Jon Acuff's Blog, page 141

Are you married? Short Saturday question.

Three weeks ago, Jenny and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. That is crazy to me. I can't believe it's already been a decade. Looking back on the last ten years, the me right now would have laughed at all the wisdom the me back then thought he had about marriage in year one.

It's been an awesome decade that has taken us from Atlanta to Boston, back to Atlanta and now Nashville. And thinking about my anniversary and my marriage has made me curious.

Are you married? If so, how long have you been married? What's one thing you've learned that you wish someone had told you on day one?

Are you single? I'd love to hear a little about your story too.

Those are today's short Saturday questions.

Move that bus, heaven edition.

(I met Matt Riggins a while ago at a Catalyst event. Here is he checking in with his first guest post, which I thought was great. Especially the whale part! Enjoy. )

In a recent post about my grandmothers entrance into heaven, I mentioned the idea that Jesus is like our great Ty in the Sky. Basically, while we're down here living in the slums of earth, Jesus – let me remind you, a carpenter – is in Heaven preparing us a place that will make Ty Pennington and ABC's Extreme Makeover's greatest accomplishment on earth barely fit into the trailer parks of heaven.

I was thinking about what it will really be like when Jesus finally shows us the mansion that He has been building for us for the last 2000 years. I'm guessing that since Extreme Makeover has become so popular down here on earth that the disciples got together and convinced Jesus that from now on they should have their own "Move that Bus" ceremony. However, since the bus idea was already taken, they decided to go a different route. I believe these were the ideas they came up with:

"Move that Whale"

Ever since Jonah was spit up onto the beach, the whale has been a missing character of the Bible. And since we didn't see the whale show up on any episode of LOST, we have reason to believe that God ushered the great fish (Seinfeld edit: mammal!) up to swim in Heaven's Crystal Sea. However, since no one is running from God in heaven, and the whale's only skill was swallowing people who were running for God, the disciples decided to teach the whale a new trick. It just so happened that a former Sea World employee was a believer so it made this task much easier. They taught the whale to block the mansions while the new arrivals line up outside. Then all together everyone shouts "move that whale" and off he goes back to sea – and a new member of the family gets their house.

"Move that Ark"

You know how big the houses are going to be in Heaven? HUGE! You know what can block the entire house so you can't see it when you're standing out front? A boat the size of ONE and a half FOOTBALL fields! The ultimate Heaven welcoming party would include the great crowd of witnesses standing outside of your house shouting "Move that Ark" and then when the boat floats away, Moses shows up, raises his shaft and voila! the waters part – Red Sea style – giving you dry land to walk across to get to your front door.

"Move that Mountain"

You don't think God can move mountains? You've obviously never heard the song "Mighty to Save". Of course he can move the mountains if Hillsong, heaven's future house band, wrote a song about it. You think there are no mansions big enough that need a mountain blocking them? Think again my friend! This one is reserved for missionaries and anyone else who has been completely sold out, spending their lives "storing their treasure in heaven". For you slaves of Christ, Jesus has been building your house for so long that it will take an entire mountain range to hide it from your eyes when you get to Heaven. As you walk up to Heaven's Himalaya's – wondering if God has another Elijah and the prophets moment prepared to dazzle your eye and commemorate your arrival, the crowd begins to shout "Move that Mountain" and then God shows off, blowing the mountain out of the way, revealing your giant mansion. You will need boxes of tissues to wipe the tears as you realize your life spent in the Amazon jungles was totally worth it.

"Move that Stone"

The greatest event in Christianity and all of humanity took place on Easter morning two thousand years ago. The morning the stone rolled away and out walked Jesus after being in the grave for three short days. Perhaps when we get to Heaven, God will put us in a little holding area, just teasing us with little hints giving us previews of our house or showing us clips of our old house being torn down. Meanwhile we are being primped up with heavenly manicures and pedicures to get us ready – and then 3 days after arriving onto the scene everyone begins to shout "move that stone!" and out of nowhere a GIANT stone rolls away and there sits our beautiful mansion. What a better way to remind us how it was even possible that we are there.

So clearly these were intended to be funny, and not designed to open a deep theological debate on prosperity. (Although if you listen closely, you can hear the Jesus Jukes multiplying like bunnies right now.) Can you imagine the houses in Heaven? What tactic do you think Jesus will use to reveal to us our beautiful mansion?

(For more great stuff from Matt, check out his blog.)

Amazon has Quitter again!

On Wednesday, when Quitter officially released, Amazon said the book was "Out of Print."

I immediately thought, "God, the #1 book selling avenue on the planet is telling people they can't buy my new book. Thank you for this chance to learn patience." Or, I wanted to throw up in the closet of my hotel in Dallas. It was one of the two.

But I'm happy to announce Quitter is back in stock on Amazon. No long wait, no out of print message, no complications, the book is in stock!

Click here to buy a copy or 3. (For the friends you know who might be stuck and need some hope and a path out.)

Click here to buy the Kindle version.

Thanks for your patience!

Jon

Atlanta Quitter Event Tonight!

Tonight is stop three on the Quitter Book Tour! Join me in Lawrenceville for a fun night of book signing, side hugging and money giving awaying. (That's not technically a word, but it felt right.) In addition to giving away $500, the person who drives the longest distance to get there will receive a free life size side hug cardboard cut out of me. Below are the details. Hope to see you there!

Friday May 13, 2011 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Books-A-Million

Discover Mills

Lawrenceville, GA 30043

678-847-5115

The guy who says he only uses his iPhone to read his Bible in church.

What's that you say? Am I checking my email, right here in the middle of church? Sir, I am insulted you would even ask that. How dare you!

This is 2011, I can't be carrying all kinds of bound and printed words on paper. What do you call them again? Oh that's right, books? Yes that's it, books, specifically the Bible. I've got the entire thing right here on my iPhone. Not only that, I have access to every translation ever written. Can your printed piece of paper magically transport you to the Douay Rheims 1899 Edition of the Bible?

I think not and you know how often I've got to cross reference a verse during the middle of the sermon and the Douay Rheims is the only one that will "Dou." See that, a pun? Thank you iPhone!

And no, I'm never tempted to play Zombies vs. Plants during one of the "down times" at church, though everyone knows the roof level is the hardest to conquer. I never use the three minutes of announcements to check what time the game is on today or look up an email or download a new song that just popped into my head or text somebody about our lunch plans. I don't use the amount of time it takes for the offering basket to get here as a small window of multi-tasking.

I'm the one person on the planet who is focused and attentive with their iPhone and never drifts away to verify on IMDB that Steve Buscemi was not the little kid in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird despite them both having really crooked teeth.

Well, I do have a small confession. The other thing I do use my iPhone for during church is to take notes. To capture words of wisdom if you will. Sometimes I will email them to someone who needed to hear the sermon but wasn't here. And no, I don't check other emails then either while I am doing that. I also archive my notes for later review and sometimes even set an automatic reminder. Does your paper do that for you? Do your fill in the blank sermon notes ever ping you in the middle of the week to remind you of a nugget of wisdom from the sermon? I thought not.

Enjoy your paper, Gutenberg, I'll stick to the iPhone. But wait, what happened to Steve Guttenberg? How come Howie Mandel has had some sort of renaissance and the Gutt is still denying us his craft? I should Google an answer to that right now.

Meet the entire Acuff family at the Nashville Quitter Event tonight!

Tonight, in addition to a huge fun book signing/$500 giveaway/tweetup/Quitter event, I will be joined by three special guests-Jenny, L.E., and McRae Acuff.

My whole family is going to be at the event tonight and I hope you'll come too. I'd love to meet you and it's going to be a lot of fun! (Plus, the person who drives the longest distance to get there will receive a life size side hug cardboard cut out of me, as seen in my office in the photo below.)

Here are the details:

Thursday, May 12, 2011 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Barnes & Noble

1701 Mallory Lane

Brentwood, TN 37027

615-377-9979

Quitter comes out today!

Today is the official release date of my new book Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job.

It's available online right now:

Order on DaveRamsey.com

Order on Amazon They are still waiting for inventory and should have more today or tomorrow if it's not available. (You can get it on Kindle too)

Order on BooksAMillion.com

Order on Barnes&Noble.com (You can get it on the Nook too)

Order it from

What's it about?

Check out the trailer for a sneak peek at Quitter.

Still not convinced? Read the entire first chapter for FREE.

Want to help spread the word about the book?

Please tweet about it using the hashtag #Quitter and post on facebook.

(Example: The new book #Quitter from @jonacuff came out today! Check it out at http://bit.ly/iwxVKX )

If you already bought it, thank you! (A lot of people have mentioned that they're reading Quitter together as a small group and that is awesome!)

I really appreciate the encouragement you guys have shared with me over the last few months as we worked toward this day. I honestly believe this is the best thing I've ever written and that there's going to be a lot of hope in this book for people like me who have ever felt stuck at a day job. I spent 12 years feeling like I was called to do something else before I actually closed the gap between my day job and my dream job. This book is everything I learned about chasing a dream and all the things I wish someone had told me a lot earlier.

It's time to be a Quitter.

Jon

p.s. Regular SCL content will resume tomorrow!

Dallas Quitter Event Tonight!

Today is the first stop on the Quitter book tour. Come buy a copy of Quitter, get an endless supply of side hugs and your chance at $500 cash. It's going to be a fun night and I'd love to meet you! Here are the details:

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Books-A-Million

3000 Grapevine Mills Parkway

Grapevine, TX 76051

972-539-0636

Agreeing to disagree.

Recently, a new book came out that caused a stir in Christianity. Different authors choose different sides. Words got heated. Social media blew up.

I am of course talking about the Francine Rivers vs. Karen Kingsbury street fight of 2011. Long dedicated to being a place of mirth, I won't go into the details, but in talking about this situation, my wife reminded me of something interesting:

"You know, the current fracas is bigger than this phrase, but for years, if you were going to disagree with another Christian, you had to say, 'Let's agree to disagree.' Or you could use the slightly more serious version, "It's not a salvation issue, but …"

She's right, in addition to big debates like the one that is going on right now, we've long had much smaller, but equally awesome, discussions about our differences. And when we've had them, as a pretext to sharing your opinion, you're supposed to say, "Let's agree to disagree, but …"

So today, as an olive branch of peace, I thought it might be good to get some of our differences out on the table, especially some of the ones we've discussed on SCL:

1. Let's agree to disagree, but I'm pretty sure God uses a Mac.

2. Let's agree to disagree, but I'm almost positive that a "3 contemporary songs to 1 hymn" ratio is how they structure worship services in heaven.

3. Let's agree to disagree, but the NIV (1984 edition) is the greatest version of the Bible ever.

4. Let's agree to disagree, but those Willow Tree faceless Christian figurines are a little scary.

5. Let's agree to disagree, but the offering bucket is way better than the offering basket.

6. Let's agree to disagree, but if your VBS does not have a jumpy thing, I'm not sure you're really "loving on" your community.

7. Let's agree to disagree, but what a side hug lacks in warmth it makes up in speed of delivery.

8. Let's agree to disagree, but I'd prefer you use the gnarled church pencil instead of borrowing/stealing my uniball micro pen during church.

9. Let's agree to disagree, but I think people who always correct you and say, "the Sabbath is actually a Saturday" aren't any fun to invite to parties.

10. Let's agree to disagree, but I believe that secretly every pastor wants to do a crazy sermon on the Song of Solomon.

11. Let's agree to disagree, but sitting in a pew feels at least 17% more "churchy" then sitting in a seat.

12. Let's agree to disagree, but I still contend that giving someone a back massage during the middle of a sermon is distracting.

13. Let's agree to disagree, but now that I am a dad, I'm glad there are some Christian radio stations that are "safe for the whole family."

14. Let's agree to disagree, but the bootleg cookies you get at VBS do not accurately reflect the majesty and awesomeness of God.

15. Let's agree to disagree, but the guy who screams "Jesus!!!" at concerts is probably worshiping but he's also screaming directly in your cochlea.

16. Let's agree to disagree, but it's not a sin to keep your eyes cracked during the prayer so you can watch the secret society of "people who move things off stage" go to work.

17. Let's agree to disagree, but there were a ton of Jesus Jukes when Bin Laden was killed.

18. Let's agree to disagree, but staring at the sound guy when something messes up probably doesn't help fix the sound issue.

19. Let's agree to disagree, but I believe the most powerful person at a church is the secretary.

20. Let's agree to disagree, but sometimes we spend more time arguing about the faith of U2, than we do sharing our faith with our neighbors.

21. Let's agree to disagree, but it's hard to follow someone's very serious/sad prayer request with something of your own that is light hearted.

22. Let's agree to disagree, the digital age is awesome, but no app will ever surpass the warmth and effectiveness of the flannelgraph.

23. Let's agree to disagree, but I think every guy who ever attended a Christian camp secretly wished he was the guy with the acoustic guitar that only knew three chords.

24. Let's agree to disagree, but the first and third verses of a hymn are vastly superior to the second and fourth verses.

25. Let's agree to disagree, but there is no such thing as "," too many times.

Whoa, I feel better already. My friend Rachel Held Evans did a restore unity event last week on her blog and I'd like to think that I played a tiny roll in doing that same thing today. Unless you're reading this while wearing pleated pants. Everyone knows flat front pants and/or jeans aren't nearly as judgmental as pleated pants. Let's agree to disagree.

Have you ever encountered a minor issue that got major debate, requiring someone to throw out a "Let's agree to disagree?"

Did you disagree with anything on my list today?

Quitter comes out Wednesday!

We decided to push the release date of my new book Quitter back a day. We printed a whole bunch of books and they should be available on Wednesday.

If you ordered on DaveRamsey.com we'll be shipping them your way today. (And you'll get an email with the audio book in it.) Look for an exclamation-laden post about the release of the book tomorrow.

Thanks

Jon