Jon Acuff's Blog, page 157

Sinning in jealousy over people who got iPads for Christmas.

I don't mean to start an argument, but it's pretty clear that God would use an iPhone and not a Blackberry. That is of course if he didn't choose angels, bushes or donkeys, methods he relied on in the Bible. And his call would never get dropped, even if he was at the Catalyst Conference and 13,000 other people were trying to tweet at the same exact time.

Why would he prefer Apple over Blackberry? For one, the fruit used to symbolize the knowledge of good and evil was an apple. The blackberry doesn't even make a cameo in Genesis. And he wouldn't need actual buttons to press like on the Blackberry. He's God. You think he needs a full size keyboard to get down? In fact, he wouldn't even touch the iPhone, but merely just pass by and where he had been, the right letters would have been submitted.

It seems pretty clear to me, but again, I'm what they call a "Titan of Theology." Something else that seems pretty clear to me is that right now, sinning in jealously over people who got iPads for Christmas is at an all time high. Why?

The signature Apple puts in emails you send from an iPad.

At the bottom of every email that goes out from the device, there is a sentence that reads,

"Sent from my iPad."

This is not new. For years the iPhone has said the same thing, "Sent from my iPhone."

For Apple, it's a brilliant marketing strategy. They are essentially attaching an ad to every email you send to every business contact or friend you message. And it is costing them $0.

But the first time I saw that, I didn't read it the right way. Here is what it said:

"Sent from my iPhone."

Here is how I read it:

"Sent from my iPhone, a magical happiness device that you don't have Jon Acuff. If you purchased one your life would be 42% more awesome almost instantly but financially you can't afford one right now, in large part because you are a loser. Enjoy pushing the buttons on your borderline Amish phone. What is that thing made of, cedar? Touch the screen on your junky phone all you want, nothing is going to happen you caveman."

Now clearly that was not the intended message from my friends who sent me emails. A lot of them didn't even know you could change the signature. Which is what I did, when I got an iPhone. I changed it to, "This is short and not funny because it was sent from my iPhone." That felt a little better.

But now with Christmas a few days behind us, there are thousands of new iPad owners sending out emails, that might make us feel a little jealous. That's why when someone gave me one this year, I decided to change the email signature to one of three things:

1. Sent from a device that justifies, if not warrants, spelling mistakes, grammar errors and sarcasm that will initially be misinterpreted as unkindness but later explained as insight by me.

2. Sent from a device I use to read the Bible, paper being so wildly inconvenient.

3. Sent from a device that was a completely unexpected gift from a very generous person. I am grateful and am aware of the current unemployment rate. Quit writing that Jesus Juke response email you're working on right now.

Feel free to use any of those. Those are free to you, the SCL readership.

But be honest, have you ever been jealous of someone who owned an iPhone, iPad or Mac laptop? This is a safe place. You're amongst friends. Let it all out.

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Already being behind on your read through the Bible in a year plan.

Today, gyms across the world will be full. Folks with new workout clothes and resolutions that have not yet broken will be climbing about strange looking gym equipment like spider monkeys with the fervor January always ushers in. This is the adult version of the college student working out before spring break. I did that. A week before we went to the beach, I would go into the gym and do only two exercises: Bench press and bicep curls. Then, if that didn't "take," I would do push ups right before we went out onto the sandy shores of Panama City Beach for "Beach MTV." I distinctly remember debating whether a push up was worth putting my bare hands on the floor of the incredibly seedy motels we would clown car 7 guys into each Spring Break. (The "core" didn't exist when I was in college in 1998 or I might have worked that out too.)

What's the Christian version of the gym resolution? Reading through the Bible in a year. And even though it's only January 3rd, some of you have already fallen behind on the plan. (A year starting on a Saturday is so unfair. Today should be day one. Nobody starts something new on the weekend. New was made for Monday!)

But if you haven't fallen behind, if you're trying to stay on track, please accept some pointers from someone who usually reads through a year study in about two and a half years.

1. Don't get suckered in by the stories.

In most front to back Bible plans, you've only read Genesis 1-7 so far by January 3. That's Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Noah. That's like the Die Hard trilogy! Action packed! But beware, some "begets" are coming, lineage is on it's way.

2. Look out for lineage.

I'm not sure if you know this or not, but the sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek and Tiras. That's where you're headed my friend, right into the land of lineage. I'm not sure if Biblically we're allowed to skim sections that say, "Gomer beget Ashkenaz," (We need a ruling on that from someone who has gone to seminary) but there will be some random nuggets mixed in there. For instance, Nimrod was a "mighty hunter before the Lord." Not sure if that's the first image we all think of with that name anymore.

3. Don't get hung up on translation updates.

I'm reading through the updated NIV right now and in Genesis 4:1, it says, "Adam made love to his wife Eve." I felt like I had never heard that before and looked in my older version of the NIV which says, "Adam lay with his wife." Those are two very different phrases to me. One is what I assumed folks in the OT did. The other reminds me of Prince and Boys II Men. At this point, I'm thinking, "this is what it sounds like, when doves cry," and have completely lost my train of thought. Don't be like me. Stay focused.

4. Make it easy.

We Christians get crazy legalistic when it comes to reading through the Bible in a year. "It's got to be my black leather Bible, in this chair, at this time of day, with this pen in my hand, while having a peppermint mocha coffee heated to 120 degrees or my reading doesn't 'count' that day." Don't be that guy to yourself. I'm going through the Bible with a group of guys right now and we're reading it on YouVersion. It's online, it's easy to use and with an iPhone in my hand it eliminates the excuse, "I can't find my Bible, oh well, guess I'll skip my reading."

5. Go through it with friends.

I might be the first person in history to talk trash about a Bible reading plan, but that's probably going to happen if one of my friends misses a day. I'll follow the James model of rebuke, but also probably take some pointers from my fantasy basketball league on how to call out a friend on a blog in love. Going through the Bible with friends makes it fun and a whole lot easier to stay honest about your progress.

6. Start mentally preparing for Leviticus.

That book will break you. I promise. Unless you have some very specific questions about mold. It's a beautiful book, but 87% of all read through the Bible plans jump the sea cow right here. (That will make sense once you get to Leviticus.)

I'm three for three so far this year and just finished reading Genesis 11 this morning. I even made it through some begets while learning about the linage of Arphaxad. Remember that guy? He used to hang with Lud, but definitely not Hazarmaveth. I digress.

Any tips you'd suggest to read through the Bible in a year?

Have you ever done that? Are you doing it this year?

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Blog reviews start this week!

A few weeks ago I did a blog promotion with my new book "Gazelles, Baby Steps and 37 Other Things Dave Ramsey Taught Me About Debt." If you bought the book on a certain day, I offered to do a review of your blog. About 350 folks took me up on that, which is awesome. Now that Christmas is over and we can all focus on blogs, I'm beginning to go through the reviews. Over the next two months, if you participated, I will review your blog and email you a couple of ideas on things you could do to grow it.

We might do something like this again when the book hits Amazon and possibly some retail stores so folks outside the country can participate. But for the meantime, thank you for supporting the book and expect an email from me!

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Thank you.

If you don't follow me on Twitter, you might have missed what I said last night when the clock turned over to 2011:

"Happy New Year! Thanks for reading the SCL blog/book and being my friend. Your kindness in 2010 was life changing."

I wrote that because it's true. Without you reading this blog and supporting what we've done all year I wouldn't have been able to publish two books, move my family to Nashville, travel the country telling people they're not naked, work for Dave Ramsey and most importantly save 3,300 people in Uganda from malaria. (The 1st batch of nets were delivered a few weeks ago and GPS coordinates are being processed. I'll do an update in the next two weeks.)

Maybe next week I'll do a recap of the year, but for today, I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you for a great 2010. We've got some crazy things coming in 2011. You ready?

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Adventures in Odyssey.

(For some reason, I don't have a lot of memories of the show "Adventures in Odyssey." He-man, GI Joe, Transformers? I could talk about those all day, but when it comes to Focus on the Family's wildly popular radio drama, I got nothing. Fortunately, Jonathan Friday is here with a guest post. I promise that is not me writing under a pseudonym but actually a real live person checking in with a guest post. Enjoy.)

Stuff Christians Like: Adventures in Odyssey

Parents around the world have found twenty years of Focus on the Family's radio drama to be thrilling entertainment – or at least, a welcome distraction on long car rides! And if you're a Millennial whose parents really loved you, every Christmas brought packages just slightly larger than VHS clamshells, each containing six sparkling new cassette tapes!

But for some of us, Odyssey obsession goes too far. Here's the definitive, seven-point list for knowing you've listened to one too many of the 700 episodes.

1. When the Holy Spirit convicts you, he sounds just like John Avery Whittaker.

Aslan, Neo, and Optimus Prime can all step down. When I look for divine qualities in fictional characters, I turn to the man who, if he was any more holy, could turn water into chocolate sodas. And when God speaks to me, sometimes I'd swear he has a mustache.

2. You think that all of Colorado has one zip code.

Watch, I'm a mind reader. I say, "Colorado Springs, Colorado…." You say? "…80995." Amazing, huh?

3. You can tell which "Whit" is which.

Speaking of Whit, you're only a true Odyssey fan if you can instantly tell which of the three voice actors is playing the character in any given episode. You're really obsessed if you know that the original also played the drunk on Andy Griffith. (Did I ruin anyone's childhood with that factoid?)

4. You've been to Whit's End.

If you visit Focus on the Family's headquarters, you'll find an ice cream shop that, if you sorta squint, could almost pretend to be the real thing. Until they ring up your total. Somehow, Whit never charged for all those sundaes.

5. You know Odyssey's real location.

Until recently, I didn't realize how serious a hobby this can be. The Odyssey writers aren't always real hot on consistency (with 700 episodes, who can blame 'em?) so diehard online fans run in circles trying to pin down the exact location. And if you can believe a town so near to Chicago also borders a mountain range, I have some oceanfront property in Oklahoma to sell you….

6. You have no idea what your first crush looked like.

Whether it was Connie, Chris, Mandy, or poor Lucy What's-Her-Name, let's face it – you would never actually recognize your favorite actress if she walked right by you. (But that voice!)

7. Your kids don't play "pretend" – they play "Imagination Station."

It's the ultimate plot device – a machine that no one understands. So far, we've established it can do your homework, take you back in time, resurrect killed-off characters, heal people, and even take you on a personal tour of H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks. Can it also cure Bieber Fever? We can only hope.

Well, that's my list. But I know there are others here who know their Cunninghams from their Schultzes. What defines a true Adventures in Odyssey lover?

Did you ever listen to Adventures in Odyssey?

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Bootlegging Christian Music.

The first two lines of my book, Stuff Christians Like are, "If you buy this book, God will make you rich. I was going to say, 'If you read this book,' but I'm pretty sure people who get it at the library won't receive the same amount of awesomeness as people who buy it."

I wrote that as a joke, but also as a stern reminder that when it comes to the book Stuff Christians Like, you should buy it in triplicate or "wheelbarrow-full" instead of getting it at the library. What you really shouldn't do is photocopy the entire thing, a feat that would admittedly require an industrial stapler and the strength of former World's Strongest Man, Magnus ver Magnusson. As an author, I don't really have to worry about people bootlegging my book. Unlike music, no one can easily make a copy of the entire book. Even if they did, they would feel a tremendous amount of guilt because every Christian knows it's ten times  worse to bootleg Christian materials than it is non-Christian.

I learned this a few years ago when a friend brought home a few pirated movies he purchased in a rough section of Atlanta. Some of them looked good and you could actually enjoy the film. Some though looked like the time Kramer bootlegged a movie on Seinfeld. It was just one shaky handed gentleman holding a camera in a crowded theater. People walked through the shot, kids were talking, someone sneezed. It was horrible.

I didn't have a problem looking through his collection of movies until I came to the last one. Guess what it was?

"The Passion of the Christ."

"Oh no," I remember thinking, "I'm pretty sure we're allowed to bootleg secular stuff, even though cool people no longer say that word, but we're not supposed to bootleg Christian stuff. I think that's in the book of Joel maybe."

The distinction I drew in my head was ridiculous. Whether it's a Christian piece of media or not isn't the real issue. I shouldn't bootleg any of it. But maybe it's no longer a problem now that there are so many legitimate ways to listen to music for free. Pandora, Grooveshark, and YouTube make it easy to sample stuff you want to buy. And a lot of artists actually give away whole albums these days.

Am I the only one who ever felt extra weird burning a Christian CD? Did you ever photocopy some Bible study plan you know you should have purchased instead and thought, "I hope there's not a verse in there about not stealing?"

Am I the only one who has ever thought this way?

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Going back.

Someday, I need to go to Africa.

My uncle Bill helped start a school in Kenya that I want to visit. More than 480 students attend the school where they get housing, three meals a day, clothing and an education. A large percentage of the children that attend are victims of the AIDS crisis that is ravaging Africa. One couple who are friends with my uncle adopted a young girl there who was born HIV positive. Typically, if there is going to be an adoption of this type, it happens when the child is still a baby. But this little girl had been passed over and spent the first 5 years of her life waiting to be adopted.

When the couple came to speak at my dad's church, the father said something interesting about the little girl. He said "We kept hoping that she would be disobedient and break the rules." As a young father, I have to confess this hope has never crossed my mind with my own children. Just this morning when I was leaving the house, my five-year-old was yelling at my seven-year-old for tricking her. My oldest daughter likes to wake up first and will usually Mission Impossible her way downstairs quietly before my youngest daughter wakes up. This morning, because they're sharing a room with our family in town, L.E. had to take a different route and told McRae, "You should snuggle all your dolls." Then while McRae enjoyed a sister inspired moment with her dolls, L.E. bolted for the stairs, leaving McRae in her dust.

In general, rule breaking is not something I wish for in our house. It seems like a strange thing for any father to hope for, but the father who adopted the orphan had a reason.

"When we first adopted her, she tried her hardest to be perfect. This little six year old girl was terrified that if she broke the rules she would be kicked out of our family and sent back to the orphanage. For her, breaking the rules would be a sign that she was comfortable and was no longer living in fear."

I've talked about this idea before, but it felt right today because we are on the precipice of a new season of perfect. It's December 29. In less than 72 hours, we'll have a chance to make a fresh start in a fresh year. The calendar will declare a do over, a new day in a new month and a new decade to live better and be better and try harder.

I know I can't be perfect. Past failures have made that crystal clear, but I still try sometimes. I still try to hold my breath and white knuckle my way back into the father's arms. Creating lists, manically measuring my quiet times, doing the yo-yo diet version of faith. I don't want to fail. I want to be perfect.

I want to free myself from the mess, clean my act up and string together a good solid month, of good solid living before I return to the God. But I'm not sure that is how God sees my life. In Psalm 103: 3-4, God is described as he "who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with compassion."

The word I love in that passage is "from." On the surface it's a transition word, but the reality is that "from" represents the difference between man and God. In the world, when you fall into a pit, you're expected to get back out. You dug it yourself, you climb out of it yourself. Get yourself together. Straighten up. Don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution. In every job you've ever had and most of the relationships you've been in, this verse would read, "who redeems your life after the pit."

But in God's world, He comes to the pit. He redeems us from the pit. Not once we've managed to get out of it, but from the middle of it. From the deepest part of the pit. He gets down with us in the pit and rescues us from it. Not after it.

I'm sure that little girl in Kenya has failed at this point, that's kind of one of the things we all do. But I'm sure that when she shared that failure with her father, he didn't return her to the orphanage. Why?

Because rescue is a one way trip.

There will be no going back.

Whether she fails a 100 times or a million times, that decision was already made.

For you, for me, for all the imperfect people.

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I need your help with my next book.

Why?

Because we are becoming the "I'm, but generation."

Whenever I travel and meet people or connect online with folks, our conversation inevitably drifts toward a simple question, "What do you do?" The most common answer I hear, from people of all ages, is simple:

"I'm a __________, but I want to be a ___________."

In some form or another, I have heard this thought expressed a thousand times:

I'm an accountant, but I want to be an artist.

I'm a teacher, but I want to work on a water project.

I'm a project manager, but I want to start my own business.

I'm a stay at home mom, but I have a craft I really want to share with the world.

We are an ageless generation stuck between the things we feel called to do and the things we have to do. If you've ever felt a little sick to your stomach on Sunday afternoon because Monday was coming, you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever sat in a cubicle and thought, "This can't be what I do for the rest of my life," you know what I am talking about. If you've ever had an amazing experience and said, "Why can't this be my job? I wish I could do what makes me feel alive for 40 hours every week," you know what I'm talking about.

That is a frustration I've wrestled with for years. That is a tension I've talked about with my friends over and over again. That is a topic I am finding impossible to put down. The reason is that I feel like when we nurture our dream, when we're deliberate and work on it and follow through on it, crazy things can happen. Books get written, kindergartens in Vietnam get built, thousands of lives get saved across the planet.

If, we don't get crushed in the narrow gap between a day job and a daydream.

That's what my next book is about and I need your help.

If this sounds like something you've ever thought about before, if you've ever felt like your job wasn't using your to your full potential or that you weren't doing what God designed you to do, I'd like to talk with you.

I'd love to hear your story, even if it's just a five minute phone call. If you're up for that, email me. Send me 100 words or so about what you're doing right now and what you'd like to do. Tell me your location and send your phone number. I won't ever add you to any sort of mailing list or anything like that. I just want the book to be real and want to check in with you for a minute or two. If you're out of the country, email me your story, in any length you feel like writing. I might not get to call you, but it would still be great to hear.

This is the hardest book I've ever written, but I think it's going to be awesome when it's done. I'd dig your help in making it even awesomer. Which is technically not a word.

Thanks

Jon

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Candlelight services.

"Give me my fire."

That is what my 5-year-old said at church the other night when it was time to light our candles at the Christmas Eve Eve service. (We went on Thursday night.)

Now clearly, as a dad, you want her to say, "Please give me my fire," but I was willing to let it slide because I was so excited about the candles. That's easily one of my favorite traditions, but in my excitement I realized I've never really done that topic justice on Stuff Christians Like.

I've written one post about how as parents you spend every day of the year trying to keep fire out of your kids' hands but on Christmas Eve hand them an open flame. But there's so much more to this truly awesome experience. So many little details to be unearthed and SCL-ized. Which is why today, in a relatively quiet week on the site, and mere days after the event, I thought I would bring you this:

The 3 Types of Christmas Eve Church Candles.

1. The Plastic Cup Candle

This candle is just want it sounds like, a simple cylinder of white wax stuck inside a hard plastic cup with a thick lollipop like plastic stick poking out of the bottom. The beauty of this candle is that you never get burned by wax, as it all pools in the cup portion of the contraption. This is a high end candle. It's like the iPad of candles. The cup is practically a chalice and its solid construction allows for some series light saber fights with your younger brothers. If you're into that kind of thing. Which I am.

2. The Paper Disc Candle

You know when you shop online and sort items from high price to low? That's what we did today, so this is the silver medal option. In this version, your candle is simply pushed through a circle of paper with a star shape opening in the middle. The paper is often white with green text on it. This is a great option if you want a more authentic feeling experience than the plastic cup candle, which is a bit like a Donald Trump version of the candle. This is the one our church used. The only problem with these is that they wear out after a few years. The opening gets torn and bent to the point that hot wax just flows down the side of the candle directly onto your hand. That happened to us last week. I got some on my hand and almost screamed during a quiet moment. Seconds later, my 7 year old let out a near silent yelp and looked at me with a face of disbelief that said, "Seriously dad, did you just give me a hand fire? Is there not a mongoose you could put in my tiny mitts or maybe a switchblade instead?" I was proud of her for not dropping the flame and still consider this my favorite form of candle. (Hopefully my church will forever go this route.)

3. The Bare Candle

My friend's church in California didn't have covers at all. They gave a few to kids in the crowd but for the adults, they essentially said, "Suck it up you wusses. It's time to sing 'O Holy Night,' quit getting distracted by the molten wax that is cascading down the candle onto the soft parts of your hands." This is probably a cost saving measure. I'm sure those plastic covers cost a lot. Or maybe this is a postmodern/missional/emergent/relevant thing? Is it more postmodern to get your hands burned by wax or not to get your hands burned by wax? I always get those things confused.

Regardless of the type of candle, I hope this tradition continues. There's something really beautiful about this and I'm a fan of the candle approach. Maybe next year I'll bring my own. Would that be weird? Would it be awkward if I showed up with my own Cinnabon scented candle? Let's be honest, as I mentioned on Twitter, the scent of a Cinnabon is 87% more enjoyable than the actual experience of eating one. They sell the scent in candle form at Wal-mart. I'm just putting it out there.

Did your church do a candlelight service this year? Do you dig that kind of service too?

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2 quick questions.

Regular Stuff Christians Like returns tomorrow, Tuesday, December 28. In the meantime, I have two quick questions I am curious about:

1. What's the best gift you gave this year?

2. Did you travel or stay in town this Christmas?

(My brother and I gave my dad the complete series of Seinfeld and for the first time ever, we had Christmas in Franklin, Tennessee.)

How about you?

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