Jon Acuff
Jon Acuff fell in love with the power of ideas as a six–year–old while riding shotgun in a moving van with his seminary–bound father from North Carolina to Massachusetts. Not really, but that seems like the kind of sentence you're supposed to put in your official biography.
The truth is, Jon fell in love with God and the power of ideas while watching his dad start a Southern Baptist Church in an old car wash in New England when he was in the fourth grade. After attending an all boys Catholic high school, he reversed his family's exodus north and headed south to Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama .
At Samford he majored in journalism, met his wife, had two daughters, and eventually ended up in Alpharetta, Georgia . He's spent the last ten years shaping ideas for clients ranging from such mega churches as North Point to mega brands as Home Depot. He worked on an EXPO Design Center project for the Oprah show, mixed science and art for Bose, made office supplies fun for Staples, wrote automotive copy for AutoTrader.com, and taught Chick–fil–A how to make grown men cry. Then, things got interesting.
On a whim, he started a satirical website called stuffchristianslike.net. Jon hoped that this reaction to the popular site stuffwhitepeoplelike.com would be a good chance to open up dialog about how silly it is to slap a God–spin on popular secular ideas. The exploration into the funny things we do in the name of Christianity gained momentum. Jon told 100 people. They told 100 people, and in less than a year, 400,000 readers from 97% of the countries in the world engaged with more than 2.4 million pages on stuffchristianslike.net.
Now, this pastor's kid, with a mind for branding and a heart for the Lord, is challenging what we believe about faith in a new book. He's asking us if the stuff we Christians like ever gets in the way of the God we love. And the answer might surprise you.