Jon Acuff's Blog, page 135

Winners of the Priscilla Shirer Video Series!

Hooray! 5 people won a copy of the Priscilla Shirer's Seed video series. If your name is on the list after the jump, please email your mailing address (to this email) so that we can hook you up. If you click on the name you can see the actual comment that was left to verify that you're the "Tori" who won for instance. The comment will appear at the top of the page you click through to. Thanks for participating!

Winners:

Tori Palmer

Carmen Jones

Kim V.

Melanie D.

Rebecca

Videos in church.

Depending on the size, denomination and stance on smoke machines of your church, this post might be a complete miss. The church I grew up in certainly didn't have any videos during the service. Sure, we watched McGee and me in Sunday School sometimes, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about big screen productions shown during the middle of the church service. Now some of the more progressive churches are going to giggle at this post, pat it on the head, and tell it, "You're adorable."

They've already moved on to piping in specific scents for specific sermons, not kidding, and are developing hologram ushers, sort of kidding.

But whether you've seen a million videos in church or never experienced this phenomenon, allow me to school you on the three main types.

1. Comic Relief.

Turns out that in Ecclesiastes, it says, "there's a time to laugh." Take that people who act like laughing in church is a sin! OT bombshell! And what better way to laugh than a video involving a kid or a dog or, preferably, a monkey riding the back of a dog like it was some sort of miniature pony. But everyone knows what a diva that dog-riding monkey is, just a huge hassle to work with. So, sometimes, to bring some comic relief into the service, the video will involve a kid. Here's an example. I helped write this video with Tripp Crosby and Joel Thomas for a North Point Community Church service aimed at single adults.

2. Public Service Announcement

Remember all those Public Service Announcements NBC used to make? Some random character from the show "Scrubs" would stare at the camera while wearing an approachable looking sweater and say, "I'm on a funny show, but there's nothing funny about rabies. If you've got raccoons in your backyard during the day, be careful. Raccoons are nocturnal. That's not right." Sometimes churches need to make Public Service Announcements too. And this is probably my favorite of all time. In it, Tripp Crosby and Tyler Stanton make a hilarious plea to parents who are bringing screaming babies to church. (Sensitive subject!)

3. Sermon Promo

This one is pretty self-explanatory. You promo a sermon. You let everyone know, "Hey next week, we're starting a new sermon series you don't want to miss." I love these, except they do leave you open to the odd Jesus Juke. "You want a sermon promo? Here's my Bible! Look at it! This is what I'm preaching about from today until sweet baby Jesus calls me home." But if you do go the sermon promo angle, here's a simple rule of thumb to remember: "When in doubt, Royal Tenenbaum it out." That didn't even rhyme, but it is exactly what my church, Cross Point, did recently. They dressed me up in a jumpsuit as a character from the Royal Tenenbaums, outfitted Carlos as a wrestler, and threw some of the craziest characters together for a Summer Slam series. (I'm preaching five services on July 17th.) Here's the video:

Am I the only one who attends churches who use video?

Have you ever seen a video during church? Braveheart clip? Matrix scene?

Anyone?

Does your church use video?

Want to be a writer? Let's talk.

In the last few weeks I've received a lot of emails and phone calls about being a writer. From how do you publish a book to how do you create new ideas for blogs, folks have asked some really good questions about writing.

In order to answer them, I'm holding a special Writer's Q&A for attendees of the Quitter Conference. If you sign up for the conference before Tuesday, July 5th, you'll get a VIP invitation to it. It will be from 4:30 – 5:30PM immediately following the conference. (If you've already registered for the conference, you're already in.)

If you want to write a book, a blog or just really amazing post cards, I encourage you to sign up. I think it will be a fun chance for us to hang out after the conference and will give me an opportunity to share everything I've learned about writing over the last few years.

And if you're thinking, "Oh, great, a writer's Q&A, my dream job is to be a plumber," fear not. If you sign up before July 5th we'll give you a free Quitter notebook in which you can scribble plumbing schematics. (I am assuming there are schematics involved in plumbing.)

The coffee with Jon morning session filled up fast and is already closed. Don't miss out on the Writer's Q&A.

Click here to register for the conference.

Taking church off in the summer.

Wait, what?

No. That can't be true. Even typing those words should have caused little mini bolts of lighting to come down from heaven and strike my keyboard, rendering it useless. (Probably didn't happen because I wrote this on a Mac, and that's what God uses too.)

But girl, just like Milli Vanilli warned us all those years ago, you know it's true. I wanted to say "boys and girls" in that sentence, but you see my dilemma. I had a Vanilli opportunity, and I never pass one of those up. Especially when I can use that lip synching, international dance troupe to prove a point that is indeed correct.

We tend to take church off in the summer.

I swear I don't remember my dad ever dismissing anyone in his church at the end of the spring with a sermon called, "See you in the fall." But sometimes I think that's what we hear in our heads. The weather gets warmer. The days get brighter, and around Memorial Day, we pretend the pastor is giving us a pass for the next few months.

Why does this happen? I'm glad you asked:

4 reasons we take church off in the summer

1. Guest speakers.

As a guest speaker myself, this one pains me, but I know it happens. You wake up, it's a beautiful day, you start getting ready for church and then remember, "Oh yeah, Pastor Tom is out on vacation this week. They're having a guest speaker. I'm pretty sure the Bible says something about not needing to attend church when there's a guest speaker." And you're done. There will be no church that day. But when you skip, you don't know what you're missing. Maybe this will be the first and only time the phrase "Booty, God, Booty" is said from the stage. I'm just putting that out there. Could happen. Ask the people at NorthRidge Church in Michigan.

2. You go on vacation.

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've gone to church while on vacation at the beach during the summer. That's horrible, right? Yeah, I assumed so. Thanks for verifying that. Some people love that, though. I have friends who enjoy finding a random, one-off church experience and wrapping that into their vacation memories. Or they hold a church service wherever they're staying with their family. Both are legitimate options. And if you're away on vacation, that is actually a good reason to miss going to your home church during summer.

3. You throw the "God is everywhere in nature" card.

What a beautiful day. What a warm, fun day this Sunday morning has already turned into. I'd like to go to church today, but you know, I don't want to miss God's glorious sunshine. It's too pretty today to go to church. Plus, God is everywhere, you know? He made it all. He made the ocean and the mountains and the lake that Sully has a ski boat on. Today, instead of being stuck in church, I will worship God in all his majesty. At the lake.

4. You're still recovering from volunteering at VBS.

Maybe you had a rough VBS week. Maybe you need to decompress from the "glitter incident." Maybe there are still a few other people who were a little appalled at how competitive you got with decorating your room. Maybe the animal you brought in on performance night bit you. And, let's be honest, it's not easy getting over a camel bite. Things will be better in the fall. Lay low. Remember you did it for the kids.

Will this post dramatically impact church attendance this summer? Probably. I'd like to think we're going to see a direct correlation, and church attendance is about to spike. But, if it doesn't, there must be some other reason for taking the summer off from church that I didn't mention.

What's your reason for missing church during the summer?

A new way to change the world.

Dreaming is fun and fluffy and often leads nowhere.

The world is full of dreamers. Doers? People who actually execute and change the world? They're rare. But it doesn't have to be that way. I think our generation can change the world.

That's a big part of the reason I wrote my book Quitter and was excited to partner with Praxis, a new non-profit organization set up to help social entrepreneurs build high-impact organizations.

Who is a social entrepreneur?

People like me and people like you.

My favorite part of Praxis is that it's mentor-driven. A lot of people don't know this, but when Stuff Christians Like and my hope of actually changing the world with it started to grow, I sought out mentors like crazy. One of the people I would regularly have dinner with is Brad Lomenick, the Executive Director of Catalyst. I'd email him questions before dinner and then he'd generously share wisdom and ideas with me. That's a big part of what Praxis helps make possible. It is a mentor-driven accelerator program for social entrepreneurs and innovators compelled by their faith to advance the common good.

Praxis provides:

Cash awards totaling $100,000. At the culmination of the program at the Q 2012 event in Washington, D.C., Praxis will award prizes of $50,000, $30,000, and $20,000 to each of the top three organizations.
A year-long mentoring program for twelve early-stage organizations. More than just encouragement, the mentor program includes action-oriented education and planning, peer networking, and access to capital sources.
Three unique opportunities to gather and learn in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Over twenty mentors will get together to share key organizational development advice with "fellows" (people like you who are being mentored).

A complete list of what you receive when you become a fellow is right here.

In addition to people like my friend Brad Lomenick, who else is a Praxis mentor?

People like:

Gabe Lyons, founder of Q and founding partner of Praxis
Jamie Tworkowski, founder of To Write Love On Her Arms
Jason Russell, founder of Invisible Children
Chris Crane, former CEO of Opportunity International and founder of Edify
Jena Nardella, founder and executive director of Blood:Water Mission
Charles Lee, founder and CEO of Ideation
Peter Greer, president and CEO of HOPE International

And those are just a few of the mentors. Here's the complete list.

Praxis was founded and led by Dave Blanchard, a serial entrepreneur and former Principal Designer at IDEO. (If you've spent any time in the design world, this is the part of the post you geek out on. IDEO? Unbelievable.)

I would have killed to have a program like this years ago when I decided to take my ideas from "what if?" to "what is!" And that's why I was so excited Praxis decided to sponsor SCL and reach out to SCL readers.

If you want help changing the world with your organization, check out the Praxis Accelerator Program. You can learn more by visiting the Praxis website.

They will be accepting applications from now until July 15, 2011. That's the one thing I don't want you to miss. You've only got until July 15 to apply.

You can also follow them on Twitter, connect with them on Facebook or learn more by visiting the Praxis website.

Question:

What's an idea or dream to change the world that you'd love some help to turn into a reality?

The people who comment on your Christian Facebook status.

(It's guest post Friday! Here's one from Peter McMurray, a medical student/great blogger from Northern Ireland. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here's how.)

The people who comment on your Christian Facebook status – By Peter McMurray

From time to time on Facebook, you will notice a Bible verse or a worship song lyric in your newsfeed. And no, that does not mean you can skip devotions and just go straight to Facebook for your daily bread. But when there is a "Christian" status, it is hard to scroll past it without feeling obliged to "like" it. (For those of you not on Facebook who don't know what "liking" a status means – welcome to 2006!)

After all, you can't not like God's word, can you? This is a trick I have used on occasion when I have been in the middle of a notification drought and have been thinking about ways to get my "likes" to skyrocket. One quick Bible verse/worship song video/famous pastor quote/SCL Serious Wednesday link, and suddenly I'm getting "likes" left, right and center from all my Christian friends.

But, when you post a Christian status on Facebook, you leave yourself open to the following people posting a comment on it:

1. The theological debater

Regardless of which preacher you have quoted, he will object. And have an endless supply of links to web pages saying why that pastor is a heretic who will burn in hell. And if you try to engage in conversation with him, you will either receive the ultimate Christian put down ("I'll pray for you"), or be told by a third party to keep such stuff out of the public eye.

2. Your pastor

You notice a comment from your pastor, and you do a mini victory dance at the keyboard. You just bagged yourself a whole dose of holy points for impressing him with your choice of verse, and you won't be voluntold to the chair stacking committee again. It's the elite league for you now. But then you remember that if your pastor can see your status, he can see your photos, including the ones from that party last weekend….

3. Your non-Christian work colleague

You see a comment saying 'cool' from that non-believer you work with and you think you have successfully used Facebook to witness to them, thanks to a handy verse from Ephesians. Small victory! But then you look at their profile and see they have recently changed their relationship status and announced to the world that they just went to the toilet. Then you realize they have merely been the victim of someone logging into their Facebook account and posting embarrassing things while pretending to be them.

Those are three that I came up with, but maybe you have encountered other types of people commenting on your Christian statuses. Share them in the comments. And, no, getting unfriended for posting a Bible verse is not the persecution Jesus warned us to expect.

What types of commenters have you seen on Facebook?

(For more awesome stuff from Peter, check out his blog, All4God)

Complaining.

You don't complain about church. That's one of the things I like about you. That and your breath. It's delightful. What is that? The black Dentyne gum that is so minty fresh it lights your tongue on flavor with freshness? I thought so.

You're not a complainer. The moment you get in the car to drive to church, you shut off your desire to complain. You don't cut people off on the way to church and, upon arriving, you walk in, worship, leave and go home without a negative word. You've never complained about Sunday School or how the kids program is run.

I have, though. I used to complain about the traffic at a church I attended. Which, by the way, is the opposite of the Great Commission. "Urgh! I hate this traffic in the church parking lot! All these people coming to worship God and have their hearts transformed! So frustrating. Who keeps making these disciples?"

That's a topic for another post. But, in addition to complaining about the traffic, I also complained about the volunteers who were directing it. I'd get all grumpy how our row of cars was getting ignored while the volunteer in the vest kept waving out people who hadn't been waiting nearly as long as us.

Sermons about grace and compassion would roll right off my back like something even slipperier than water off a duck's back. You thought I was going to say "water," but sometimes I shake a sermon even faster than that.

But then I learned a pretty powerful truth about church volunteers that forever changed my habit of complaining. Something that I hope you'll keep in your pocket for the next time someone complains about a ministry or a program or an anything at your church.

Here it is:

Never complain about something at church you're not willing to volunteer for.

That's it. I couldn't complain about how the traffic at church was directed if I was unwilling to volunteer for traffic duty. I couldn't get frustrated at how the volunteer in front of our car was weaving the lanes if I wasn't willing and able to get out of bed early, stand in the freezing cold on some days, and direct hundreds of cars out of the parking lot.

So if you don't feel like your kid is learning anything in Sunday School, volunteer.

If you wish they did more for single adults at your church, volunteer.

If you hope Vacation Bible School is better than last year, volunteer.

If you wish your church did a better job of welcoming new people, volunteer.

This principle works like a charm. Except if you've got a problem with the music or the minister. You can't just volunteer to give your own sermon next week if, while critiquing the sermon at Sunday lunch, you realize you are complaining. You can't just bring your own instrument next Sunday and volunteer to play if you feel like worship is incredibly tambourine deficient. That's what a man in his 70s did one Sunday at my dad's church. He literally got out of his seat, walked to the front, stood beside the worship leader during one of the songs, and started tambourining.

So don't do that. But, when it comes to just about everything else, remember:

Never complain about something at church you're not willing to volunteer for.

Question:

Have you ever volunteered at your church?

2 surprising reasons to attend the Quitter Conference!

There are 2 surprising reasons you should attend the Quitter Conference on July 30th in Nashville.

1. It's going to be practical and tactical.

Expect to walk away from the conference with dozens of real things you can do THAT DAY to close the gap between your day job and your dream job. You will get at least 52 practical, tactical actions you can do to change your life. Including things like:

• How to deal with your fear of failure.

• How to build the 3 layers of support every dream needs.

• How to create your own think tank.

• How to get a billion dollars of research for your dream for free.

• How to use a single piece of paper to completely change the way you blog.

• How to use the "mother in law test" to figure out your dream.

2. It's going to go way beyond the book.

Writing the content for this conference has been like writing a sequel to the Quitter book. It's based on the same principles, but there are entirely new sections too. For instance, one whole section is on everything I've ever learned about Social Media. Another section covers the three things you need to do to execute more ideas than you ever have in your life. (I wrote 17 pages yesterday on the process I personally use to generate and finish ideas.)

Here are the six main topics I will be covering:

1. Figuring out what your dream is

2. Facing your fears

3. Getting started on your dream

4. Fueling your dream with ideas

5. Plugging into the social side of dreaming

6. Knowing when it's time to jump

The more I work on this conference, the more excited I get about the potential July 30th has and I don't think prior to today, I've done a great job of explaining points one and two. Which is why they might be surprising. But the idea that 100 or 200 people could be awake in what they were designed to do and equipped to do it is wild to me! The thought of us coming together to work on that and then being a part of what can happen when we all go back to our own homes, communities and cities is unbelievable.

I promise, this is a day you don't want to miss. To the people in 20 different states from Oregon to Tennessee who have already signed up, thank you!

If you haven't signed up yet, don't miss your chance. Click here.

Seeing people.

My wife and I own an unbelievable amount of junk.

Had you asked me how much junk we owned a year ago, I would have said, "Not much." And I would have been gravely, gravely mistaken.

I realized just how much nonsense we owned when we decided to move twice in a year. In the first move, we boxed and packed our entire house ourselves. Then a group of 7 men with nicknames like "Tiny" put it all on a truck. Then they had to add an extension to the truck to fit other stuff. And then add a trailer.

It was like watching a prequel to an episode of the show "Hoarders." In my defense, we don't have any pets so we'll never be on the even scarier version of that show, "Animal Hoarders." I once saw an episode where a guy was living with 60 full-grown chickens inside his house. If I ever tweet out a picture of a chicken sitting next to me on the couch watching TV, please come over my house and have a poultry intervention.

After our move from Atlanta to Nashville exposed the innards of our attic, we decided to get rid of a lot of stuff. We gave it away. We sold it. We threw it away. So when it came time to do a cross town move in Franklin, TN, I thought it'd be a lot easier.

It wasn't. We still had a tremendous amount of stuff, including a ridiculous amount of books. Have you ever carried 800 or 900 books? Not all at once, you're not huge like me and Tiny, I get that. But have you ever had a moment when you actually wanted to punch your stuff in the face? That's where I was after my wife and I made 59 trips in our cars across town to load and unload the small, random stuff we could carry.

For the bigger items, we hired a moving company that our friend recommended. This turned out to be a mistake.

For starters, they showed up an hour after they were supposed to be there. My wife told me that was actually early for movers. It always drives me crazy that there are still some professions where an hour behind schedule is considered early or on time.

But after 60 minutes of tracking them down, they did show up. Both of the guys got right to work. They started hauling things out of the house quickly, but there were some things they tried to talk us out of owning. They looked at some potted plants we had in our courtyard and said, "I'm not sure if those are going to fit on the truck." Which is a weird thing for a mover you're paying by the hour to say. The plants were three feet tall. If they didn't fit on the truck on the first run, we'd just bring it back and make a second run.

Then they started to complain that they were having to carry heavy items. Again, weird thing for a mover to be surprised by. I assume that carrying heavy items is one of the first things they teach you at moving school. If you're an accountant and you showed up at work and someone said, "Can you please move that fridge to the truck in the driveway?" you'd probably be thrown a little. As a mover, carrying things kind of comes with the territory.

The grumbling got louder and louder throughout the day, the pushback from the movers more direct and off-putting. Finally my wife, who had literally dealt with the mafia on a job site in Boston when she was in construction, said, "I don't feel comfortable being around these guys. Can you please handle everything from here on out, even if things get put in the wrong place?"

So I did. And we came to a bit of a crossroads. The truck was so full we had to make two trips. The movers started talking about coming back tomorrow to finish the job. But the remaining items at our old house were our beds. And, if I paid them that day for the job, the chances of them driving back out the next day to finish were slim at best. So I convinced them we were completing the job today and drove them back over to the house to empty it out.

On the way, I was praying about my attitude, which stunk at that point. (Even reading those paragraphs above, I sound whiny and ridiculous.) And I prayed that God would let me see the movers Kevin and Danny the same way he did. I was kind of hoping that would be a prayer he slowly answered, so that I could still be grumpy that day. Then maybe a week later he'd reveal how he saw them, and I could write a post about it without actually having to change the way I behaved that day.

But I felt like his response was almost instant.

"How do I see Kevin and Danny? They're two of my favorite people."

Dang it. They were. I saw Kevin and Danny, the belligerent movers. The guys who were an hour late. The guys who took a bajillion smoke breaks. The guys who banged and bruised our furniture. The guys who creeped out my impossible-to-creep-out wife. The guys who seemed determined to complicate moving day.

But that's not who God saw.

He saw Kevin and Danny.

He saw two guys he loved.

Two guys he sent his son for.

Two guys he was crazy about.

Two of his favorite people.

After we got back to my house, Kevin asked me if I could pay in cash instead of a check. The owner of the company called and asked me to do that too because the banks were closed and Kevin wouldn't be able to get his money that night. In a near empty garage, Kevin quietly told me, "Tomorrow is my eight-year-old son's birthday, and I don't have anything for him yet. If you pay us tonight, I can get him something."

Kevin was carrying my furniture all day, but he was also carrying the weight of being a dad without a gift for a little boy's birthday. And that was heavier than anything I owned. He was carrying the realization that on a Saturday he wasn't at home with his family, he was at work with someone else's.

I don't know if you've got a grumpy mover in your life. Someone who feels like an opponent to your day. A coworker whose hobby seems to be making your life difficult. A neighbor who walks their dog into your yard to use the bathroom. There are a million possibilities, and ultimately I don't know who that person is for you. But I do know how we're called to respond.

With love.

With prayer.

With more compassion than they deserve, more forgiveness than they'll ever ask for and more kindness than they'd ever expect.

Because those guys aren't just Kevin and Danny.

They're two of God's favorite people.

Calling your wife your "bride."

I'm going to lose readers on this one. Even as I start writing this post, I can hear metaphorical car doors slamming shut and tires peeling away from SCL into the vast blogosphere in search of better posts to read. But I have to make a confession, and I can't hold it back any more.

It weirds me out a little when a guy refers to his wife as his "bride."

Unless it's your wedding day, telling me, "I need to go see my bride," sounds a little strange to me. If it's your big day and you're about to go down the aisle, bride it up. Say bride all day long like it was your J.O.B. Go bride wild. I'll even get in on the action and say things like, "Your bride looks beautiful today." Or "It's going to be amazing for you to see your bride walk down the aisle!" I'm 100% down for calling your wife "bride" on the day you get married.

The day after your wedding? I'm not so sure. Here's why:

1. Ladies never do the equivalent.

I see guys on Twitter and Facebook talk about their brides all the time. A friend once said to me, "Please tell your bride thanks for sharing you with us this weekend when you came and spoke to our church." But I have never, ever seen a lady call her man her "groom" after the wedding. I've never heard a girl say, "I need to get home to my groom. I've been really missing my groom."

2. It feels a little medieval.

Whenever I hear someone say, "My bride and I have a really full weekend planned," I instantly imagine, "Of course you do. Probably going to do some jousting, eat a giant turkey leg, maybe pull a sword from a stone. Big weekend planned. I'm not sure if you and your fair lady will have time for Bed Bath & Beyond this weekend."

3. It feels a smidge too fancy.

It would feel way too formal if I was ever at a dinner party and someone I worked with said, "Hey Jon, come here, I'd like you to meet my bride." My first thought would be, "Wait, am I at your wedding right now? She's wearing shorts and flip flops, but I must be at your wedding if I'm meeting your bride."

As I researched this idea, in my head mostly, I felt like there were two possible reasons to call your wife your bride. The first is that it's biblical. Isn't the church called "the bride of Christ?" It's not called the "wife of Christ." So using "bride" could be a throwback to the Bible. So maybe saying "bride" is like answering the question, "What Would Jesus Do?" He'd say bride. OK, I get that.

The other reason I could see you using this word is that your wife loves it. If my wife wanted me to call her my bride and that made her feel loved, the title of this post would be "People who don't call their wives their brides are stupid." So maybe that's why you do it.

Me personally? I call my wife "Brown Sugar" like D'Angelo suggested. But I'm hip hop.

What's your take?

Do you call your wife your bride? Does your husband call you that?

What's your opinion?