Jon Acuff's Blog, page 123

Sports in the Bible.

I bet you can't guess the first sport mentioned in the Bible.

I don't care if you went to seminary.

I don't care if your Bible has a fancy Bible fanny pack with zippers and places for multi-colored notetaking pens.

I don't care if and think you know what's up.

There's no way you're going to guess the first sport mentioned in the Bible.

Want to know the answer?

Surfing.

Wait, what? I know, I know. I thought that too when someone told me. Where in the Bible did that happen? If somebody was going to surf, it probably would have been Moses. Maybe he was the last one to go through the gap as the Red Sea was about to close on the Israelites and he paddled in to the wave like Patrick Swayze at the end of Point Break.

Or maybe it was Jonah. Perhaps that whale spit him out directly onto a piece of driftwood. And with that classic grumpy scowl, Jonah carved the biblical version of Mavericks in a way that would have made even Laird Hamilton jealous.

But maybe it wasn't either of those guys who surfed in the Bible. It's hard to say really, especially since a lot of pastors are no longer teaching deep serious, surf-based biblical lessons these days. With all the talk of hell this summer, we really lost focus on surf-related sermons. For shame.

Not on my watch though, I'll tell you all about the surfing in the Bible. You know who was the Bible's Kelly Slater? Paul.

That's right. Even though he's perhaps best known for the road to Damascus, he also surfed. Check out Acts 27:41-44. Paul is on a ship in the middle of a wicked big storm. Like a 100-year storm. (Two Point Break references in one post? Unbelievable!) Paul knows the ship he's on is going down, but he's not worried. Why? Because he trusted in God. And he knew how to surf. That's what the verse says.

They grabbed planks. The NIV says, "The rest were to get there on planks or on pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land in safety." I'm pretty sure, the original Hebrew translation for "planks" is "longboard." They grabbed a bunch of longboards. And they rode them in and they all lived. And then they got tribal tattoos commemorating that moment.

I'm not too sure about that last part, but my friend who runs a surf camp is pretty sure about the rest of it.

How about you? What do you think were other sports mentioned in the Bible?

Archery with Jonathan and David?

Wrestling with Jacob?

If we were going to hold the Bible sports Olympics, what events would we include?

It's Shameless Saturday!

What's your blog?

What's your cause? What's your band? What's your book?

What's the link you want people to see more than anything else?

I hereby declare this "Shameless Saturday."

Post a link to whatever it is you're all about with no shame or apologizing or feeling like you're making a comment on a post you really don't care about but are instead secretly trying to pimp your own blog. (I've done that myself many times. The best way to do it is to say, "That's an interesting post. It reminds me of something I wrote recently on my blog …." Sometimes when people do that it's actually a good link to something they wrote that is similar to what was written on another post. But when I was trying to build my blog that was something that I always tried to do.)

Please, use the comments this weekend to let us know about your blog or your cause or your band or your whatever. The Internets are so big it's hard to find everything cool. (I try to do Shameless Saturday once a season, so please consider this the Fall 2011 edition.)

Tell us what's up in the comments with a link.

Being Disappointed When Missionaries Don't Look Like Indiana Jones

(It's guest post Friday! Here's a new one from Adam Stuck. He's a writer who has a great take on what it means to be a missionary's kid. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here's how!) 

Being Disappointed When Missionaries Don't Look Like Indiana Jones. – By Adam Stuck

I think many of us secretly expect missionaries to look like Indiana Jones: leather jackets, dusty fedoras and ragged pants, with maybe a pistol or at least a whip—and, of course, a battered Bible with two or three bullet holes. It can't be coincidence that missionary and mercenary sound almost exactly alike.

It's sort of a disappointment when missionaries turn out to be normal people.

My parents are missionaries. My father often wears a leather jacket, but he doesn't look like Indiana Jones. He's a little stout—he prefers to call himself comfortably well-padded—and more than a little bald. My mother doesn't look like Indiana Jones either. (That would be really weird, now that I think about it.)

My parents have visited lots of American churches in their twenty-something years of ministry in Ecuador and Uruguay. Being their son for almost all of those twenty-something years, I've had plenty of opportunities to observe how folks react when missionaries appear suddenly in church to share about their work.

There are basically four kinds of churches, as far as visiting missionaries are concerned.

1. The Puzzled Church

This is the church that isn't sure what to do with the strange guests in their midst. Last-minute questions multiply: Maybe we should give them fifteen minutes to share during the service? Why don't we let them preach? What if we put them in charge of Sunday School? Will we give them our usual offering or take up an additional donation? Where were they from again? Why don't they look like Indiana Jones?

2. The Excitable Church

This church is fascinated by the novelty of meeting missionaries and their offspring. People from these churches asked me questions like, "Have you been bitten by a snake?" and "Have you ever been robbed?" (The answer to both questions is technically yes; I was nipped by my cousin's pet boa and lost about ten cents to a pickpocket on a bus.) I typically answered with an impressive, "Of course," sending my listeners into an awed silence. Strangely enough, those listeners were never awed into silence when my parents shared about their ministry.

3. The Irritable Church

This church is pretty rare, I'm glad to say. It's the sort of church in which people suppress their grumbling behind stony faces when missionaries come to visit. It's pretty easy to guess what's going on inside their heads: Oh drat, I forgot it was Missionary Sunday. These missionaries sweep in like locusts, hijack the service, force us to look at photos, demand our money, and try to get us to say unpronounceable words in some native language. Darned missionaries.

4. The Rockin' Awesome Church

Thank God, there are still lots of these churches in America. They welcome missionaries with warm smiles and cups of coffee, ask intelligent questions, listen when missionaries share about their ministry, take up missionary offerings cheerfully, throw in a meal at the pastor's house, pray for missionaries, and put up prayer letters on bulletin boards. Whether they're made up of 4,000 hip young people or two dozen old folks, these churches are awesome.

So, American churchgoers, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the love, hospitality, coffee, prayers and financial support you give missionaries like my family, even though we don't look like Indiana Jones. We appreciate it more than you know.

(For more great stuff from Adam, check out his blog!)

SCLQ – Godz Bodz

Tripp Crosby and Tyler Stanton are two of the funniest people I've ever met. They co-host Catalyst, create amazing videos and are brilliant on Twitter (@trippcrosby and @tylerstanton.) Tyler even wrote a book called "Everyday Absurdities," which I highly recommend.

Last week at Catalyst they debuted their latest video, which was hilarious. It's called "Godz Bodz," and might be the greatest Christian workout video ever created. Ever.

The video is below, for more great stuff from Tripp and Tyler, visit their site:

 

 

 

Big, Crazy, Awesome Announcement!

The other day, someone on Twitter told me, "You have the face of a 25 year old and the gray hair of a 52 year old." They're wrong. I have the gray hair of a 50 year old and the cowlick of a 5 year old. Look at that thing, it's epic!

But my cowlick isn't the announcement. We've got something cooler and crazier and awesomer to share. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people from around the world made this possible. And it's something I never dreamed would happen. Here, from the couch in our house that looks a lot like the couch on Modern Family, are Jenny and I and the big announcement. (And big thanks to Patrick Tohill for shooting the video for us. He is a one man machine of awesomeness.)

SCLQ – Seeing all the connections.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that the little things you're doing right now matter. You're tired of getting up early to lead a Sunday School class barely anyone attends. You're serving in a ministry that isn't growing nearly as fast as you'd like. You're being kind to someone at work who is almost impossible to be kind to.

And doing these invisible, often thankless acts wears thin sometimes. We feel like they're pointless and lose sight of how they might all be connected to a bigger story, that we're a paragraph in a tale that stretches across time, a sentence in a book bigger than we can possibly fathom.

But sometimes, if we're fortunate, we get to see something that reminds us of the connections, how lives can intersect in small ways to make a big impact on the world.

This video did that for me. I saw it at an event I spoke at last summer and will be returning to next summer called "BigStuf Camps." I thought it was brilliant and hope it reminds you of the power that a tiny connection can have in the hands of our massive God.

 

Throwing the "LL Card."

A few weeks ago on a Monday night, my wife and I came to a television crossroads.

She wanted to watch Antiques Roadshow. I wanted to watch anything but Antiques Roadshow. (If you haven't seen it, it's a show where average people bring their antiques to an expert to have them appraised.)

It's not that I'm opposed to the show. It's just that I think it could easily have more action. Just once I'd like to see someone go all Hulkamania when they find out the high back chairs they thought were from the Civil War era are actually from the disco era.

Or, I'd like to see someone jump in joy on the back of the appraiser, like a spider monkey, upon finding out the bowl they've been using as an ashtray is actually from the Han dynasty.

Is that asking too much? Probably, but that's not the point. The point is we didn't want to watch the same thing. And that's when my wife said it. That's when she played a card I've very rarely heard her ever play. She said:

"Watching Antique Roadshow is one of my love languages."

Well played Jenny. Well played, indeed! As we've talked about before, the 5 love languages came from a book by Gary Chapman about the different ways people like to give and receive love. The dilemma I now faced is whether or not to take Jenny up on that offer.

Her real love language, in addition to Words with Friends, is "Acts of Service." Which is just a fancy way to say, "Jon mops the floor and does the laundry and powerwashes the house and goes into the spider-infested crawlspace under our house to make sure we don't have a leaking pipe."

All of those sound more difficult than just sitting on the couch watching a show about antiques. (Seriously, our crawlspace is like spider Ibiza. I'm almost positive Tiesto is the house DJ.)

So what did we do? We watched Antiques Roadshow. The Love Languages is a powerful card to throw. And I can't stress the amount of spiders that live in Nashville enough. There's like 10,000 spiders to every 1 banjo,  and this place is crawling with banjos.

Question:

Have you ever thrown the "Love Languages" card? Has someone ever thrown it on you?

SCLQ – Platforms & Influence.

How do you grow a personal platform while at the same time honoring John 3:30 that says, "He must increase, but I must decrease?"

I don't have a solution, just a question, and it's one I've been struggling with.

I love that right now it's possible for ordinary people like me to build platforms and maybe have influence. Without social media, I wouldn't have been able to ever publish the Stuff Christians Like book . I love platforms!

But, as a Christian, I also wrestle with the ego aspects that often go along with them. (Which is a big part of the reason I joined the Dave Ramsey team. I feel like he's done a great job navigating these tricky waters, and I want to learn how to.)

For me, the great temptation is to say, "If I get a bigger platform, then more people will know about me, and I'll then be able to tell those people about God." And I think that starts in a good place, but eventually in my own life and countless other leaders I've seen, that idea gets corrupted into: "If I get a bigger platform, then more people will know about me. The end."

So with the thousands of tools we have to build our "personal brands," and the very real good that can come from platforms (we built two kindergartens!) where does John 3:30 fit in? What's the balance?

And if you know Hebrew and can say, "The heart of that verse has nothing to do with personal branding, proceed getting drunk on your own ego," that would really help me out.

Question:

In what ways can a Christian go about building a platform while keeping God front and center?

And, this is how we do it!

I posted this morning about #teampatrick and how 70 watches would put Patrick through an intensive leadership program in Rwanda. Then I went to have lunch at my daughters' elementary school. I tweeted a second time when I got home that we were going to close out the #teampatrick roster in ten minutes and then after that, I called Manny to see if we had hit our goal of 70. We did.

In 59 minutes.

You guys are awesome!

In less than an hour we hit our goal. And because I wasn't available to announce it, we actually kept going. We ended up with 148 watches, which means we just formed #teammorri too! This is Morri Mpenzi. He's 16 and will be going through the program too because of your immense generosity. 

We'll be doing fun stuff like this in the future with Hello Somebody, and there are some wild ideas we're tossing around right now. Whenever we do this kind of quick, unexpected project though, my friends on the West Coast always say, "Hey thanks for starting/finishing the project before I'd even woken up in my time zone you punk." Fair enough.

If you want to add a third team to the SCL roster and still get involved, here's the link to the rest of the 98 kids who are available for this program. (You can read about what we did in this post).

For now though, let me just say thank you!

I know the word "community" gets overused sometimes, but I love being part of the Stuff Christians Like community. I am constantly amazed at what God can do with friends that get together on a blog and Twitter.

Jon

Who wants to change the world with me today?

Six months ago, I started wearing a Hello Somebody watch. Why? 

Because someone gave it to me and I thought it looked cool. They come in a million colors and remind me of old school Swatches. But then people started asking me about it and I started to wonder "Who is Hello Somebody?"

Turns out they're a mission organization out of Dallas. They were using the watches to provide a million free meals to people. They hit that goal. And then, because I was curious about what they're were going to do next, we started to talk.

Manny, the co-founder of Hello Somebody came to the Quitter Conference and hung out with me. Then I hung out with him in Dallas and Atlanta. The more he shared his heart for what they were working on, the more I felt like we could have a lot of fun changing the world together.

Which brings us to today and Team Patrick.

Hello Somebody's mission is to support causes that are already in motion with any and every resource they can muster. They recently partnered with Africa New Life, who has been in Rwanda for the last 10 years feeding and educating kids from the street. They've developed a special program where 100 young leaders in the community go through an intensive year long experience. The new program provides meals, spiritual training and after school tutoring five days each week in a first-class facility. Here's what Charles Mugisha Buregeya, the Founder and President, of Africa New Life said about it:

"Africa New Life already had many children that we were sponsoring to go back to school, but these kids were different. I realized that if someone didn't reach out to these kids soon, there was the potential that much of the progress we were making as a nation might be destroyed by these boys as they became men. Men who had learned, through no fault of their own, that no one loved them, no one cared for them and that the only way to survive was to become criminals."

So here's the really simple thing I think we can do today.

Meet Patrick Niyifasha. He's 11 and his favorite food is potato chips. (I need to introduce him to Salt & Vinegar Pringles.) He wants to study English and eventually be a deputy in Parliament for Rwanda. 

I'd love to send Patrick through the year long program with Africa New Life. What will that take?

70 watches.

The watches, despite being ridiculously cool, cost only $25.

If there are 70 folks who will join "Team Patrick" with me and buy a watch, we can knock this out with a quickness.

I bought a watch today. A red one. It was fast and easy. I'm probably going to give it to a friend. All you have to do, is click on this link and buy the watch. Make sure you click on "note to seller" which is under the shipping info and write "Team Patrick" in the comments. That way we'll know when we hit our goal. We've only got 70 spots and they're probably going to go fast.

To up the ante a little, I saw my friend Carlos at Catalyst yesterday and he is going to do the same thing with one of the other 100 kids Hello Somebody has committed to help.

I want to beat Carlos today. Let's get to 70 first.

If you get a watch, please write in the comments on this post, "I'm on Team Patrick. I chose yellow!" Unless you chose red or blue or, you get it. You could tweet "I'm on #teampatrick, you should be too! http://bit.ly/rpITH3 "

If you can't get a watch today, but still want to support the project, Tweet or Facebook, this, "Watch what @hellosomebody and Stuff Christians Like are doing in Rwanda! http://bit.ly/rpITH3 #teampatrick"

To recap:

1. 70 watches = Patrick going through the year long program.

2. The watches are cool and cost only $25 even though other sites sell them for $60. Buy one today.

3. You can give them to a friend for Christmas or to yourself for "Happy October 7th day."

4. We need to beat Carlos and RagamuffinSoul.com because SCL is surprisingly competitive like that.

Thanks for going on adventures like this with me. I've got a big announcement next week about one SCL went on a few years ago and Matt Chambers of SafeWorldNexus is going to Uganda in November to continue distributing the mosquito nets we did last year. Folks have been receiving the GPS coordinates of where their nets went and that's awesome.

Go Team Patrick!

Jon