approaching morning; it is gorgeous, and it was all an accident.
FEELING SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED