Jon Acuff's Blog, page 153

#2 in 2010: The Jesus Juke

(I was surprised by the reaction to the phrase, "Jesus Juke." People emailed me t-shirt designs, it got turned into a hashtag on Twitter, #JesusJuke, and became something I actually say in conversations, e.g. "The guy just juked me." I didn't expect that to happen, but let me clear up one misconception. Don't confuse a rebuke with a Jesus Juke. One in does in love and causes change, one is done in pride and causes shame. They're antonyms not synonyms. Thanks for all the great comments the first time around on this one!)

The Jesus Juke

Weird things happen to me when I fly. If you followed me on Twitter you would know this because I tend to have "tweet explosions," when I'm at airports.

Last Sunday morning, as our plane lifted off the ground, the person behind me started to play what sounded like a pan flute. Just as we began to soar above the clouds, we were greeted with a Zamfir melody from what I can only assume was some sort of satyr. In his defense, the flight attendant did not say, "Please return your seats to their upright position, carefully stow your carry on luggage and put your pan flute back in its elk skin satchel." He had every right to play that beautiful wooden instrument and play he did.

At another airport I went to, a humongous bodybuilder spent his time in the terminal doing ferocious push ups right beside me. I tweeted about it and folks told me to prove it with a photo. Not likely. One of my rules for twitter is never snap photos of people who can snap you. And this guy could have broken me in half like a thin blogger branch.

But in all the responses from people asking me questions about the terminal B2 bodybuilder, one stuck out. It was different than the rest, but is something I am growing familiar with.

I call it the "Jesus Juke."

Like a football player juking you at the last second and going a different direction, the Jesus Juke is when someone takes what is clearly a joke filled conversation and completely reverses direction into something serious and holy.

In this particular case, when I tweeted a joke about the guy doing pushups, someone tweeted me back, "Imagine If we were that dedicated in our faith, family, and finances?"

I was fine with that idea, I was, but it was a Jesus Juke. We went from, "Whoa, there's a mountain of a man doing pushups next to the Starbucks at the airport," to a serious statement about the lack of discipline we have in our faith and our family and our finances.

I don't know how to spell it, but in my head I heard that sad trumpet sound of "whaaaa, waaaa."

And that wasn't even a bad Jesus Juke. I didn't mind that statement at all. That guy seemed fine. I've heard much worse. I once tweeted about going to see Conan O'Brien live and how big the crowd was. Someone wrote back, "If we held a concert for Jesus and gave away free tickets, no one would come." Whaaa, waaaa.

Chances are you've experienced this. Someone pulled the Christian version of the Debbie Downer, they threw out a bit of Jesus Juke on you. If you have, or even if you haven't, there are three things we all need to know about this particular move.

1. It generates shame.

The Jesus Juke is a great way to tell a friend, "I wish you possessed the uber holiness I do and were instead talking about sweet baby Jesus in this conversation." It's like a tiny little "shame grenade," you throw it into an otherwise harmless conversation and then watch it splatter everyone in guilt and condemnation.

2. It never leads to good conversation.

I've been Jesus Juked dozens of times in my life and I've never once seen it lead to a productive, healthy conversation. You might think it will before you juke, but what usually happens is just raw amounts of awkwardness, similar to how I felt sitting in a theater watching the Last Airbender.

3. I've never met someone who was "juked to Jesus."

I once tweeted, "No one's ever said: 'The way you bitterly mock other Christians helped me begin a life-changing love of Jesus' (Be kind)." I wrote that because I wanted to remind us that our jerkiness never led folks to Christ. I don't think our jukes do either. I don't really see it as a conversion technique. It's more of a conversation killer technique.

I hope we all keep talking about Jesus. I hope we talk about him lots and lots. I hope he defines our life and conversations. But if I tell you that when it comes to My Little Pony, I tend to prefer Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie and that Toola Roola has been riding their coattails for years, please don't respond, "You know who created ponies? Our Lord God did, that's who."

Has anyone ever pulled a "Jesus Juke" on you?

What's your favorite quote?

Last week, someone tweeted a picture that blew me away.

A guy named Ryan in Canada with an organization called "Hungry for Life" put a quote from my new book on the wall of their offices. Here is the photo:

The quote, which I shared online a few weeks ago says:

"If you're going to risk and maybe fail, fail at something that matters. Fail gloriously so that even in failure, lives change." I was deeply humbled by that and excited too because the book hasn't released yet and I think it's going to be a lot of fun when it does.

That photo got me thinking about quotes. It seems like we all have favorite Bible verses, or quotes from people that inspire us.

One of mine is from a counselor I went to in Atlanta named Chuck. He said:

"Wrestling with God is not a bad thing. It's impossible to wrestle with someone who is far away from you. You can only wrestle someone who is close to you. Sometimes we interpret it as failure, but I think God sees it as intimacy."

What's a quote you love? Maybe you have it as the signature of your email or even tattooed on your arm. Is it Twain? Or King David? Or a million other people?

What's your favorite quote?

Sermon Note Turning.

(Growing up, I was a sermon note doodler. I wasn't as good as the winner of our "bulletin bored" contest, but I had some skills. I'd draw on additions to the illustration of the church building, fill in all the "O's" and occasionally add mustaches if anyone's photo was in the bulletin. Thick, handsome, Godly mustaches. Now that I'm grown up, I don't do that. Or I do it a lot less often. But it turns out I'm not the only one with a weird approach to sermon notes. In today's great guest post, Robert Campbell points out 4 other types of folks you'll encounter when it comes to sermon notes. Enjoy! )

Corporate Sermon Note Turning

There is a moment in every sermon when you reach the end of the page of sermon notes and everyone turns the page in 'mostly' corporate unison. I call it Corporate Sermon Note Turning. This simple act of paper flipping & swishing through the air often has a even greater success rate than clapping together during a worship song. We're all on the same page, literally. Whether we're flipping through the bulletin to find the notes or actually going to page two of a multi-page sermon, we're all in this together!

After months of studying this phenomenon, I've discovered 4 approaches you might find in your church:

1. The Alpha Page Turner

When it comes to sermon note turning, the Alpha Page Turner dominates. They have to be the leader in everything they do. The Pastor can barely get the last syllable started before this person has furiously filled in the blank & sent cellulose flying. We're talkin NASCAR pit crew kind of speed here. They take it so seriously they pre-lick their fingers for better grip when it comes time for a rapid fire page flip.

2. The Conscientious Objector

Somewhere along the way of modern church history, a pastor heard that people retain 50% more information if they write it down and the age of "Fill in the Blank Sermon Notes" was born. But your Conscientious Objector begs to differ. Don't worry about me, my mind is like a steel trap. To write it down, would be redundant, it's all in here.

3. The Mad Libber

This person takes Sermon Notes to a whole other dimension by ignoring the contents of the notes entirely and instead, they fill the blanks in with random Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Biblical Figures, Quotes from Psalms, etc. Once the last blank is complete, they read the notes from start to finish. The Mad Libber is easy to identify by their snorting & giggling during the sermon. Unfortunately, they don't really contribute anything to the unified sermon note turning experience since they turn pages entirely out of rhythm with the rest of the congregation.

4. The Unfashionably Late

This one is easy to spot. Just wait for the joyful noise of the Corporate Sermon Note Turning to diminish to a faint echo. The Unfashionably Late will suddenly realize they've missed the boat and start scrambling to get blanks filled & paper turned. You might also hear them ask a pew neighbor, "Hey, what was the answer for number 3?"

Have you ever experienced corporate sermon note turning? Does your church use sermon notes? Do you follow along?

#3 in 2010: Not knowing how to tell someone their favorite book didn't completely change your life too.

(This one was funny to me because it happens so often. A friend promises you that a book 180 pages long is going to forever change the very fiber of your existence. And when it doesn't you have to let them down easy. This was the #3 most popular post in 2010)

Not knowing how to tell someone their favorite book didn't completely change your life too.

Christians don't casually recommend books. When we read a book about faith that we like, we say things like:

"This book changed my life."

"That book spoke to my heart."

"That book taught me how to be a man."

We make wildly powerful statements about the wisdom shared between the pages of a book. And that's great. Passion is a good thing, but it does create a potential problem. What do you do if you read the book too and didn't have the same experience?

My middle brother is experiencing that right now. Just the other night he called and asked, "How do I let someone know that the book that changed the fabric of their very soul, didn't change mine?"

That's a legit question, because when you believe that a book changed your heart, you tend to take it personally when someone else didn't have the same experience. You'll get riled up if you loved Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell and someone else thought it had

a

lot

of

fractured rhythm

sentences.

Think I'm exaggerating? Today on Twitter, tweet, "The Shack didn't really do it for me. I don't see what the big deal is." And then prepare for the firestorm.

But again, what do you do if you didn't love the book too?

I have four ideas on how to handle this delicate situation:

1. Talk about politics

Last Friday a friend of mine named Rachel wrote a short guest post about politics on Stuff Christians Like. That one post got 767 comments. Whoa. That's why I recommend going "OG" when you find yourself in an awkward conversation. And although you probably think I mean "Original Gangster," because I'm so street, that's not what I'm talking about. If you ever want to change the topic in a conversation, throw an "Obama Grenade." Simply say, "Hey, what do you think about Obama." Kaboom! There is no way they'll talk about their book when you've just ignited that one.

2. Compliment something other than the content

Call this the "Friends" technique. On that show, when the character Joey would perform in a horrible TV show, Ross and Chandler would compliment things other than his performance. Like the lighting, "Wow, look how great that scene was lit." Same goes here. If you didn't like the book they loved, say something like, "What kind of paper is this printed on? It's got a nice thickness. Feels great to the touch." Or "What's the font on this, is that a serif?"

3. Fall asleep

My neighbor's four-year old will make herself fall asleep if she gets in trouble. Right in the middle of a lecture, she will lay down and fall asleep, waking hours later safely out of the conversation. Yeah, this is going to be weird, at first, but if you're at Starbucks, ball up some napkins into a little pillow and then just start slumbering. Your friend will eventually leave and you get a nap. Win, win.

4. Be honest

Always an option, always an option. Just be honest and say, "This 174 page book by a 32 year old guy with a soul patch taught you how to be a man? Really? Really?" OK, don't say that exactly. Cause that's pretty jerky. But just be honest. And ask what they loved about the book. That's all.

I wrote this list because I've been the guy who loved a certain book only to have a friend say, "Really?"

I love books like, "Bird by Bird," and "The War of Art" but not everyone does.

How about you, what is a book, other than the Bible, that you would say changed your life or really challenged you?

Winner of West Coast Catalyst Tickets

The winner of the 2 free West Coast Catalyst lab and main stage tickets is Seth Rowoldt. Email me Seth and I will make sure you get them.

Can't wait to see a bunch of you guys/girls out at West Coast Catalyst!

The problem every church wants.

I once heard Rob Bell joke that every pastor hopes to have one specific problem – a parking problem. Nothing makes a pastor happier about church attendance than hearing that there are so many people coming that there aren't enough parking spaces. As a pastor's kid, I have to agree. My dad certainly wanted to make sure we had enough space, but I never heard him once complain that too many people were coming to his church. Recently, I experienced another "problem" that every church wants …

The overcrowded service.

A few weeks ago, Blake Bergstrom at Cross Point asked people in the 10:00 service to think about attending a different service. That is always an incredibly awkward topic, second only to the pastor tithing disclaimer of "I never preach about money …except today," but Blake knocked it out of the park.

He covered all the bases: We don't have enough seats, there are people sitting on the floor, visitors are leaving, God will bless you financially if you go to a different service.

He said that last one and it was a brilliant joke to break the tension. If your church ever has this problem, I hope they address it as perfectly as Blake did. But you should know that there are a few things you will think when you are asked to attend a different service.

1. When do I lose my visitor status?

The "please change services" message is about creating more room for visitors. Am I still a visitor? We moved to Nashville last August, so we haven't been going to Cross Point for that long. Is there an official visitor/regular threshold we've already crossed? Like a 90-day probationary period at a new job? Or is "visitor" status based on the amount of time you've been a Christian? If that's the case, I wasn't a visitor the very first time I visited the church.

2. What if they've been lying to me about 10:00 being the best crowd?

Telling a church crowd that they sing louder or better than another service is a time honored tradition at church. I believe that the 10:00 service is comprised of the best singers and most awake members. I believe that because I know I've heard a worship leader say, "It was hard to learn this new song so early in the morning, but you guys are wide awake and this is going to sound awesome." Translation 8:30 service? "All I do is win at 10." But what if I go to the 8:30 service and realize it's all been a ruse? What if they're saying the same thing to the 8:30 crowd?

3. What if the crowd follows me to another service?

Not because it's me or because I smell nice, although I do, but what if everyone at 10 decides to go to the 8:30? And then I have to leave that one cause it gets crowded? So I go to the 6:00, but the traveling gypsy camp of church attendees all ends up attending that one so I have to go to an entirely different campus? The mysterious "Dickson" campus our pastor Pete Wilson is always saying hello to via video. Instead of dissipating across multiple services, will the tide of our 10:00 crowd flow to a new service like a bowling ball going through a hose?

4. Is this like the reverse of a sinking ship?

When a ship sinks, the motto they use is "Women and children first," to make sure that they get into the life boats. Is encouraging people to go to a different service the opposite principle? "Single adults and couples without kids first?" Our house is a well oiled machine on Sunday mornings, balancing the 400 factors that getting kids ready for Sunday School demands. When I was single or married without kids, I'm almost positive I had a leisurely breakfast on Sunday, did the New York Times crossroad puzzle and took a morning jog before getting ready for church at my own pace. (At least that's how I remember it in my head.) Do families with kids get to jump off the 10:00 service last? Or is that just one more way to make it difficult to be single at church?

Ultimately, it's a great "problem" to have and I am really excited to see what's going on at our church. We're trying to figure out which service to go to and all options are open at this point. We passed the age where it is considered trauma beyond trauma for our toddlers to have a different Sunday School teacher each week, so we need to be flexible.

Have you ever been asked to attend a different service?

Which service do you attend if you go to church? Early morning? Midday? Evening?

Win 2 tickets to Catalyst West Coast!

As always, Catalyst is putting on a crazy Wes Coast event this year March 2-4. The lineup includes Dave Ramsey, Matt Chandler, Andy Stanley, me and … Reverend Run. As in Run DMC.

Today is the last day to lock in the early registration rate. (Click here to get tickets and use the code FOB to save 10%.)

Knowing how street I am, and that I grew up breakdancing to Run DMC, Brad Lomenick from Catalyst said that I could give away two tickets today. These are two tickets for both the lab sessions (where you'll see me) and the main sessions.

So here's the deal. Let's give these two tickets away with a comment contest. I'll pick a winner tomorrow morning using a random number generator. (Don't enter if you're not absolutely positive you can go)

All you have to do to enter is post a comment answering this question by midnight tonight:

"What's your favorite Run DMC song?"

I'm a huge fan of this guy.

As we continue to redesign SCL, I wanted to take a quick second and recognize the guy who built the original SCL.

A few years ago, John Saddington took Stuff Christians Like from a flat, dull, blogspot free template to a fun, vibrantly designed site. I was terrified of the process because I lost my first blog due to some technical idiocy on my part. But from the front end to the back end, he completely wowed me. Not only did he design the site, we still use the WordPress theme he designed, Standard, because it's widely considered one of the best ever developed. If you ever want to connect with one of the premier voices in blogging and social media, check out John Saddington.

Finishing what we didn't start.

The only business I ever started ended up punching my marriage in the face, ruining an important friendship and ripping off the church my grandmother has attended for 30 years.

It was such an abject failure that if there had been whipped cream pies and people running quickly after each other with a musical background we could have filmed an episode of Benny Hill.

I was tired of my corporate job and felt like I was supposed to do something else with my life. After praying for zero minutes and refusing to listen to any of the cautions from my wife, I decided to start my own advertising agency.

I partnered with a friend from church and we signed my grandmother's church on as our first client. After months of under delivering on all our promises and realizing we were both woefully ill equipped to run a business, we decided to close the business. The church asked us to complete one last open project and give them back all the remaining money that had initially paid us since we had failed to honor our commitments.

My partner sent them the check. We were done! Or so I thought. I got a voice mail a few days later in the parking lot of a day job I was trying to escape. It said, "Hi Jon, this is 'I forget what her name was' with the church. The check you sent us bounced. Please call me."

I wanted to throw up. It turns out that the partner had done something wrong. He was in a personal financial crisis and had taken all the money. It was gone. As someone who has made epic mistakes of my own, I don't put what he did in a different category of "mess-up." We're both broken people in different ways, but when the truth came out about the money, the situation wrecked our friendship. Although the church graciously offered to forgive our debt, my wife and I decided that it's always a good policy to not take money from a church, so we decided to pay them back personally. Clearly, despite having an emergency fund, we had not anticipated writing a check of a few thousand dollars to a church, so that significantly strained our relationship for a little while. (God bless my wife for never saying the phrase, "I told you so.")

I've written about that story before, but recently I started to think about why I started that ad agency in the first place. I think there was part of me that was just so tired of waiting on God. I knew in my heart that He called me to use my talents for him, and when I felt like that was not happening at the pace I preferred, I took things into my own hands. I thought, "This day job can't be what I do with my life. Fine, you gave me a fuzzy dream, I'll use my own wisdom to clarify it for you. I'll start a Christian advertising agency."

The consistent word in those thoughts is easy to see, "I." When I feel panicked or stuck or stress, "I" want to fix "me." And the time frame I usually give myself when I try to control life is "right now." I want instant fixes to my problems.

Have you ever done that? Have you ever found yourself in a corner and thought, "OK, this marriage, this dream, this idea, is not going exactly where I anticipated it going. I better get busy fixing it. It's on me, to hustle and come up with a plan to change it all."

Maybe you haven't, but the times I've done that, I have failed in horrible ways. When I grew tired of my job as a interactive copywriter at Staples, I took things into my own hands and found a new job at a software company. I was so eager to jump from where I was that I didn't even look at where I was landing. I didn't know anything about software, I had no idea what CRM stood for and within a matter of months, that entire company had gone out of business. (About a month after I got married and moved my Georgian wife to Massachusetts for my job. In laws love that move. Awesome.)

And as I stand on the precipice of launching a new book and continue figuring out this crazy Dave Ramsey adventure in Nashville, I hear the siren's call to control everything myself in order to ensure success. But I've learned something recently.

It's not my job to finish what God started.

It's not my job to complete the work He began in his way, with my ways.

It's not my job to wrestle control back from him, even if the adventure feels out of control.

You see this happen all the time in the Bible. One of my favorite examples is with Abraham. In Genesis 20, Abraham gets caught for the second time lying that Sarah is his sister not his wife. The ruler Abraham deceived, Abimelek says, "What was your reason for doing this?" Abraham explains:

"I said to myself, 'There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.' Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. And when God had me wander from my father's household, I said to her, 'This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my brother."'"

I love the technicality Abraham tries to throw out, but that's not the line that really gets me. The sentence that kills me, the phrase I think we all say in different ways is this:

"And when God had me wander from my father's household, I __________"

What he's saying there is, "When God sent me on an adventure away from everything I knew or felt comfortable with or understood, I had to take things into my own hands." And we say that too, don't we?

When God sent me to a job without making it clear why I was there, I decided to find another one as fast as I could.

When God gave me a big opportunity, I decided to make sure it succeeded by working 80 hours a week to the detriment of my family.

When God called me to ________, I knew I had to take control and do ____________.

When we feel stressed or confused about the wandering God introduces into our lives, it's so easy to try to fix it ourselves. In big ways and small ways, we take steps away from the plan God has for us in our desire to solve it or finish it or complete it.

But it's not my job to finish the work the Lord started. I'll be present to it, I'll be part of it, I will steward the opportunity to the best of the abilities he has given me. But I don't want try to game the outcome or manipulate the situation when I face the fears that come with wandering.

He's God. I'm Jon. When I remember that simple arrangement, life goes so much better.

I'm bringing dinner back. (My new E-Mealz Idea)

Sometimes, I think our culture views having dinner together as a family as something that's "old fashioned." That might have worked for Norman Rockwell and Little House on the Prairie, but those butter churning, corn cobb pipe whittlin' days are long behind us. The modern family is too busy to connect at the table like that anymore.

Which was why I was surprised to see the ultra modern, not even a smidge old fashioned, Huffington Post do an article recently titled, "How eating at home can save your life."

Here are some insane things the article pointed out:

Research shows that children who have regular meals with their parents do better in every way, from better grades, to healthier relationships, to staying out of trouble.
Kids who have regular meals are 42 percent less likely to drink.
They are 50 percent less likely to smoke.
They are 66 percent less like to smoke marijuana.
Regular family dinners protect girls from bulimia, anorexia, and diet pills.
Family dinners also reduce the incidence of childhood obesity.

As a dad, I don't take those bullet points lightly. And as I mentioned last Wednesday, I've realized recently how out of whack my priorities have been lately. I haven't been focusing very well on the things that matter most.

This year, I will travel more than I ever have before in my life. Although I will protect my time at home and balance my days on the road, it will be far too easy for our family dinners to fall apart.

Maybe it's a challenge for your family too. Maybe you can't remember the last time everyone sat down at the dinner table for 30 minutes without the TV or the iPhones or the Blackberries as invited guests. Maybe you're so on the go that like the Huffington Post article said, you eat "more meals in the minivan than in the kitchen." I don't know the specifics of your situation, but I do want to challenge me and challenge you.

The only problem is that Stuff Christians Like isn't a food blog or a parenting blog or a mom blog. (Though I sometimes wish it were. Mom blogs get crazy traffic!) I respect the concept of what SCL is too much to try to cram a dinner challenge into it.

But the number one sponsor of Stuff Christians Like has a food blog. Their mission is to strengthen families through something as simple as a home cooked meal. Their support of this site is a big part of the reason I get to write each day. And they have graciously offered to host my "bringing dinner back" challenge.

Here's what I'm thinking.

Starting on February 4th , I'm going to blog every Friday on the E-Mealz blog. For three months, I'll tell you how many days our family had a meal together each week and tell you some of the things that happened around the dinner table. If you follow me on Twitter, you know my kids are like tiny comedians. So I assure you it will be funny.

If you're up for it, I'd love to have you do it too. I'd love for you to be deliberate with me to bring dinner back. I'd love for you to comment on the posts and talk trash about the number of days you're family had dinner together that week. (Count from Saturday to Friday each week.) Think of it kind of like a dinner fantasy football league. Just like I mentioned yesterday that having a community approach to reading through the Bible has helped me stay consistent, I think working as a team on bringing dinner back would be fun.

My family is going to use E-Mealz wicked easy recipes to increase our chance of success. They're only $5 a month and if you enter "SCL" in the promo code, it's even cheaper. The Huffington Post made a great point about cooking. "We complain of not having enough time to cook, but Americans spend more time watching cooking on the Food Network than actually preparing their own meals." Since the recipe planning and list making is all done for you, E-Mealz makes it simple to find the time to cook.

I'm excited about this and hope you'll give it a try with me.

Let's bring dinner back.