Jon Acuff's Blog, page 132
July 25, 2011
Not messing around when it comes to fill in the blank sermon notes.
Last week, I committed an unpardonable sin while speaking at Cross Point.
I didn't mean to. I mean that's my home church. As a speaker, the last thing I want to do is mess up during one of the 5 services I spoke at that day. If that happens out on the road, I can hang my head in shame and retreat back to Nashville, resting in the knowledge that I probably won't see those folks again.
But when it's your own church and you mess up during a sermon, those poor people have to make eye contact with you the next Sunday and the Sunday after that.
What did I do from stage that was so erroneous?
I forget to give the answer to one of my fill in the blanks during my sermon.
There were three in the sermon, one for each main point. And I hit the first two, just fine. I said the right sentence, revealed what was supposed to go in the blank and saw the congregation collectively scribble. But in the third service, I forgot to say the third sentence. I shared the point. I told the story. I just didn't say the answer to the fill in the blank.
I realized this during my closing prayer. In the midst of praying, I actually gave the answer to the fill in the blank. I'm pretty sure that's going to earn me a straight shot to hades. Who puts a fill in the blank in a prayer? Me.
As soon as service was over, I went to the lobby to sign some books and shake some hands and kiss some babies. Within 30 seconds, an elderly woman pulled me aside, put her bulletin on the table in front of me, showed me her empty blanks, and said, "Why do you hate Jesus so much?"
Those weren't her exact words, in fact I might have exaggerated that a little bit. She was actually quite nice and said, "I think I might have missed your last fill in the blank." We both knew she hadn't. I had, and I immediately said, "Not at all. In my excitement, I skipped right by it." I didn't ask her if she had heard it in my closing prayer, like an Easter Egg hidden in a movie. I didn't ask her if she opened her eyes during the closing the prayer, grabbed her bulletin and filled out the last line.
I didn't have to, because she handed me the bulletin and had me fill it out for her. It was only right.
And no sooner had she left than a married couple approached me with an iPad. They had created their own version of the bulletin sermon notes. By forgetting to mention that line, I had created digital disappointment. I apologized and helped them fill out the sermon notes and then hit that point 19 times in the next service.
You better believe I remembered that fill in the blanks section next service. I wore out that point! I was all over that point like Rebecca Black on the word "Friday."
And I had to be, because although both of those people were incredibly gracious to me, if there's one things we Christians don't mess around with, it's the fill in the blanks.
Question:
Do you fill in the blanks during a sermon?
July 23, 2011
A new fix for one of the hardest parts of working at a church.
My dad is a pastor and growing up I often watched him try to perform magic with the ridiculously small budget he had to work with.
I know it's weird to say "pastor" and "magic" in the same sentence but if you've ever worked or volunteered at a church, you know that's what you have to do sometimes when it comes to funds.
You get a budget for your ministry, usually around a nickel, look at the people in your community you're trying to reach, usually around a bajillion, and then you go to work. And you hope and pray that the small amount of budget you have will reach the big amount of people you have a heart for.
That dynamic is why I was excited when I heard about Only 144. Now normally, if someone says the phrase "it's a Christian version of ______" I throw a smoke bomb and exit the conversation during the confusion. We don't need a Christian Google. I promise. But what I liked about Only 144 was that it's not just a Christian version of Groupon. Their heart is for churches and ministers and volunteers. People like my dad, people like you maybe who have far too little budget to reach far too many people.
So they put together ridiculous deals on real resources and then offer them online for 144 hours. It's that simple. As an example, on August 12 they'll be offering a huge Children's Ministry Resource Bundle with $1,070 worth of resources for $97. (You can signup to find out about when the next deal is.)
And today, because they're sponsoring SCL, I get to give away $600 of small group materials to one reader. The materials are from Matt Chandler, Mark Driscoll and Tommy Nelson.
Want to enter? Here's how:
1. Leave a comment on this post with an answer to the question, "Have you ever worked at a church?"
2. Twitter a link to this post with this link: http://bit.ly/qdHepC . If you don't have a Twitter account, you can use Facebook. You can write your own or use this example. "Win small group materials from Matt Chandler, Mark Driscoll & Tommy Nelson on @jonacuff's blog http://bit.ly/qdHepC "
3. On Saturday July 30, we will pick 1 winner. We'll announce them the following week and you can email your address if you're the winner.
That's it. Dad, friends who work at churches, people who volunteer, check out only144.com!
July 22, 2011
Confessing Secrets
(John Crist is a longtime guest contributor to SCL. His guest post last week was hilarious! Today he's teamed up with his college/20-somethings pastor Aaron Stern to write about secrets. Stern just released a new book called What's Your Secret?: freedom through confession available on Amazon. Enjoy!)
Confessing Secrets by John Crist
I'm in an accountability group with seven guys from church and our college/20-somethings pastor, Aaron Stern. Every week we go around the circle with the obligatory "what terrible decisions did you make this week?" and usually, someone's got a secret to tell. But there's an art to confession. It's the exact opposite of eating a Reese's Cup, there are plenty of wrong ways to do it.
Stern's book will teach you how to do it the right way. Here's the wrong way, accompanied by my typical response.
The TMI Guy:
Confession: I met this tall, brown haired girl with blue shorts and grey Nike's at the 5:30 spin class at Gold's Gym last Thursday. We talked about her ex-boyfriend Dan and how he cheated on her at a Motel 6 with her roommate Michelle… and then we made out in my Honda Civic in the parking lot of the Sonic on Academy Blvd for seven hours.
Response: A simple 'I made out with a girl' would have been just fine. Now I can never enjoy a Sonic Blast again, awesome.
The Rationalizer Guy:
Confession: My car has a dead battery and it keeps stalling out which stresses me out so I've been drinking a lot recently. But I was encouraged this week because I met someone that was a real alcoholic and at least I'm not as bad as that guy.
Response: Use AAA to jump your car, and then head straight to AA.
The 'Confessing-Sins-of-Another-Person' Guy:
Confession: I was out at a restaurant and I saw Kyle (sitting to his right) drinking. It was just tough to be in that environment after seeing Chris (sitting to his left) at a party last week smoking pot. I'm just struggling to find the balance between being in the world, but not of it you know?
Response: Your house might be burnt down by the time you get home, just sayin…
The Vague-ish Guy:
Confession: I've been 'struggling' with some 'issues' lately and I've been experiencing some 'temptations' that are turning into 'trials' that could lead to 'stumbling blocks' in my life.
Response: None. (Googling 'stumbling blocks'…)
The 'Wait,-Is-This-Wrong?' Guy:
Confession: So, I started this little accounting project at work where I round every transaction to the lowest cent and then I set up a personal bank account where I've been accumulating money for several months. Should I invest that in stocks or mutual funds?
Response: …Um, yeah…we're gonna need you to come in on Saturday… (reference anyone?)
The 'Confessing-Things-That-Aren't-Sins' Guy:
Confession: The last couple weeks have been tough. I've been volunteering at church every night and I don't have any money anymore because I gave it all away to a homeless guy I met on the street last week after volunteering as a fire fighter after staying up late reading the Bible too much because I couldn't sleep because I was out all night rescuing stray cats.
Response: I quit this group.
Have you ever experience an awkward confession?
What about you, ever struggled to find the best way to confess something?
John Crist as a writer and standup comedian whose life has been changed by confession. Check out his story in chapter 7 of Aaron Stern's book What's Your Secret?: freedom through confession available on Amazon and for more from John, visit his Youtube Channel.
Don't miss Ben Arment at the Quitter Conference!
Who is Ben Arment?
The short answer? A genius.
The long answer? He's the founder of the wildly successful "Story" conference and the creator of Dream Year. In Dream Year he coaches a select group of people for the entire year as they work on the tactics, strategies and real world plans that turn their "what if" dream into a "what is" reality.
And he's joining us at the Quitter Conference. He speaks around the country, is one of the smartest people I've ever met and is going to blow you away with both his kindness and his insights.
If you haven't signed up for the Quitter Conference on July 30th, in Nashville, TN, there are still a few spots left. Click here to reserve your spot!
And if you want to check out Ben, here's something he wrote the other day that I think is brilliant. "140 Character Friendships."
July 21, 2011
Laughing when you're not supposed to in church.
Want to know a secret?
Want to know what people say when they don't think what you've just said is funny?
I've discovered this by saying approximately 1 bajillion unfunny things in the last 35 years. This is not a theory, this is a time tested, bad joke proven law of conversation that most people follow without even knowing it. Here it is, if you say something unfunny to someone, if you tell a story that is funnier in your head than it is coming out of your mouth, this is what the person you are talking to will say:
"That's funny."
That's it. It's so simple, but it's perfect. Because if what you just said were actually funny, they wouldn't need to say "that's funny." They'd just laugh. They'd burst out in that wonderful, uncontrolled, God given thing called laughter. That physical reaction to humor and hope and life that we often take for granted, but is in fact pretty wonderful. And when your joke or story bombs, they don't laugh. Instead they say, "That's funny."
I think about silly things like that a lot because I love laughter. Especially in church. I've long said that laughter is a gift from God and when we take it for granted it makes him want to take it back, like the unicorns. But recently, in the middle of speaking at church I experienced something I completely forget about:
Church Giggles.
You've never had those. Certainly not. You're holier than that. But sometimes, in the middle of a service, a wave of unexplained, unstoppable laughter will overtake you. And that's exactly what happened to a couple of people while I was speaking. I was in the middle of a serious point. I was talking about orphans and homelessness or something of that ilk, and when I looked out in the crowd, a couple on the third row was busting out laughing.
They were dying in their seats. I immediately started wracking my brain to think if I had said something weird. "Did I say, 'booty, booty, booty' instead of 'booty, God, booty?' Did I say something accidentally inappropriate like that time on Way FM where Wally cut to commercial right after I said it, so it just hung out in the air and we all laughed at my silliness?"
I couldn't figure it out and so I kept looking at them. Suddenly, they were the only people I could see in the whole building and they were out of control with laughter. I could not stop looking at them. And I forgive them, because once you get the Church Giggles it's hard to stop. Here's what usually happens:
1. You either think of something random and funny, like a postcard from an unexpected corner of your brain or the pastor says something unintentionally funny.
2. You start to hear that sentence over and over again in your head. The soundtrack gets stuck on loop. It bubbles up from your toes into your stomach refusing to stop.
3. You immediately try to think about something serious. Like Jesus and foot washing or Moses. That guy had a serious beard. Think about Moses. For the love of Moses' beard, stop laughing. Come on pull yourself together!
4. And then you win, for about 30 seconds. You stop thinking about it. You move on, but less than a minute later the joke comes back. Like a raptor throwing itself against the fence in Jurassic Park testing for a weakness, it was just laying low so that it could attack you with giggles from a different angle.
5. "Why isn't anyone else laughing? This is hilarious." That's what you'll think next. "Why is no one else dying right now in laughter?" Church Giggles always try to isolate you.
6. "Oh no, the person sitting next to me is giggling. There is strength in numbers and together we are forming an army of LOL." The moment you spot a comrade in guffaw you've lost all hope for a recovery. They've just validated your laughter. You should be laughing!
7. It's all over. You give up and just ride it out, hoping that maybe the pastor or speaker won't notice you laughing in the middle of his message about hoboes.
But we do. We notice. I see you Church Giggles. I've got my eye on you. And all I can do in response is "put you on post." It's like "putting someone on blast," but a lot less cooler of a phrase. You'll be on stuffchristianslike.net before the day is out. That's a promise.
Question:
Have you ever experienced the Church Giggles? How did it happen?
12 posts I wrote about being a dad
A few months ago, I had the chance to write a "dad blog" series of posts. I've never done that before, but with two little girls dominating the Acuff house, parenting is a topic I keep coming back to. My friends at E-Mealz gave me some space to explore 12 ideas about being a dad. In case you missed it, here are the links to the posts I wrote.
2. Better dinners through bigger stories
3. You can't hate what you've never tried
9. Later is a land of make believe
11. The warning
July 20, 2011
Get the SCL book for only $2.99!
I just found out that HarperCollins and Zondervan lowered the price of the Kindle edition of Stuff Christians Like to $2.99! (Someone on twitter told me.)
It's usually $12.99 but today is only $2.99!
I don't know how long they'll keep the price that low since I don't have control over it, so if you don't own SCL or want to add the Kindle edition to your collection, today is your chance.
Click here
to buy the Stuff Christians Like book for only $2.99.
The tell.
"When your business manager marries a stripper, that's a tell."
I read that line in an article the other day about someone who had run a Ponzi scheme in New York. Though the money he stole paled in comparison to Bernie Madoff's $65 billion, what was remarkable was the number of celebrities and newscasters who fell for it.
Looking back on the whole situation, one former client said, "When your business manager marries a stripper, that's a tell." And it was.
A tell is one of those moments in poker where you unintentionally reveal your cards. Some form of body language or nervous tick or casual sentence gives you away, and everyone at the table knows exactly where you're going with what you're holding in your hand. In the case of the business manager in question, marrying a stripper was a tell.
He was 66. She was 34 and his fourth wife. He bought her $400,000 worth of jewelry and a $7.5 million triplex. As one of his clients, as someone who was trusting this business to make wise financial decisions, those kind of actions would have made me nervous.
But they didn't. Barely anyone noticed. For years, he got away with stealing millions and millions of dollars. Why?
Because most of us don't have strong relationships.
Surface, we are great at. Shallow, we excel at. Our Facebook friends number in the thousands, our networks expand larger than we could have ever imagined, but does anyone really know us?
I was forced to wrestle with that question when we moved from Atlanta to Nashville. I spoke briefly about this in my book Quitter, but, one day, a week before we left, my wife said, "Who are you going to miss in Atlanta? Which of your heart friends will you miss?" She had a laundry list. She could rattle off all of her close friends. I had a hard time thinking of any.
There were people I knew. My friends Jeff, Matt, Mark and Chris were all guys I hung out with and really liked. But the truth is that when Stuff Christians Like took off, I put any energy that wasn't going into my family and my day job into my blog. And my "brand" and my book and my etc.
And then on the edge of leaving Atlanta, I realized I really wouldn't be missed. I cared about people there and people cared about me, but because I had never really invested in friendships and relationships I didn't really have many.
Which is just about the opposite of what Jesus did. Do you ever think about what an ineffective communicator Jesus was? Think about it. He could have been speaking to 5,000 people every night. He could have been filling hills and shores and city squares constantly. Instead, he wasted his time at dinner with 12 people. Instead, he called individuals out of trees or chatted up one person at the well. And these weren't powerful, influential people who could have dramatically helped his cause with their networks. He wasn't connecting with "connectors." These were sinners, tax collectors and fishermen. That seems counterintuitive to really building a platform. Why did he do it?
Because I think he knew how important relationships are. I think he knew that if you build a platform and when you stand on it no one really knows you, you're alone. There might be a crowd of people around you, but if nobody knows you, that's the worst kind of loneliness there is. I think he knew the value of a friendship.
Friendships are ineffective. The ROI on relationship is pretty horrible. They can take years to develop. They might lead nowhere. They will definitely hurt you at some point. And you couldn't quantify them if you tried. But Christ sought them out. Christ knew what it meant to be known.
And in Nashville I'm learning that too.
I've only been here a year. But if I left tomorrow, I'd have a list of people who are my heart friends.
Why?
Because I know how important relationships are now.
Question:
If you moved tomorrow, which of your heart friends would you miss?
July 19, 2011
Saying goodbye to Vacation Bible School.
Last week, it was Harry Potter. This week, we close the curtain on Vacation Bible School. Across the country, if you listen closely, you can hear glue sticks being thrown away, flannelgraphs being re-closeted, and tired volunteers breathing a sigh of relief. But before it fades, before VBS 2011 marches off into the sunset like my once proud hopes of being a professional breakdancer, I think we need to say farewell to a few people and things:
Farewell:
1. The kid who bites.
There's always at least one biter at every VBS. His parents either think it's "an adorable part of his personality" or are deeply mortified.
2. The serial VBS attender.
Ahh, Vacation Babysitting School. There's always at least one kid who has been to 17 Vacation Bible Schools that summer and lets you know right off the bat "The last VBS I went to had way better snacks."
3. Bootleg cookies.
Speaking of snacks, no farewell list would be complete without a goodbye to VBS snacks. How do you tell if you're eating a VBS snack? Easy, it's named as a noun. The box will just say, "Cookies," or "Crackers," or "Pretzels." No adjectives, no brands.
4. The Glitterati
So long craft cartel, you underground construction paper posse, controlling the decorations in each classroom with an iron stapler. You might have won the VBS decorating wars this year, but next year, the battle resumes.
5. Grumpy volunteer.
I don't know how you get tricked into volunteering this year, probably got voluntold if I had to guess, but fight the good fight next year, friend. If you hate kids, crafts and sweet baby Jesus, sprain your ankle next year to get out of volunteering.
6. Father Abraham, who apparently had many sons.
What a jam. So simple. So powerful. So repetitive. I'll see you next year. You too "God's army" and "God told Noah there's going to be a floody, floody." I promise one day I'll deliver that VBS mixtape I'm working on.
7. Homemade playdoh
Oh you salty home-based alternative. So easy to make. So plentiful. And to be honest, though I usually don't like knock offs, you served us well this summer. Unlike the "Krayons," we bought in bulk.
8. Crazy theme.
It's getting harder and harder each year to come up with a fresh theme for VBS. I've got nothing but respect for the creative team that has to design those each year. I probably would have launched "MySpace is God'sSpace" this summer. That one was admittedly a few years late in coming. Maybe next summer I'd have, "God's Potter," a spin-off story about a young Israelite with a lightning bolt tattoo on his head.
9. The bouncy thing.
Goodbye bouncy thing. Jump jump. Moonwalk. Whatever your official name is, you will be missed.
10. Random animal someone brings in.
So long miniature donkey that someone in the church inexplicably owns. Though I appreciate the authentic, miniature element you added to our "What did Biblical times look like?" discussion, I did not appreciate you biting four people. Apparently, even tiny donkey bites hurt.
How about you, any farewells you'd like to send VBS away with?
Any goodbyes you need to get out from this summer or your own childhood of attending Vacation Bible School?
July 18, 2011
The Sunday Afternoon Nap.
Dear Sunday Afternoon Nap,
You are so beautiful.
I want to write you haikus.
I want to petition Yankee Candle to make you into a scented votive.
I want to get you one of those greeting cards that plays music when you open it.
Mine would play "Lady in Red" by Chris de Burgh. Why? Cause at the end he whispers "I love you." And I do, Sunday Afternoon Nap, I do love you.
There you are, hidden at the end of the week. Waiting on the last day before work begins anew. Calling softly, "Take a nap. Turn off your iPhone. Unplug one last time before the tide of the week rushes back in."
But I ignore you all too often. I fill my days with activities and think of naps as wasteful. I watch cheesy movies on TNT, unable to break the power of such films as The Chronicles of Riddick, once I've watched 13 seconds. I can't escape the couch if there's a Vin Diesel movie on. Or, I run errands. I catch up on emails. I fill my Sundays so full that I miss you.
Occasionally though, you sneak back up on me. I get a summer cold, the most annoying coughs of all, and I am forced to take a nap. And then I'm back in your wonderland. Reunited in sleeptastic bliss.
Why do I ever forget how awesome you are Sunday Afternoon Nap?
God tried to tell us. All those years ago when he spoke about the importance of the Sabbath. It's one of the ten commandments! Maybe the Sunday nap isn't technically mentioned in the Bible, but I guarantee I could find it in the Message version. There's got to be at least one reference to the "land of nod" somewhere in the Bible.
He warned us. He pleaded with us to rest. In Isaiah 30, we're told: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it." It's so true, I usually have none of it.
I'm going to change though. I promise. I'm going to work on our relationship. I'm going to be a new man with a new plan and a pillow.
Forever yours in slumber,
Jon
