Jon Acuff's Blog, page 103

Winner of the WinShape Camp Week!

Last week the folks at Chick-fil-A offered one reader of SCL a free week at WinShape camps. Using a random number generator, the winner is Sean Palmer.

If that is your name, check your Twitter DM. I sent you the email address of my contact at Chick-fil-A. They will hook you up!

Thanks for entering!

Bragging about your good deeds via social media.

It’s guest post Friday!  Here’s one by Alicia Yost. You can check out her blog here and follow her on Twitter @nexttopmom1.  If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)

Bragging About Your Good Deeds Via Social Media

As Christians, we have a knack at casually mentioning our good deeds while trying not to sound too prideful.  The Bible tells us to be careful not to perform them in front of people, and to not blow trumpets, and I would never do that! Psh, blowing a trumpet every time I do something good? That’s so “look at me!”

No, I wouldn’t ever do anything so hypocritical. I wouldn’t ever let people actually see what I do.  But God never said anything about social media, right? He never said that I couldn’t post my good deeds on Facebook or Twitter! I can announce that I’m fasting, but nobody can see me. And, besides, I put oil on my head and washed my face, so I’m cool.  I wouldn’t be actually bragging about it. I would just be keeping people up to date with what’s going on in my life. I can’t help it if what I’m doing just happens to be a good deed. Besides, maybe it will even inspire people, and that would be a good thing. I will be shining my light. Yeah, that’s it!

The truth is, we do this because we feel proud about what we’re doing, and we want everyone to know how awesome we are.  We think God is looking down at us, smiling and nodding and giving us the thumbs up, and we want everyone to know it! By doing this, we can make non-Christians feel like heathens, while simultaneously making Christians feel guilty and ourselves feel superior. It’s a win-win! I think it should be mandatory to add a tag to our social media posts, which adds an element of truth that explains what we really mean by our status and tweet.

What’s on your mind: ”volunteered at a battered woman’s shelter, donated food to the food bank, and helped an old woman carry her groceries.”  “My heaven stock just went through the roof, yo! Word to the Father!”

What’s happening? “Just boarded the plane to Africa where I will spend the next 3 weeks sleeping on a dirt floor and eating insects.”  “Enjoy your pillow top mattress and lobster tail in hell, kids!”

At least that would be truthful. We’d never admit it, but what we really want is for people to think we are a better person than they are. I hereby publicly plead guilty to this. “I’m changing the world, while you’re changing the channel and sitting on the couch.  I’m a better person. I’m a superior Christian. I care more about the poor than you do. I’m more obedient, therefore I have favor with the Lord and you don’t.  Neener, neener!”

Have you ever bragged about your good deeds via social media? ( I’ll do my best to respond, but I do have to deliver meals on wheels today, send in the check for the child I sponsor in Mozambique, and take my blind mother-in-law to the grocery store.)

For more great writing from Alicia , check out her blog.

Cheesy church sign sayings.

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

Cheesy Church Sign Sayings.

Churches were pros at tweeting before Twitter, or even the Internet, existed. Why? Because it’s pretty tough to fit more than 40 characters on a rectangular church sign with replaceable letters (they’re also called reader boards, but who actually calls them that?). You know the ones I’m talking about—they’re equal parts cheese and good intentions.

You’d think signs such as these would be on their way toward becoming a lost art. But they’re just as prevalent as ever—making people snort and groan all the way from New England to Florida, especially in front of the small, rural, still-has-a-pyramid-steeple church.

I’ve always wondered who came up with the bright idea to ditch announcements or straight Bible verses on church signs and include a little bit of snarky Solomonic wisdom instead. Whoever they were, their tradition lives—on church signs, billboards, and even Facebook statuses.

Several years ago, my home church took this concept to the extreme. When the Hustler Hollywood adult store bought a billboard on a road near the church, we countered with a billboard of our own.

Directly above the Hustler billboard, in 10 billion point font, ours read: “Don’t Get Hustled. Give Your Life to Jesus.”

That’s right. And there were T-shirts, too—bright yellow ones. I’m sure our warning hustled some hustlers right out of their hustlin’ ways.

Billboards aside, my friend and I used to drive past a church with some of the best sign quips of all. One night, the sign-keepers (that title will be engraved on their heavenly crowns) were putting up the letters as we passed, and the saying was particularly bizarre (we can’t remember what it was).

“What?” We said as we both did a double-take to see the other side of the sign, which contained a solitary word: “What” (causing us to exclaim “What?!” again).

Around that time, we started to keep each other posted on all the crazy church signs we saw. And we’ve noticed some pretty… clever ones.

These efforts have made me a church sign aficionado of sorts, so I’ve picked up on a few trends.

There are four main types of these church sign sayings, though some combine more than one of the following:

1.   The Guilt Trip

“Go to church, or the devil will get you.”

I saw this lonely sign on the side of the road in Alabama probably ten years ago and still remember it vividly. It even had a cartoon devil—horns and trident included. Though theologically questionable, it sticks with you.

2.  The PSA

“Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet Him.”

Because reading that sign while driving is keeping your attention on the road.

3.  The Pop Culture Reference

“We were Tebowing before it was cool.”

“Bring your sin to the altar and drop it like it’s hot.”

4.  The Just Downright Misleading

“We love hurting people.”

“Don’t let worries kill you. Let the church help.”

“Christmas: Easier to spell than Hanukkah.”

What church signs have grabbed your attention?

For more great writing from Laura, check out her blog at knownrenowned.com.

Passing the Communion Cups

(The manuscript for my next book is due this Friday. So this is guest post week! Here’s one by Katie McAleece. You can check out her blog here and follow her on Twitter @katiemcaleece.  If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)

Passing the Communion Cups

You need to know your Church’s Communion schedule.

This is something that one of the deacons can probably provide to you; don’t be shy about asking for it. (Just trust me on this. You can thank me later.) You can also go the slightly more difficult route and try to figure it out on your own: take note of your next Communion Sunday in your phone, and then check the calendar when another one comes around. If it’s been three weeks since the last, it’ll probably be another three weeks until the next. That’s how it works. Nobody knows why, it’s just standard.

There are two very important reasons you need to know this:

First of all, you don’t want to show up wearing white on Communion Sunday. You will spill grape juice on yourself and have to do the walk of shame to the bathroom during service. It’s inevitable. The old people will shake their heads and sigh at you, your spouse will probably have a mini-panic-attack, and your friends will point and laugh. So you should know in advance–this way you can wear navy. Or black. Yeah, just wear black.

Secondly, armed with the knowledge of Communion Sunday’s coming up, you can choose your seating wisely. You’re not going to want to be that person stuck at the end of the row. Because you know what happens to end of the row-ers: they get the Communion cups.

Specifically, they receive a three foot high stack of cups that is ever-so-gently passed as you attempt to balance it with the skill of Houdini. It’s like an awkwardly designed Olympic torch.

Maybe no one is looking at me, you think to yourself. But, no, everyone is looking at you. Everyone is watching to see if you can handle the pressure: You are the bearer of the empty Communion cups. You have been chosen. Against your will, but chosen nevertheless. And if you drop those cups, the disappointment of God’s heavenly host will be upon you.

At least… it feels that way.

But if you know ahead of time if it’s communion Sunday, you can get ready. Especially if you’re visiting a church with a new friend. What if they do it differently? What if they don’t have cups but, instead, just have one glass and invite your whole aisle up? What if you’re the person who mistakenly grabs the cup and takes a drink while everyone else dips into the cup instead. If you’ve never done that before, how were you supposed to know this was a dip not drink situation? Because no one ever says, everyone just assumes you know. They never announce, “We’re going to partake in communion today. Please remember this is a dip moment, not a share your cough with the congregation moment.” You can’t say that from the pulpit. So no one does. And then you grab the cup and enter the annals of church infamy.

Lot of pressure, whole lot of pressure. And if you try to talk about it, someone is bound to Jesus Juke you, “You know what pressure I feel? The hand of God on my shoulder. That’s what I’m thinking about, not dip or drink you sweaty Philistine.”

At least don’t wear white. Regardless of the communion style of your church, that’s something we can all agree on.

Question:

How does your church do communion?

(For more great writing from Katie, check out her blog ActuallyKatie.)

CCM Magazine Was My Teen Beat

(The manuscript for my next book is due this Friday. So, this is guest post week!  Here’s one by Shannan Martin. You can check out Shannan’s blog here and follow her on Twitter @flowerpatchfg.  If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)

CCM Magazine Was My Teen Beat

At fourteen years old, I was all knees and layered perm, taller than every girl in my class and most of the boys. I wasn’t allowed to wear make-up or go to school dances. To make matters worse, I wasn’t allowed to listen to Z-93, because Madonna was on there and she was sinful, throwing around words like “virgin.” Taylor Dayne sounded like she might be a smoker. Janet was a Jackson.

Good Christian girls just didn’t listen to secular music or buy heartthrob magazines. Everyone knew that 1 + 1 = a long, tortured road of lustful thoughts and eventual promiscuity.

To compensate my losses, Mom bought me a subscription to CCM magazine, and I was suddenly back in-the-know, at least on Sunday nights.

I spent hours perusing every interview. I pored over slick pages of attractive men with powdered noses and gel in their hair. They were trendy and tan, and they smiled straight at me.

I fell in love.

Of course it hurt when I heard that Michael W. Smith had eighteen kids. That he wasn’t dating Amy Grant was enough of a blow. That he was married was a given, a minor inconvenience. But something about all those kids hammered the coffin of our happily-ever-after shut. We weren’t meant to be. (At least I’d always have his Secret Ambition video on VHS.)

I moved on to Petra’s John Schlitt, mostly because he had longish hair and a Don Johnson blazer, all jewel-toned and shoved up at the elbows. His singing voice was strangely shrill, but I could love him in spite of it.

Then there was DC Talk. My best friend Sarah was quick to claim Toby as her own, but I had already secretly picked Kevin, or as I liked to call him, K-Max. Never mind that he was a foot shorter than me. We’d be like the musician/supermodel combos that I’d sneaked peaks at in the check-out lanes at Kroger.

Carmen was the David Copperfield of the industry, all flinty-eyed and dark. I wasn’t foolish or uncool enough to admit to that crush, but his voice-overs never failed to give me goose-bumps.

The Newsboys had me brushing up on my Aussie accent. Steven Curtis Chapman made me reconsider the mullet. In a strange twist marked with hazy details, my friend Lyndsay and I embarked on a years-long, quasi-serious, shared affection for Russ Taff, already sliding off stage left and into his golden years.

I clipped pictures of glammed-up Christian men wearing smoldery grins and taped them to the walls of my closet, right next to the faceless, oiled torsos of the free Soloflex calendar that had somehow fallen through the cracks of my parents’ logic.

This was the way I (mis)spent my youth, day-dreaming about married men twice my age. But hey, unlike Neil Patrick Harris or Jason Priestley, they had Jesus in their hearts. And that was the important thing.

(For more great writing from Shannan, check out her blog at flowerpatchfarmgirl.)

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope you get the chance to do something fun like roll out a slip n’ slide or throw water balloons at people. Both of those things are fun.

To my grandfather, my friends in the service and all the troops, thank you for serving our country!

Stuff Christians Like returns tomorrow.

The Amen Synonym.

(It’s guest post Friday!  Here’s a great one from Ken Hagerman. You can follow Ken on Twitter @RamblingBarba and you can read his blog at Rambling With The Barba.  If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)

Caught Somewhere In The  Middle

Have you noticed, over the last few years, the alarming rate at which the average churchgoer uses the word “Amen” in place of the word “Yes?”

Who instituted the “Amen for Yes” lexicon upgrade?

All that Amen-ing may get you in the affirmative with your congregation, but it doesn’t travel well outside of the Christian environment. Unless, of course, you live in the South (Bible Belt country) or Branson, Missouri, you may find yourself wishing you had a guide that alleviates this stressful decision-making conundrum. Wish no more.

To keep you from the embarrassing dilemma of the Amen Religious Affirmation Syndrome, I have written a few pointers. These are sure to help you navigate the often turbulent seas of positivity.

You are allowed to use the word Amen, in substitution for the word Yes, if:

1. You are on the church property, to include inside the building, in the gym or in the parking lot.

I know this seems like a no-brainer, but many have mistakenly reserved their deified version of “I’m down wit dat” for service times only. Nope. As long as you are on the church “campus,” our new favorite word, you can say “Amen.”

2. You are at a restaurant immediately following a service or meeting, and there are other church members in the establishment.

The rule is that the ambient churchiness has hitched a ride on your aura, uh, spirit. The wait staff are professionals. Don’t worry, some may even be Christian, so they will surely understand the lingo. There is one “amendum” to the restaurant rule—the buffet.

3. You are at any buffet-styled eatery.

Case studies have documented that the word “buffet” is more closely associated with Christians than any other group except for retirees. It’s safe to say in this environment that there are enough Jesus people bellied up to the hot bar to support the use of Amen.

4. You are at Chick-fil-A.

Amen all day, son! All day! Except Sunday, of course. They’re closed. Not sure if you knew that or not.

5. You are having a conversation with the pastor or an elder.

The locale of this conversation is not nearly as important as those involved. Sure, you may be discussing the merits of selective mating among your milk goat populace, but it’s the pastor. You have to ratchet up the Yes-to-Amen ratio. (How niche was that example? Be honest: Have you ever seen the phrase “milk goat populace?” If you are a milk goat farmer though, I bet you said “Yes!” or Amen as it were.)

You are NOT allowed to use Amen in substitution for the word Yes if:

1. You are eating at Hooters.

Regardless of how many church members are there, it just doesn’t float well. It tends to “harshen up the hot wing mellow.”

2. You are watching a publicly televised national championship game and your team just clinched the title with a clutch play.

This is a “YES!” moment. No arguments. Yes is the only acceptable answer.

3. You are attending seminary.

I know this is a tricky one. You would think with all the Bible, God and church-ness happening this would be prime Amen real estate, but it’s not. You will immediately be branded a fake. Authenticity is the name of the game here. Your only hope of recovering from a slip of the A-word here is if you happen to have a caveman beard like David Crowder. The beard gets a bye.

Hopefully this little primer helped educate you on the proper use of Amen in place of Yes and stabilized an otherwise tumultuous situation.

So, do you ever say Amen instead of Yes? Do you have any rules to add?

(To read more from Ken, check out his RamblingBarba blog.)

Making sure everyone knows your fiance isn’t living with you.

Want to torture a Christian who recently got engaged?  Don’t allow them any space in the conversation to tell you that they’re not living with their fiancé.

That’s some good fun, my friend, because we want to tell you that.  We want to be up front that we’re not living in sin, that we’re not cohabitating, and we’ll do anything to work that into the flow of the discussion. But we don’t want to say “living in sin” because it kind of makes us sound like we’re weirdo Christians, so we’ll go to great creative lengths to tell you that we have two separate residences:

“We’re really excited to be getting married.  It’ll be nice not to pay two mortgages when we tie the knot.”

“I cooked dinner for my fiancé last night at my place. But I was out of salt, so he drove to his place, in a car, because the distance is significant.”

“She has a cat, and I’ve never lived with a cat, so when we get married and she moves in with the cat, that will be a change.”

“My fiancé’s apartment flooded.  So she stayed at my place, while I slept on the couch, in the living room of the apartment I share with a roommate.  Who was there the whole time and actually kept a sleepless vigil in the hall.”

“I’m engaged to a girl who lives across town. Lives clear across town without any sort of tunnels or skywalks that connect our two houses. Completely separate.”

I personally never got caught up in the fancy ways to say “We’re not living in sin.”  I was living in a trailer home in a retirement community when I was engaged, and there was very little chance the community would have stood for any of that shacking up nonsense.

Sure, while living there, I mentally aged about forty years in a matter of weeks, sitting in a rocking chair with a quilt over my knees and a foot massager I requested for Christmas because they were all the rage in my new, old neighborhood. I may have suddenly fallen in love with Everybody Loves Raymond and chuckled at that rascal’s antics like an old man. But, other than that, everything worked out.

My wife didn’t become old.  She lived across town with the Morrisons. In their house. Which was different from a trailer park. Where I slept. Alone.  By myself.

Have you ever made sure people didn’t think you were “living in sin” with a fiance?

 

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

Loving the unlovable.

Sometimes the hardest part of loving people is that you don’t always get to hear the whole song.

You reach out. In a time of need or hurt or maybe even hope.

And you get pushed away.

You get chased away.

You get shoved away.

And you wait and you help and you stand in the storms of life with someone, and you feel like you are throwing a ball against a wall. You can’t tell if any of it matters. If your words or your actions matter at all. You think about giving up. You feel called to be salt and light, we know that’s printed in red, but sometimes in the space between hours and arguments, it’s hard to feel that way.

You keep loving. You keep hoping to see a change, not because it’s all about change, but because that would at least be a crack of light under the door.

But the light never comes. The door is never opened, even a little, and then they disappear. Not dramatically, maybe. They don’t float away on a hot air balloon or in a fast car. The ebb and flow of life just drifts them away. You feel you’ve wasted your time or maybe their time or everybody’s time.

They were so eager to blow things up. So eager to sink their own ship with bad, easy-to-spot decisions. The bridge was out ahead. You saw that a mile away, but they ignored you and kept driving. So unwilling to stop the car until it had hurtled deep into the valley of regret.

You forget about them. Or, mostly, you forget. A year gets stacked on another year and stacked on another year, until that person becomes one more person you reached out to who didn’t reach back. One more person you helped who ignored your help.

That’s the hard part about loving someone. Sometimes we don’t get to hear the whole song. We get to be a verse or a single lyric in someone’s journey, but the song doesn’t resolve. We watch relationships fade into the horizon, not really knowing if we’ve made a difference.

But sometimes, in moments that are so comical you can’t help but laugh, God plays the last note right in front of you.

That’s what happened to me three weeks ago.

I was a mess in college. There’s no need to dress it up with stories or adjectives. I was a mess. And in the midst of that, a guy named Dave Waller reached out to me. With no agenda, and at no benefit to him, he was kind to me. Time and time again as a student minister, he reached out to me at Samford University. And then I disappeared back to Boston and never saw him again.

That was 14 years ago.

Three weeks ago, I spoke at the Orange Conference. When I walked off stage, someone said, “There’s a guy at the edge of the crowd that wants to say ‘hi’ to you.” I walked into the dark of the room, passed the soundboard, and against the security barrier…

…there stood Dave Waller.

He laughed. We hugged. (I did a much better job with that hug than I did with my on-stage Reggie hug.) We caught up for a few minutes and exchanged phone numbers.

That night, Dave texted me. Here is what he said:

“Hey Jon. It’s Dave Waller. I’m so proud of you. All I think about was the last time we went to lunch, and you were so hurt. And frustrated with life. To see you now is awesome.”

I don’t know who the Jon Acuffs are in your life right now.

I don’t know who you are reaching out to that is just a jerk right now.

I don’t know who seems oblivious to your kindness right now.

I don’t know how you are helping someone who seems blind to your help right now.

But I do know what I’d say to you right now:

Don’t stop.

Don’t give up on people who have given up on themselves.

Don’t quit just because it seems hopeless.

Fourteen years ago, Dave Waller didn’t. In the last lunch we ever had, I walked in a mess and left a mess. Dave had better things to do. Things that would have shown more immediate results or progress or improvement. He could have given up, because it’s not easy. Sometimes we don’t get to hear the whole song.

But sometimes we do and, in dark arenas in unexpected moments spanning a decade, God reminds us why you and I have got to keep singing.

Win a free trip to WinShape Camps!

Back in the day, we used to give away free stuff all the time on Stuff Christians Like. Then we stopped after that “badger in a bag” giveaway, which went about as well as you can imagine a prize of that nature going.

But, it turns out, giving away free stuff is fun.

So I promise to do a better job of that in 2012.

A few weeks ago, we gave away 5 copies of a book about introverts in the church. Today, we’ve got a free pass to the WinShape Camps for Girls at Young Harris.

If you didn’t know, WinShape is an amazing set of camps owned by Chick-fil-A. Truett Cathy founded it in 1985 and it’s an unbelievable experience for kids.

Trudy, Truett’s daughter, asked if I’d like to give away a free trip to one of the readers of SCL. I said yes immediately. So if you’ve got a daughter who has completed 1st grade through 7th grade and would love to go to camp in Young Harris, Georgia, here’s your chance to win.

Simply say what your favorite Chick-fil-A meal is in the comments below. I’ll pick a winner at random at the end the of day on Wednesday, May 23. (If you want to sign up for any of the camps, you can save $50 by entering JONACUFF2012 at checkout)

Here’s to a summer of giving away free stuff.

Let’s start with camp!