Jon Acuff's Blog, page 102

Using Vacation Bible School as free babysitting.

Denomination, schomenation, when our kids are out of school for the summer and we’ve suddenly got to fill eight weeks of time with activities,

we Christians like to put aside our denominational differences and bounce our kids like Ping-Pong balls around the country to different Vacation Bible School programs.

We sent our kids to three different churches last summer, in part because our church refuses to hold Vacation Bible School. One day, my daughter L.E. came home from one of the more “rural” churches we had selected for our “tour de VBS,” and I asked her what she learned that day. Her response?

“We watched The Little Mermaid movie.”

Hmm, I thought to myself, I’m not sure which part of the Bible Disney is taking that story from, but I’ve got to work all week and God did make the ocean after all and in a way, that movie is kind of similar to the Jonah story.

“Have a good time tomorrow, sweetheart.”

Do you have any good VBS stories from your kids?

(This originally appeared in the Stuff Christians Like book.  If you want to pick up a copy, click here!)

The 1 lie the devil always tells.

Since the dawn of time, the enemy has tried to play just one trick.

Though it has a thousand different variations and a million different manifestations, it boils down to the same lie every time.

God is not good.

He is holding out on you.

There is something more you are missing.

Time and time again, this is the trick the enemy comes back to.

It is what he said to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The garden is not enough. God is holding back on you. There’s something more you are missing and here is what it is. And we believed and so we ate and we found it to be a lie.

Years later, satan would attempt the same trick on Christ. When he tempted him, in Matthew 4, satan showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor and said, “All this I will give you, if you bow down and worship me.”

God is holding back on you. There’s something more you are missing and here is what it is. You are lacking this kingdom and this splendor.

Do you see the absurdity of offering a kingdom to the God who made the whole universe? Can you see the foolishness of offering a plot of land to the God who made the entire planet?

It’s ridiculous, but the enemy is very limited in his ability to create new tricks. He’s the enemy of truth, not the equal. He’s the enemy of God, not the peer. He’s the enemy of light, not the contemporary.

So he returns to his trick and it continues to work. We keep trading our birthrights for a bowl of stew. Even in a world where God has already proven there is nothing he will hold back. How could we ever assume a God who gave his only son for us would hold back? How could we ever assume a God who sent his son to the cross for our freedom was not good?

But we do. I’ve seen this a thousand times in the last year as I’ve talked to people about my book Quitter and what it means to do what you’re called to do.

A common fear, and one that I know all too well in my own life, is that if you surrender your whole life to God, you know exactly what will happen next. He will make you sell everything you own and move to Africa to become a missionary. You’ll go t0 a hut in 4.2 seconds.

But what that fear reveals is that we’re still falling for the same trick. Because if the first thing we imagine God doing with our lives is the worst thing we can imagine, what a miserable God we serve. If in your heart you love writing, God will call you to be a math teacher. If you love people, he will call you to work in a job without any human interaction. If you don’t feel called to mission work, he will send you to Guam on the next boat out of town.

He’s holding back on us. If we surrender, we’ll get something worse in return. If we give up our lives, we’ll get a pocket full of misery in exchange. The piece of fruit is the better choice. The kingdom is what matters. The stew is the best option.

It’s a lie.

God is not holding back on us.

When he sent his son, he was not holding back on us.

God is good.

When he revealed himself to Moses, that was the one thing he chose to show, his goodness.

There is not something missing that the enemy can provide.

He always takes, he never gives.

At the end of the day, the devil is a one trick pony. He has but one drum to beat. One lie to dress up.

Don’t believe it.

“Later” will not be found on any calendar you ever own.

For years, I talked about what I was going to do with my life “someday.” I’d write that book. Or give that speech. Or start that business. Someday.

There were moments were it was easy to draw up elaborate plans in my head about what I’d like to do. There were others where I didn’t know what my dream was, just that it wasn’t this.

And at the end of every day, the same thing would happen – I’d wait for someday while at the same time telling my kids they could be anything they set their minds to.

I know it’s silly for both those ideas to live in the same house, but they did.

I dared my kids to dream while ignoring my own dream.

But what do you do when you’re a dad with a full time job, a thousand responsibilities and just the faintest ember that you might have been created for something more? You can’t just tell your family, “Daddy, has a dream! I’m going to ignore you kids and your mom this next month while I take a sabbatical and grow a Ron Swanson beard and learn how to carve corn cob pipes in a cabin on the side of a cliff.”

Can you be a great dad and be a great dreamer?

Can you chase a dream without wrecking your life?

Can you set an example for your own kids and their kids and the generations to come?

I think you can.

That’s why I wrote Quitter. Because someday isn’t coming.

“Later” will not be found on any calendar you ever own.

Time is short and fast and we’ve got to make the most of it.

If you’ve got a dad who has a dream, or a husband you know is capable of so many things, don’t get them a tie this father’s day.

No one has ever changed the world with a tie.

Or a bottle of Nautica cologne, that it is delightful and smells like a sailboat.

Get your father or your husband a copy of Quitter.

Better yet, send them to the Quitter Conference in Nashville, TN. Every year, we hear that story over and over again from people who come. “My wife knows I’ve got a passion for starting my own business and he sent me to the Quitter Conference, I’m so glad she supported my dream that way!”

Whether you’re a father, a mother, a college student or a retired coal miner, the truth is the same for all of us.

There is no someday.

The time to dream is now.

Grocery store Pharisee.

I like to make fun of the Pharisees sometimes. They’re a fairly easy target, always in the background of New Testament stories saying ridiculously unkind things.

I even have a joke I do sometimes from stage about how the Pharisees would have loved the phrase, “Just saying.”

Can’t you see them saying that constantly in the Bible?

“Whoa, Jesus. Healed a guy on the Sabbath! That’s great, I mean he can walk again. It’s against the law though, just saying.”

It’s fun to pick on the Pharisees right up until the moment I become one at the supermarket. This happened the other day when I was in the 10 items or less check out line.

I respect that line. I don’t casually stand in it. If I have 11 items in my basket I either go to a different line or I vote off one item Survivor style. “OK ketchup, why don’t you feel like the bread deserves to be in this line with us? Why should it be sent back home to the bread aisle?”

And last week, when I had but one item in my hands, the lady in front of me had 21. How do I know? Because I counted them. With my crazy fast Pharisee eyesight. I then started to think the following:

1. Maybe she can’t count to ten? Maybe I need to give her the benefit of the doubt?

2. I don’t know. She has a kid with her who is old enough to know how to count to ten and if she was able to put on her own pants and drive a car here, she can probably count to ten.

3. Let’s be honest, the sign doesn’t say, “A x B – 12 to the power of 4 = the number of items you can have in this line.” It says “10 or fewer.” It’s a pretty simple math challenge that even I can figure out. And I’m horrible at math.

4. Maybe she’s really busy and there’s someone at home who has the flu and she needs to get back as soon as possible.

5. Except she’s buying those little Greek yogurt containers that have the blueberry or honey things attached. I love those. They look like they were designed by IKEA.

6. Easy Jon, you’re getting distracted. The point about the yogurt is that no one who is sick or throwing up sends their mom or wife to the store to buy them Greek yogurt.

7. The other checkout lines are pretty short right now. This place is not crowded. This is a showboat move. This lady is the Terrell Owens of the grocery store.

8. She didn’t even do the courtesy, “Oh, you only have one item, you tall blogger, go ahead of me,” move. Do I still live in the south? She should have said that and offered me some grits. Where am I?

9. What am I the grocery store police? Good grief, you could carry around the grace I have most days in a thimble.

10. Is this going to be a post on Stuff Christians Like? Probably. I’m so meta. Or postmodern. Or some word like that.

And then she left.

I asked the two people who were running the cash register if they ever noticed people had more than 10 items in this line. They laughed and said, “All the time, but we have to let them in. That’s our policy.”

Then they said, “But we have more grace than you since Christ died for us.”

OK, they didn’t say that, but I felt like they probably could have.

So the lesson I learned that day in the grocery store is two fold:

1. Next time I want to make fun of the speck in the Pharisees’ eyes I need to remember the grocery store sized plank in my own.

2. Take as many items as you want into the 10 items or fewer line. Nobody is going to stop you. This is thunderdome.

Question:

Do you ever catch yourself getting worked up about silly rules like this?

Solomoning your kids.

This t-shirt image might not look like much to you, but to my kids, this is the greatest t-shirt on the planet and the last one in known existence:

 

In addition to having a puppy on it, it was also the only one the store had when they went shopping with their grandmother.

Now as a parent, I know that buying one of anything when you have a 6 year old and an 8 year old is a suicide mission. Occasionally my kids will argue over who is breathing the highest quality air. Getting one of them a puppy shirt and the other one a kitty shirt is crazy. But in a moment of pure theater they assured their grandmother, “No, of course we won’t fight over the puppy shirt. We won’t.”

They next day, as the sun rose, so did the buzz about that puppy shirt. In addition to having a cute canine on it, the shirt also changed colors in the sun. (These kids today with their iPhones and color changing shirts and hippity hoppity music.) My oldest daughter wanted to wear the shirt. My youngest daughter filed a minor protest regarding this course of action.

In a matter of minutes, we were at terror level red, with both kids quickly swearing the kitty shirt would never be worn as it was a hideous shirt. That shirt wasn’t cute! That cat shirt wasn’t a silver medal or a second best, it was a 50th best, suddenly less popular than say a burlap sack in the Acuff house.

Possessing, my deep pools of parenting wisdom, I stepped in and tried to negotiate a truce in this cotton poly blended crisis. “What are we really fighting about here? There’s only a single dog on this entire shirt. A lot of these other pets are ugly. Whereas the kitty shirt has six cats on it! That shirt is the real winner. Cat shirt! Cat shirt! Who is with me?”

My kids laughed at my logic and kept arguing.

So then I tried another angle. “What if you get to wear the shirt on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while you get to wear it on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays? On Sundays, we’ll give it a day of rest, a shirt Sabbath if you will.”

My kids did not budge.

Finally I had to Solomon the situation, using the same approach he did with the two women arguing over the baby.

“OK, here’s what we’re going to do. If we can’t agree to share it, we’re going to return the shirts to the store and no one will ever be able to wear the puppy shirt.” (I felt like threatening to cut it in half with a sword was too extreme and I didn’t want to have to go to that weird store at the mall that carries swords.)

I then proceeded to wait a few seconds while my children pondered the brilliance of what I was saying. Surely one of them would love that puppy shirt so much that the thought of never seeing it again will be unbearable. Perhaps McRae would say, “No daddy, please no! Don’t do that! Give it to L.E., lest neither one of us be able to enjoy it.”

Instead, they stared at each other, with an intensity only sisters can muster and then said, “OK, return it.”

Like picking up a grenade at your feet and tossing it back at the person who threw it at you, they saw my stakes and raised them. “Let’s do this thing dad. You want to go all in? You want to Solomon this situation? We’re in.”

I made a brief note to study Meg Meeker’s book “Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters,” with even greater fortitude and started folding up the shirts.

It was a tense moment, one that left me multiplying my prayers about adolesence. The Solomon had been employed. The Solomon had failed.

At first.

Thirty minutes later, McRae caved, the pressure of being puppyless proving too great. She pulled me aside and put on the kitty shirt secretly so that she could surprise her older sister. She zipped up her hoodie and then found L.E. and said, “Look at this!” She then revealed the kitty shirt, indicating that L.E. was getting to wear the puppy shirt that day.

Crisis averted. Sisters back together. Love won. No swords were necessary.

Question:

As a parent do you ever have to negotiate situations like this with your kids? Did you fight with your brother or sister growing up?

12 Signs you Attend Church in the Suburbs

(It’s guest post Friday!  Here’s one by Kristin Weber. You can check out her blog here and follow her on Twitter @kristinweb.  If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)

12 Signs you Attend Church in the Suburbs

After almost six years of worshiping at a city church in Southern California, I got used to difficult parking, homeless people wandering into service, and members from all different backgrounds and ethnicities doing life together.

A little over a year ago, I was dropped into the deep end of the Bible Belt. (Just to clarify: By “dropped into” I mean, “voluntarily moved to.”) I now live and worship at a church in the suburbs of North Texas and have noticed some distinct traits in suburban churches.

If you’ve been wondering whether or not you attend church in the suburbs, allow me to help.

You might you attend church in the suburbs if…

1.  Your church parking lot looks like an SUV dealership.

2.  There are seven Starbucks within a five-mile radius of your church.

3.  You forgo Starbucks on Sundays in order to support the “coffee ministry” at your church’s on-site coffee shop, which is probably called either “Javallujah!” or “Heavenly Grounds.”

4.  Members under the age of 50 use the Bible apps on their iPhones, iPods, and iPads, instead of the pew Bible.

5.  The older members spend the entire sermon iJudging the younger members for “playing” on their iPhones, iPods, and iPads during church.

6.  The “poor” among you is the person without the iPhone, iPod or iPad.

7.  Your church is within walking distance of at least four other churches. You could realistically get coffee from one church’s coffee bar; drink it at the mid-size church that really “gets” worship, and then hop on over to the other mega church for the sermon because the preacher is more “dynamic.” (Translation: the chairs are more comfortable).

8.  Your church is less cool because it doesn’t have a fountain pond.

9.  Your church has a fountain pond, but it is still less cool because all the ducks chose to fellowship at a different pond-church.

10.  A non-Caucasian family joins your church, thus doubling the number of “ethnic” members, and you now consider your church a diverse body.

11.  “Christian” is not a sufficient enough answer when asked your religion. You must clarify what kind of Christian you are by stating your

denomination.

Example:

“What religion are you?”

“Lutheran.”

Most suburbs have a complete church menu. The Protestants split…and kept on splitting. You can be Lutheran (Evangelical, Synod, American, or Free) Baptist, (Reformed, Southern, or Southern Reformed), Presbyterian (Orthodox, PCA or PCUSA), Methodist (United or Wesleyan), or the denomination of “non-denominational.”

12.  Crime takes a rest on Sundays so that the local police force can direct traffic in and out of church parking lots.

Those are my 12 signs.  What are yours?

 

To read more from Kristin, you can check out her blog.

The Fake Sermon Illustration.

On a Monday morning right before a meeting at work, I got the following phone call from my three-year-old’s preschool.

“Hi Mr. Acuff. This is Susan at Small Wonder. McRae ate some sort of fungus on the playground.  We’ve got Poison Control on the other line and have saved a sample of what she ate.  They don’t think it’s going to be a problem, but we need to keep an eye on her for a few hours.”

It turns out, there’s a white, clumpy fungus that grows in bark mulch called “dog vomit fungus.” While playing outside, McRae saw some and thought to herself, “Hey, free marshmallows!” and proceeded to eat as much as her little hands could grab. Then when they lined up the kids to bring them inside, the teachers saw McRae’s fungus-covered face and asked, “Oh sweetheart, what have you been eating?” McRae, blessed with her father’s heart of a servant, immediately answered, “I’ll show you,” and walked the teachers over to the bark mulch buffet she had been enjoying during recess.

That reminds me a lot of God. Not really, but I wanted it to. I tried to think of a way to write something bout sin and how it looks good at first but then, if we eat it, we end up throwing up all night and sleeping on the floor in our parents’ room. I looked and looked for a segue, but ultimately I realized that if I tried to connect that story to the Bible or God I would just be perpetuating a “fake sermon illustration.”

A fake sermon illustration is when a pastor is desperate to tell a story, but he can’t figure out a way to tie it back to his sermon. It’s something funny that happened to him, something silly his kids did, or maybe even a movie clip that really shook him up emotionally. But he can’t find the bridge between the illustration and the message, so he just tries to sneak it by you really fast and hope that you don’t notice.

I prefer the minister to say one of two things instead:

“Now let’s talk about God.”  I have a friend who can hear a story about low test scores in high schools and then say, “That reminds me: I was thinking about eating sushi tonight.”  What he means when he says, “that reminds me,” is not “here’s something related to what you’re talking about.”  He means, “Now let’s talk about me.” I think pastors should employ the same degree of honesty. I told you a story about me. It was funny or sad or whatever, but “now let’s talk about God.”

Or:  “That story has nothing to do with God, but it was awesome, right?”  Sometimes it’s just fun to hear a good story. To laugh and shake off the week with something interesting and hilarious. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe it doesn’t need some intricately woven connection that makes the entire crowd say, “He started talking about bunny rabbits made of cotton candy, and we didn’t know where he was going, but now that he’s arrived in Malachi 1:3, I can see what he meant all along.  Brilliant.” If you’ve got a good story, just bring it. Drop it off. Say, “This is awesome.” Then move on. We’re with you. We like awesome too.

What are some fake sermon illustrations you’ve heard at church?

(This originally appeared in the Stuff Christians Like book.  If you want to pick up a copy, click here!)

Running out of time.

Three weeks ago, on a Monday morning at 7:27, I was journaling. Why? Because I’m holier than you and always obey the 11th commandment. Thou shalt journal.

In the middle of what should have been a peaceful moment, the overwhelming feeling I had inside was, “You’re too late.”

“You’re behind.”

“You’ll never get ahead.”

“If you could just get ahead, you could rest.”

“If you had more time, you could get it all done.”

Like waves crashing against the shore of my day, those are the doubts and fears I heard that morning. The absurd thing of course is that it was Monday at 7:27AM. I couldn’t have possibly had more week in front of me. I was behind? Behind what? The sun had been up for an hour on the first day of the work week. How is it possible I was already behind some fictional performance chart?

This is one of the enemy’s favorite games. His favorite thing to tell you about time is that “it’s too late.” That is what fear often shouts at you.

And so on that morning, I started to think about that and wrestle with that and pray about that. I ended up, like so many other times these last six months, with a simple idea. One I put down on a post it note and will share with you now. It’s not deep. It’s not complicated. It’s not all that long. But it’s the kind of thing I need to remember on Monday mornings and maybe you do too. Here’s what you need to remember the next time fear tells you that it’s “too late.”

Question:

Do you ever feel like you’re “too late” or “out of time?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCLQ – Is this the greatest wedding gift ever?

Right now, I am working on an epic “Christian Wedding Guide.” I hate to casually use the term “world changing,” but it’s safe to say that the release of that post will in fact be world changing. Or, at the bare minimum, make you laugh at least twice. One of those things is definitely going to happen.

And while researching that post, I came across what may be the greatest wedding gift ever. My dad gave it to me when I got married. Please grab a box of kleenex ’cause you’re going to cry. Better go ahead do a preemptive “Forgive me for coveting” prayer, as well, because that’s about to happen. Here is what my dad gave me and everyone at our rehearsal dinner when I got married:

Why is this such an awesome wedding gift? Let’s review the reasons:

1. God’s favorite sport is frisbee.

2. This isn’t some pop top, bank quality frisbee that weighs as much as a paper clip and can’t travel more than 4 wobbly feet in the air. This is an official 175 gram ultimate frisbee disc.

3. It wasn’t a waffle maker.

There’s a chance you got something better for your wedding. If so, let’s hear it?

What do you think is the best wedding gift someone could buy for you?

(Don’t you dare answer “undying love.” They don’t sell that in stores.)

Loving your neighbor, mildly disliking their dog.

I know we’re called to love our neighbor, but does that extend to their dog?

Can we get a ruling on that?

Let’s say you’re jogging. And your neighbor’s small dog chases you into oncoming traffic and they do that thing where you pretend to be surprised that a barely domesticated, unleashed animal would give chase to someone who is sprinting by their house what’s your move their as a Christian?

That I’m aware, non of the disciples ever got bitten by a dog in the Bible. Sure, Jezebel got eaten by dogs but that’s a completely different situation. I’m not talking about evil queens.

I’m talking about jogging bloggers with names that start with a J and end in “on Acuff.”

I’m of two minds on the issue:

1. Let it go.

At worst, you get a scar and a mildly interesting story. (“Mildly” because no one at a party will be riveted by your story about how a Pomeranian tried to death roll you gator style.) Don’t overreact. Don’t shout out “Get behind me satan!” Don’t mace him. Don’t install your own electric fence in the dead of night when the family goes out of town. Let it go. Or, turn the other cheek if you will and accept the bite.

2. Assume that dog is a Pharisee

Perhaps that dog has been money changing in the temple. I’m at work all day, for all I know that dog has been running crooked commerce schemes in the church. He’s got beady little eyes. Who knows what’s really going on in that tiny, menacing heart of his. Maybe that dog is a Pharisee and he’s always calling out minor infractions on the neighborhood’s golden doodles even while he uses the bathroom in other people’s yards. It’s hard to read a canine’s entire story in 14 barks delivered at a feverish pace, but that could be what’s going on.

Neither way seems to work that well.

In the first I have to make a trip to the hospital.

In the second I have to make a whip.

How fast would you be picked up by the po-po if you’re the guy running in your neighborhood with a homemade whip you made to clear out temple dogs.

I’ve given the situation my all.

What do you suggest?

Does “love your neighbor” extend to your relationship with their dog?