Jon Acuff's Blog, page 160

The repetition of redemption.

Sometimes, I treat God like a gun.

When I want to approach him, when I feel the need to be close to him, I imagine there is a waiting period, much like buying a handgun.

I can't go right in. I need to string together a good week first. I need a month of clean living. I need to not look at porn or lie or get angry or any other long list of sins for at least a few weeks before I go back to where he is.

In my head, I imagine that God wants me to return to him redeemed. The prodigal son did not just come home, he came home with a plan. And like a boss who wants me to provide solutions, not just problems, I must do the same.

This is how I think sometimes, when the world is quiet and I've already read all the shampoo bottles in the shower and there is nothing else to distract me. And I have thought this way for years. But, I think this might be wrong.

I'm starting to believe this because the Bible is such an overwhelmingly powerful redemption story. That is the drumbeat message that sounds out again and again and again.

One of my favorite examples is the story of Judah. He was one of the older brothers of Joseph. And his life, like many of the lives we see chronicled in the Bible, was a mess.

He sold his brother into slavery. This is a tremendous act of betrayal that sometimes gets lost in the general wildness of the Old Testament. But think about it this way, have you ever had a fight with a family member? You gossiped about them or missed their kid's recital or some other offense? It was tense and ugly and made Thanksgiving a little awkward. But you didn't sell them into slavery. You might have sworn in front of their kids too many times, but you didn't make some cash by selling their body to some slave traders in Ohio.

The second part of Judah's life is even less glamorous. He's the worst parent on the planet. I know your kids might lose the chapstick top in the car all the time and probably make a Mexican restaurant just look disgusting, like a grenade of rice and chips went off, or they refuse to put their shoes on at the most inopportune times, but they're better than Judah's kids. I promise.

Here's what we're told in Genesis 38, which is one chapter after Judah has sold his brother into slavery. (Is there a worse double header in the Bible for anybody?)

"But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the Lord's sight; so the Lord put him to death."

How bad do you have to be for God to just kill you? Just flat out kill you? If it happens once, Er was just a punk. Maybe it wasn't the parenting. Maybe Judah was not to blame for some of the problem. Oh, but then we come to Judah's second son. And, "What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight; so the Lord put him to death also."

I don't care if you think you're a horrible parent, you've never had God say, "Wow, I didn't even know that level of wickedness is possible. I need to take that one out. Yikes!"

So far, Judah is not that much of a hero and the third strike is possibly the worst.

In the same chapter the Lord has killed two of his kids, Judah goes to a prostitute. (We're not even told he mourned the loss of his kids.) He sleeps with her and gives her some items as a down payment. Only it's his daughter in law in disguise and she gets pregnant. When he hears she is pregnant, and does not realize he is the father, he proclaims, "Bring her out and have her burned to death!"

Is there anything more vocal and neon than the righteousness of folks leading secret lives? He wants to kill her. His daughter in law, who he failed by not finding her a husband. He wants to burn her.

This is Judah. A failure. A mess up. A train wreck of Biblical proportions. But he is not alone.

King David murdered a man after having an affair with his wife and ended up getting a village of priests killed because of his lies.

Gideon was hiding in a hole from his enemies when God approached him.

Paul held the coats of the people who stoned Stephen.

Peter denied Christ three times after promising undying love.

Moses was a murderer.

Adam and Eve broke the only law they had.

Samson took a blessing of strength and corrupted it.

The list of lives God redeems in the Bible is long and exhaustive. If the Bible was just a book, a publisher would read it and say, "It's a bit repetitive. Lot of people getting redeemed over and over again." If the Bible was a song on American Idol, Simon would say, "We get it. You like redemption. That performance felt a bit indulgent."

Over and over again we see it, and we see it clearly in the final chapters of Judah's life. When faced with the prospect of losing his younger brother Benjamin, Judah puts himself in harms way:

Then Judah said to Israel his father, "Send the boy along with me and we will go at once, so that we and you and our children may live and not die. I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life."

Can that be? Is that really Judah? Where is that nobility coming from? How did he change And what does it mean for me?

I think it means we serve a God who loves redemption more than we can possibly imagine. We may feel disqualified for his mercy. We may feel too dirty for his grace. We may feel only a series of white knuckle works will open back up his gates.

But, that's not what his love letter says. We are not shown a steady parade of heroes who became even more heroic in the hands of God. We are shown a parade of failures who found forgiveness. Losers who found love. Hopeless who found hope.

Christmas is a loud season, but hopefully, you'll hear the real song.

It's one of redemption. My redemption. Your redemption. Our redemption.

The God who loved Judah and David and Paul, loves you. And that's a very redeeming thought.

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A creative Christmas.

What would it look like if an entire band used only iPhones and iPads to play a set of songs on stage at church? North Point Community Church comes up with a brilliant answer. I love this. Check out the video after the continue. The last song is my favorite.

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Singing "new" Christmas songs.

Last Sunday at church, I noticed that a guy in front of me was drinking a diet Rockstar energy drink. Never had that? Rockstar is like Red Bull's less responsible cousin who hangs out with street youths, is really into techno and might be dating Nicki Minaj. It was a bold move, but as someone pointed out on Twitter, at least he wasn't drinking a Four Loko. Fair enough my friend, fair enough.

But I love my church and one of my favorite thing about it is the music. The great thing about living in Nashville is that 87% of the general population is comprised of professional musicians. (The other 13% are photographers.) And our church is no exception. They're talented, honest and God driven musicians.

And occasionally, they try the musical equivalent of cracking open a diet Rockstar. What's that?

They introduced a new Christmas song.

We've talked about this before, about the difficulty of trying to talk an early morning crowd into singing something new. It's an unruly task and I do not envy worship leaders who tread on this new ground. But even more difficult than just a normal Sunday, is actually trying to introduce a new Christmas song in the month of December.

That is some black belt worship leading right there and if you've ever experienced it, you know there are a few rules to make this work:

1. The new song has to really be about Christmas.

I don't like when someone says, "Here's a new Christmas song," and the only thing Christmasy about it is that one of the verses mentions, "baby Jesus," once. Your new song better sound like Norman Rockwell, meets Oh Holy Night, sprinkled with a bit of nutmeg. It can't just be "kind of a Christmas song."

2. You have to give us a traditional song also.

God bless Crosspoint Church. In addition to the new Christmas song, they rolled out a more traditional one. That is the way to do it. We'll go with you on the new song. We will, but let's have a favorite one too. Think of it like this: If you went to a U2 concert and Bono started it by saying, "Tonight we're going to sing all new stuff you've never heard," that would be a horrible experience. You want "One" and "Where the Streets Have No Name." There's a great difference between a concert and a worship experience, but we still want to sing "Silent Night."

3. There shouldn't be complicated clapping.

I've been in church before were we'll have some complicated, salsa level, Phd kind of clapping. You want to clap along but it's hard. The clap ends up dying faster than the horrible, "Joey loves Rachel" Friends plot or a Kardashian relationship with a professional athlete. (Joey/Rachel reference plus a Kardashian shout out? I'm on fire. Bring us a figgy pudding! We won't leave until we get some!) The problem with a complicated clapping routine during a new Christmas song is that we're distracted. We're still trying to figure out the lyrics, we're too boggled to clap too. And name an awesome Christmas song that involves intense clapping. There aren't any.

4. A crazy techno remix of a Christmas song doesn't count.

If your song sounds like Moby is sitting in on the ones and twos, or that instead of lighting candles on Christmas eve we need glowsticks, I'm not sure that counts as a "Christmas song."

5. If you want to go new, make sure somewhere else you're going old school.

Again, Crosspoint is coming through by supplementing their Christmas music with a kid's choir. I love to see Christmas performances from kids. The only thing better is when you have a choir that sings in the formation of a Christmas tree. All irony aside, I love that.

I hope you try some new Christmas songs this year. I hope you get to learn some crazy new ones, but I hope we have some traditional songs in there too. Hip, relevant churches need to know we'll cut them slack in December if they want to get a little old school. We like the old songs, we miss the old songs, we want to sing the old songs.

Have you been singing traditional songs at church this Christmas?

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Winner of the Big Box of Awesome!

Wow, we got a lot of great entries into the Big Box of Awesome contest and people put some great shoeboxes together for the Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child.

Below are photos of the winner and the first runner up.

The winner, Emily T. and her family, gets the contents of the amazing Big Box of Awesome, which is more than 50 fantastic items.

The runners up (both first and second) get signed copies of both my books.

Thanks for doing this! You helped a ton of kids experience a completely different Christmas. If you still want to help out, check out the Build a Box program from Samaritan's Purse. It's online and a simple way to instantly help someone this holiday season. Click here to learn more!

Winner

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First Runner Up

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Being the only man at a women's conference.

Last Saturday, I did something I've never done before. I attended a Christian women's conference. And I'm not talking about falling on the estrogen grenade and hanging out with my wife and 100 other women at a local church. I went to Deeper Still, the super bowl of women's conferences. Think 14,000 ladies. Think Kay Arthur and Beth Moore. Think Jon Acuff on the 15th row.

It was a wild experience and as a guy, a gentleman really, I brought back 9 observations about what goes on at Christian women's conferences:

1. There will be at least 1 "husbands don't help out around the house," joke.

This one made me sweat a little. At one point one of the speakers made a joke about how men don't do enough housework and I swear, I felt like every eye in that stadium was on me. I grabbed a broom from a janitor's closet right then in an attempt to appease the crowd.

2. Kay Arthur will talk about sex.

I was there for a panel discussion. Someone in the audience asked a question about sex. Kay Arthur, the esteemed 70ish Bible expert, dropped some bombs in response. My favorite? She said that men are having a hard time with the recession and feeling inadequate. One of the ways wives can make them feel better about the recession is with sex. I am not making this up. Me and the other 4 men in the building stood up and cheered this comment.

3. A pastor will have to make the world's most awkward transition.

David Platt, the author of the fantastic book "Radical," was asked to close with a prayer right after Kay Arthur talked about sex. That's a tough act to follow, but Platt crushed it. What did he say? He got up and said, "Kay Arthur, I've never been so happy for the recession. I hope it never ends." Hilarious.

4. Priscilla Shirer will bring it like Chuck D from Public Enemy

Good grief, that Priscilla Shirer was on fire. I only caught a couple minutes of her but she absolutely destroyed that stage. Wow. I thought at the end she'd just drop the mic like Eminem at the end of 8 mile and walk off. Great stuff.

5. Young ladies will be told not to dress like harlots and sexpots.

As a dad with two daughters sitting next to him, I wanted to say, "Amen!" to this point. I loved what I heard at the conference about women being proud and beautiful and not cheap. They cannot say this enough. I wanted to hug this conference at this moment.

6. Beth Moore will make you feel like family.

My wife got to hang out with Beth Moore after the event and she could not have been nicer. But I promise, there's not a lady in that crowd that didn't feel loved by Beth Moore. Want to make your wife happy this Christmas? Get her a Beth Moore book. LL Cool J's name stands for "Ladies Love Cool James. I am no longer calling Beth Moore, Beth Moore. From now on, I will be referring to her as "LL Cool B," because Ladies Love Beth.

7. Ladies will wave money.

At one point they about talked raising money for a girl in the crowd. In about 4.2 seconds, ladies had dollar bills whipped out and waving in the air. That is awesome and something you will never, ever see at a men's conference. No guy in a flannel shirt with a beard is getting out a dollar, waving it above his head and yelling, "We can do it!"

8. There were zero Braveheart references.

I didn't see any Gladiator clips either. Come to think of it, no one mentioned the Matrix.

9. Clothes will be mentioned.

One of the questions from the crowd was about a jacket that one of the speakers was wearing. As a boy, I've never thought, "What kind of pants is Andy Stanley wearing? I like the cut of his gib! And that mock turtleneck on Rick Warren, is that from the Maxx?"

I had an awesome time at the conference even though I was only there for about an hour. I was blown away at what Lifeway, the speakers and a stadium of ladies were up to. That point about the recession alone was worth it's weight in gold. I'll be back, I'll go again and I promise to take notes, because they were bringing it.

Have you ever been to a women's conference?

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Win 3 copies of a great new Christmas CD.

I've been very clear about my love of the Mariah Carey Christmas CD lo these many years. Since my days as an employee at "Maurice the Pants Man," I've listened to it constantly during the holidays. But this year, there's a new contender for favorite Christmas album. [image error]

I'm talking about the "North Point Christmas" CD which my wife and I are loving right now. We attended that church for five years when we lived in Atlanta and were constantly blown away by musicians like Todd Fields, Eddie Kirkland, and Chrystina Lloree Fincher. If you've ever gone to Catalyst than chances are you've seen many of these musicians before too. The album is a collection of Christmas classics as well as some new songs you'll be hearing at churches across the country this season. When North Point asked if they could give away a free song download to every listener of Stuff Christians Like and 3 full albums to a few winners, I was quick to say yes.

Click here to download the free song.

Click here to buy the whole album for less than $10!

To enter the giveaway for the free CD, simply answer this question in the comment section by the end of Tuesday, December 7:

What's your favorite Christmas movie?

We'll announce the winners of this and all the other giveaways we've done, next week.

So, what's your favorite Christmas movie?

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Unicorn murders a mime. Yes, you read that correctly.

Someone gave me this toy today as a Christmas present at our book signing. If you only write a caption for one thing today, please let it be the photo you'll see when you click continue.

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The name of this product is "The Avenging Unicorn."

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Not saying "happy holidays."

Recently, an atheist group put up a billboard depicting the birth of Christ. Here is what it said:

"You KNOW it's a Myth. This season, celebrate REASON!"

And although these particular atheists used the grammar yell, ALL CAPS, I've personally had a good experience with the atheists I've met through Stuff Christians Like. I feel like Hemant Mehta, the Friendly atheist, has been a good friend over the last year and he is constantly sending folks here to read posts he is curious about. Michael, our resident atheist, has started a lot of good conversations in the comments of SCL and he honestly shares what he believes but asks great questions too.

I don't have an issue with solid dialog between Christians and atheists, but there is something funny in that billboard. It's the phrase, "celebrate REASON!" That's a weird combination of words. I think even my atheist friends would admit that a "reason party," doesn't sound very fun. No one in the history of parties has ever said, "Ain't no party like a reason party, cause a reason party don't stop." No one has ever yelled, "The reason, the reason, the reason's on fire, we don't need no water …" (I had to stop right there. I'd get some unpleasant emails otherwise.)

But I understand putting that phrase on an atheist billboard. Reason is what they are all about that. That makes sense, but the truly weird morphing of Christmas is happening somewhere else. Somewhere a little unexpected. I'm talking about Office Christmas Parties.

A friend of mine pointed out the evolution a company I used to work for was going through. They were de-deifying the holiday. How? Well, a few years ago they had a "Christmas party." The year after that, they had a "Holiday party." This year? He told me they are holding, an "End of year party."

I really don't know where you go from there. That's pretty devoid of anything remotely religious. It reminds me of the time my sister's elementary school made her change the lyrics to Frosty the Snowman. In the verse about getting married by "Parson Brown," they had to instead say they were getting married by a "Happy Clown." That's not confusing at all, happy clowns go around performing marriages all the time. The idea of being specific about a song that involves a talking snowman who dies each year and is brought back to life via magic is a little silly though.

I like saying Merry Christmas. That is the phrase I prefer. I'm not going to be antagonistic if someone says "Happy Holiday" though. Correcting someone's holiday phrase is a fairly ironic way to show your Christmas spirit.

How about you? What is your company calling the party this year?

Do you say Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday, or the safe alternative, "I think it might snow today?"

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Win an iPad and the SCL Christmas Party.

There are only 2 days left in the 12 Days of Fantasticalness. (We'll announce all the winners next week.)

Today, the fantasticalness is an Apple iPad. [image error]

In support of all the folks who order my new book, "Gazelles, Baby Steps and 37 Other Things Dave Ramsey Taught Me About Debt," we're giving away a free 16G WiFi iPad. Click here to get your copy of the book for only $10. If you already bought the book, you will be automatically entered.

And then tomorrow, from 12-4PM we're having a book signing in Franklin, TN. At 12:45 we're giving away $500 to someone. (You have to be there to win the money.)

We'll have free coffee, free cookies and free mirth. Always, free mirth. And then Dave Ramsey will do his show live from the lobby!

Here is the address for the party:

1749 Mallory Lane, Brentwood, TN 37027

Let me know if you're coming!

Here are the rules and legal language and what not. (No purchase necessary for the iPad contest)

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"Lil' Wayning" God in Christmas Songs.

The other day, my wife and I were walking around the mall. One of the stores had a big display for jeggings. What are those? Well, imagine if a pair of jeans and a pair of leggings got married, listened to a lot of 80s band "Color Me Badd" and then had a baby. That baby would be named "Jeggings."

I told my wife, "Oh jeez, jeggings. Please don't ever get those."

She looked at me, and immediately said, "Jeggings? I'm wearing those right now."

Foot in mouth.

That is something I do pretty regularly, so my wife is used to it. But I stand by my assessment that jeggings are a little ridiculous. I feel like they should be sold at the "Chess King," a store that used to specialize in Z-Cavariccis. (It's 80s reference day, apparently.)

I don't hate jeggings, I'm actually a pretty ardent fan of the ridiculous and I recently discovered something else I think is kind of silly. While listening to some Christmas music, I heard what I call a "God Cameo." Like lil' Wayne sitting in on a song for a verse, suddenly in the middle of a Christmas song, God popped in.

Was it a song about the reason for the season? Was it a song about keeping Christ in Christmas? Not exactly. The song was "Here comes Santa Claus."

In the middle of the song, it says, "Santa Claus knows we're all God's children." OK, makes sense. I'm led to believe that Santa Claus knows a lot about a lot of things. What with the quantum physics in involved with flying reindeer and all. And they say funny things in Christmas songs from back in the day all the time. "Baby it's cold outside," says maybe I'll have "just one more cigarette." Can you imagine a modern song saying, "I think I'll smoke a lucky strike, unfiltered, please…" I get it, songs say funny things once in a while.

Maybe one God cameo in a song about Santa isn't weird. But then there's another one. The song ends by saying, "Peace on earth will come to all, if we just follow the light, so lets give thanks to the Lord above, that Santa Claus comes tonight."

That's like a mashup of Santa and God done by musician Girl Talk. I feel like God and Santa Claus should be on an album cover, back to back like Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney on the song "Say, Say, Say." It's like a gospel sandwich with Santa Claus bread.

But maybe that's a good thing, maybe I should support more "God Cameos" in Christmas music. I love that he gets shout outs. Maybe I should write my own. Here are a few:

1. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

"Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, was blessed with the spiritual gift of brightness, all of the other reindeers wouldn't let him join their life group."

2. Winter Wonderland

"Later on, we'll go shovel, some old lady's driveway. She'll be so happy and she'll trust us, in a winter wonderland, as we all do some missional social justice."

3. Last Christmas – By Wham!

"Last Christmas, I 'loved on' my friends, I told them most importantly that God was all that. I wrapped up their presents, the book 'Radical' by author David Platt."

Wow, I might have missed my calling, those are some fresh lyrics!

What Christmas song would you like to see get a God cameo? And what's your guilty pleasure Christmas song? Your 'Christmas shoes,' if you will, a song you listen to alone but never if someone else is in the car?

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