Jon Acuff's Blog, page 53

Not knowing if you should pray before appetizers.

I write a lot about queso.

That’s probably not a sentence Hemingway ever typed but whatever, this is my life. He made his own decisions as an author. These are mine.

I could certainly write volumes about the many positive aspects of queso but I do have one problem with it. I’m never sure if I am supposed to pray before I eat it at a restaurant.

In fact, I’m not sure if you’re supposed to pray before the appetizer or before the entrée. It seems like everyone approaches it a little differently, so here are some rules we might all be able to agree on.

1. You don’t have to pray before a side salad.

If it’s a light appetizer, that does not include any meat, you don’t have to pray before it. Here’s a rhyme to help you remember, “If it has neither hide nor hair, that appetizer needs no prayer.”

2. If you order just appetizers you have to pray.

In college, my favorite thing to order at restaurants was water and whatever appetizer came with as much free bread as I could fit in my pants. I’d look longingly at people who could order from the right hand side of the menu. If that’s you, and the appetizer is your whole meal, pray before it arrives.

3. If your appetizer is taking a long time to show up, pray.

Every Christian on the planet knows that if you want your server to appear instantly, just start praying. Out of thin air they will materialize the minute you close your eyes and start praying creating a vortex of awkwardness. Do you speed up the prayer, sensing them standing there? Do they walk away three feet, allowing you some prayervicy? (I just made up that word, you’re welcome.) That’s your call, but trust me on this one, if you want quick delivery of an appetizer, prayer is your go to move.

More than likely, it will take more than one blog post to settle this debate. Christians have been arguing about God and food since the disciples first disagreed with Jesus that they didn’t have nearly enough fish and chips for the crowd. (Pretty sure I got that story right.)

What are your rules about praying before you eat?

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The unsubscribe of shame.

(It’s guest post Friday! Today’s post is from Christy Newton. If you’d like to write a guest post, click here.)

Something has been strongly weighing on my heart. I need to confess it, but I’m scared I’m the only one struggling with this. I’m being vulnerable, so here we are:

I’ve let so many unread daily devotionals rack up in my email, you’d think I’d been raptured. These devos have been in the form of blog posts & just plain website databases who thought I could handle three or eight different devos a day. One subscription goes through the whole bible in a year, another is for godly women, another is a pastor back home with sweet tattoos & coiffed hair who writes a lot about millennials & the book of James. There are posts from scientists at creation institutes that blow my mind slash encourage me every time I read them, as well as emails from a blog written by a dude who *just* knows how to get deep about God.

It all typically goes the same way:

I come across something online that is intellectual about my faith, and I get excited (“someone gets me!”), and then the “Subscribe by Email” button is all shiny & sitting there & sure enough I end up setting goals of “read this everyday!” and skip along my way.

Then, the first email comes — I’m ready for you. Reading through you Word for Word (hah) and enjoying all that you are offering me.

Second email, you’re already blending in with my 14 other unread devo-like subscriptions… Maybe I’ll get to you today because you’re still so new.

Third email, and you’re just another pretzel I’m determined to finish. (I can’t deal with pretzels. They bother me because they’re so plain & there are usually so many of them at once. There’s no roller coaster of fun when eating them.)

Email four — Sure enough, there are 78 unread emails in my “SOCIAL” tab all from the last 4 days, and then I find myself rushing to read all of them by skimming & making them not be highlighted anymore.

Sooo… The dreaded “unsubscribe of shame” commences. I didn’t ever want this. We had something special. I was in this for the long haul, but then I just couldn’t juggle it with everything else. I already feel like a bad Christian because I can’t read every devo in my inbox, let alone the internet world. Please forgive me, and let me still go to your page from time to time?

I’ve probably unsubscribed to 8 daily devotionals in my email, but I still have so many that I can’t keep up with. You try and hang on & make it work with the remaining ones I guess. At least that’s what one of the posts has talked about.

I also am subscribed to a Christian satire website, and I have to say, I cannot part with it. I should probably change around my priorities.

Am I the only one who deals with this?

(For more great stuff from Christy, follow her on twitter!)

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My new favorite version of “How He Loves.”

Last weekend I got to do an event with an awesome organization called R.U.S.H Ministries. What Marc Pritchett and his team are doing for students just blew me away. During the event, I met George Dennehy. George was born with bilateral upper limb deficieny in Romania. He mentioned from stage that in his home country, being born without arms or hands is considered a curse. His family put him in an orphanage.

An American family adopted him and over the years he’s learned to share his story via music. (You should follow him on twitter! His account is @ThatArmlessGuy)

After sharing his story, he played the song “How he loves” and it was amazing. I took a few short video clips of the song.  It’s hard to capture the moment with these, but hopefully you’ll see a little bit of what I saw when George sang about the depth of God’s love for us.

George Part 1

George Part 2

George Part 3

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The Prayer Prank I fell for!

Last week I was at the Orange Conference. It was an amazingly fun experience and I spent most of the week making this face:

I don’t know what I was saying at that moment, probably “Yay Jesus!” or “Look at me, I’m wearing a sports coat! (Why do we call them sports coats by the way? Those are the absolutely worst thing to do sports in. If your friend runs half marathons in sports coats, your friend is an idiot. I digress.)

After the conference was over, I was hanging out with two other speakers in the volunteer room. A group of volunteers came up to me and asked if I would participate in a prayer circle. They said it was a tradition and that we all needed to hold hands. The other two speakers I was hanging out with immediately abandoned me to the awkwardness of what was surely going to follow and stopped talking to me as if I was invisible.

I looked back at them with a “save yourselves, it’s too late for me” look, but they had already moved on. Public speaking is apparently not the Marines, they will leave a man behind.

Now right now you’re probably thinking I’m a horrible person for not wanting to initially participate in the prayer circle. Pump the brakes there eye plank. I’m an introvert. Maybe at the end of a four day event, holding hands with a group of complete strangers, for an undetermined amount of time, as you try to run out the door to drive two hours to your next event does not sound like an awkward experience to you. You are clearly a better Christian than me. But if you felt smug at all while reading this last paragraph you struggle with pride and are probably a lousy Christian too. Turns out we both need Christ.

I circled up with the volunteers. They said they’d all make prayer requests and then I could close the prayer.

The woman next to me said, “My prayer request is unspoken.” I thought that was a little odd, to start a prayer circle and then immediately bust out an “unspoken,” but whatever.

Then the second person made their prayer request and said, “My prayer request is unspoken.”

At this point, I did what you do whenever you’re told to keep your eyes closed while people raise their hands after a salvation decision, I opened my eyes. The woman across from me was shaking as she tried to hold her laughter in.

I yelled out, “Is this a prank?” And everyone in the circle burst into laughter.

The whole thing was a set up.

They planned the entire thing because I once wrote a post about how if you make an “unspoken” prayer request, everyone assumes you are talking about porn. We never assume you said unspoken because, “They must help too many orphans and homeless people and don’t want to brag about it.”

It was a well planned, brilliantly executed prank. And it was also the first time I’ve ever been “prayer pranked.”

The funny thing is that now, the next time someone asks me to pray, I’m probably going to say, “Like pray pray or is this a prank?” Then they’ll tell me, “Prayers are never pranks. What is wrong with you?” And then I’ll blunder some explanation about porn and unspoken requests, which will only make the whole situation worse at which point they’ll start crying a little. Softly.

That’s how I imagine it going in my head anyway.

What’s the best church prank someone has ever played on you or you played on someone else?

 

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Draft Scouting Report: Fruit of the Spirit Edition

(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s a great new one from Jeremy Jenson!) 

NFL Draft day is coming so I put together my mock draft.

Round 1

Love

No question about it, Love is the greatest in this year’s draft. He is the complete package and will bond your team together like glue. You can try all the tricks in the book but if you don’t pick up Love in the first round there is no way you are making the playoffs.

Round 2

Faithfulness

One of the most consistent players out there you know he won’t let you down. The only problem is that Faithfulness has already said he wants a five to ten year contract. If he gets injured or doesn’t play up to standard you will have a long term liability.

Round 3

Goodness

Great committed team player. His footwork and technique are solid. I can’t think of anything bad to say about this guy except that he may never be one of the greats.

Round 4

Joy

Joy is a quality player. He adds great enthusiasm to the team and will make the two-a-days fun. The down side is he can be a bit oblivious to the outcome of the game. Like it or not he is just out there to have fun.

Round 5

Patience

If you are looking for a player to help you down the stretch, Patience is your guy. It looks like an injury will keep him out of the first half of the season, but barring a setback he should be 100% come playoff time.

Round 6

Peace

There is something to be said for having a strong bench. I do not consider Peace to be a starter, but if things go wrong during the season you will be glad to have him on your team. You can count on him to fill in at any position when the mid-season injuries start coming.

Round 7

Kindness

Out of all the players in the draft this year he is the nicest guy. Unfortunately he always finishes last.

Round 8

Self-control

I know you are going to want to pick this guy up earlier in the draft. He looks great on paper and was one of the best at the combine, but after some experience with him in college I have my doubts. In my opinion he will leave your team feeling like an outsider when it comes to playoffs and is only worth a late round pick.

Round 9

Humility

Originally I didn’t even have Humility on the board. Who can forget when he dropped the game winning catch in the Senior Bowl earlier this year? A play like that can ruin a guy, but he seems to have learned from his mistake.

That’s nine rounds of Fruit of the Spirit deliciousness. What changes would you make?

(For more awesome stuff from Jeremy, check out his site!)

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The Frozen Jesus Juke.

Whenever I see Jesus Jukes like this, there are only three words I think in my head. They are the same three words you’ve had in your head for six solid months if you have kids who have seen the movie Frozen. I believe you know them. They go something like this, let it go.

 

 

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The comma of grace.

As I’ve written about before, one Easter I got into a bit of a yelling match with a guy in a visor at an Easter egg hunt. The whole thing was exactly how Jesus imagined us honoring that day.

We were at my in-laws country club, which always makes me feel a little weird. We’re certainly rich in a global way, but I kind of think that they can all tell that I’m just a visitor. I feel like the real members can smell middle class on me. (Which kind of smells like sun ripened raspberry and feet by the way.)

So after I pointed to where a golden egg was hidden to my then 5 year old daughter, he yelled at me for cheating. I told him that his white visor made him look like a financial planner who was wearing his “casual uniform.” Whole thing got very out of hand. (I didn’t say that, but I thought it later when we were driving home, which is where most of my comebacks occur.)

This year, we spent Easter in Chapel Hill at my parents church. Standing there waiting for the egg hunt to start I had a flashback to that rugby scrum one from a few years ago. I might always remember that moment at Easter, but there’s a more important one I won’t forget. One I’ve written about before.

I’m talking about the “comma of grace.”

I found it in Luke 22. In that chapter, Jesus is being led away. He is headed to the cross. A million prophecies are coming true and chaos is breaking out a little amongst disciples that up to this point have sworn to serve until death. In the midst of that, he pulls Simon aside because he knows that Simon will soon betray him.

He says to Simon in Luke 22:31-32:

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.”

And then, he drops the 9 words that I can’t write about enough. The 9 words that I often turn to when I’ve failed and messed up again and feel hopelessly undeserving of hope.

Jesus tells Simon:

“And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Do you see what Jesus is saying in that first half of the sentence, And when you have turned back? He’s saying:

You are going to fail.

You are going to fall.

You are going to lose it.

You are going to make commitments and break them.

You are not going to always be the man you family needs.

You are going to sin.

But, but, but, you will turn back.

You will come back. You will know redemption. You will know return. You will know a God that not only allows the “comeback” but actually celebrates it.

When I read the phrase “And when you have turned back,” I read a loud, wild picture of what grace really looks like.

And then, if you go too fast, you’ll miss the comma. You’ll miss the gap that sits quietly between the next thought. You’ll miss it because like me, you might misread the second half of that sentence.

Here’s what it says:

“And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

But here’s how we write it sometimes:

“And when you have turned back, repent for a long time and stay a long way from me until you are clean enough to return to my presence.”

“And when you have turned back, please stay far away from any ministry opportunities. You are too broken to help other people. How can you minister to others when your own life is so messed up?

“And when you have turned back, here are the 57 things you need to do in order to earn back my good favor.”

But Christ doesn’t do that! He drops a comma like a grenade.

He gives us the gift of the comma and then asks us to strengthen our brothers. Not beat ourselves with emotional whips. Or lay in a hole of shame. Or stay to the shadows of church, afraid to be seen.

He wants you. In his arms. By his side. Surrendered and free in his presence.

Not because you deserve it or have earned it or are perfect.

Because of Easter.

That’s it.

We all get the comma of grace.

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Things you hope Jesus didn’t hear your kid say.

Yesterday, right before the start of an Easter egg hunt at church, one of my kids muttered, “This is going to be World War 3.”

I instantly wanted to earmuff Jesus, hopeful that maybe he missed that comment. I’m pretty positive my child, who I won’t name in this story because then I’d have to give her a dollar for the rights, heard me say that first. Or at the bare minimum I gave her the impression at some point that Easter egg hunts were a competition to be won. That the Acuffs go hard or go home when it comes to Easter eggs.

Just the way Jesus intended Easter to be.

Even worse than that, one of my kids said this recently as we were walking out of church, “You know what the worst part of being a pastor’s kid is?”

Since I am a pastor’s kid I assumed she was going to just say, “Elders.”

Or, “Everyone at the church knowing what you are up to and telling your dad when you got out of line.”

Or, “Feeling jaded because you sometimes see the ugly side of the church.”

Granted, every one of those would have been pretty perceptive for a child to say.

Instead, my daughter said, “The worst part is that you have to go to church every Sunday. Ugh.”

Again, I looked up to heaven in that moment, expecting a child sized lightning bolt to fall out of the sky.

Fortunately no such thing happened. The funny thing is my kid’s aren’t done saying crazy things I hope Jesus doesn’t hear. Neither are yours.

What’s something crazy your kid has said or you said when you were a kid that hopefully Jesus didn’t hear?

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Pretty sure the devil invented allergies.

Recently I tweeted:

“Spring, the time of year I want to punch Adam in the face because I’m pretty sure allergies are a product of the fall.”

I tweeted that because I am on lock down right now thanks to pollen. I can’t go outside or I look like I am crying from reading a really amazing poem about a pony. And there’s no way there were allergies in the Garden of Eden. I bet when God kicked out Adam and Eve he handed them a box of Claritin on the way. (Only one box though because even then, you could only get 15 at a time.)

I had a hard time capturing why I hated pollen so much, please don’t tell me about it’s importance for bees and flowers right now, until my friend sent me the image below. I don’t know who made it. If it’s you, let me know and I will give you credit. But this captures exactly why pollen is so deadly.

Question:

Am I the only one sneezing right now, or do you have seasonal allergies too?

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3 ways to be a better Christian hypocrite.

A few days ago, a friend texted me. Apparently a Christian band had been publically hating on him and he needed some advice.

Now at the bare minimum, that’s not the best use of time for a Christian band, what with all the spreading the joy of Christ they’ve got on their plate.

But the time management problem wasn’t the biggest issue. For me, the real challenge was the band’s twitter profile. You’d think, that given their penchant for hating on people, they’d at least have a twitter bio that reflected that. Alas, that wasn’t the case at all, as each line spoke to their hope to love people and share grace with them.

That might surprise you a little bit, that the way a Christian acts online doesn’t line up with how they describe themselves online, but it shouldn’t.

We now have one of the greatest opportunities to be hypocrites in the history of mankind. Think about the scale of our hypocrisy these days. Thirty years ago, your dad interacted with maybe 200 people in a given month. He knew people at work, in his family, his town and in his church. If he wanted to be a jerk to large groups of complete strangers, it was pretty difficult. I guess he could have printed up a newsletter or called a radio show but even then, that would take a lot of effort.

Now though, in the time you and I occupy, it’s so much easier.

We can proclaim Christ with our (digital) lips and then deny him with our (digital) lifestyle faster than any other previous generation and to more people than our parents would have ever dreamed! (Head nod to Brennan Manning and DC Talk’s What if I stumble.)

If this concerns you at all, it should. The damage we Christians can do with the Internet is unbelievable.

I’d love to think this blog post will radically change the world, but I am making my own images these days and they are just horrible. (A sunset has nothing to do with this post. Just ridiculous.)

Not everyone who reads this will give up their hypocritical ways.

So, if you want to be a hypocrite online, at least do these three things:

1. Strip your Christianity from your profiles.

My friend had an Ichthus magnet on his car. Eventually, he felt bad about his driving habits, as he was prone to speeding and cutting people off. So he took the Jesus fish off his car because it was a bad witness. Could he have instead, driven better? Might that have been the better long-term solution? Definitely. But maybe you’re not ready for that. Just promise me you’ll fire Jesus from your twitter bio and facebook page. Get rid of the following words: “Love, Jesus, God, faith, grace, brokenness, forgiveness, etc.”

2. At least admit you don’t know the person.

A Christian recently emailed me to tell me he was unfollowing me on Facebook because he no longer liked me. His short, rude message caught me off guard, which finally prompted me to respond and ask, “Have we met before? It seems like you really don’t like me and most times if someone is mad at me I’ve done something stupid to them. As a Christian, it’s on me to apologize if I did something that personally attacked you as an individual.” Just so we’re clear, it was certainly possible that I had met him and was a jerk. I am an idiot, often. (It will not be difficult for you to find some way that I have been a hypocrite.) But as it turned out, I hadn’t, which he confirmed when he responded and continued to tell me how lame I am. We hadn’t met. We hadn’t talked on the phone. We hadn’t texted. We hadn’t skyped. But the dirty thrill of the Internet is that it gives you the opportunity to be mean to people you’ve never met. Why? Well, Jimmy Kimmel summed it up nicely. “In person people are nice, because you can punch them in person. Online they’re not nice because you can’t.” If you’re going to write something mean about someone online, at least preface it with, “I have never met this person, talked with them or had any personal engagement with them despite the personal attack I am about to launch.”

3. Just be consistent.

In the first year of writing Stuff Christians Like, I didn’t really understand the difference between mockery and satire. Here’s what I’ve come to 6 years later. The goal of satire is to share humor with a purpose, the goal of mockery is to cause a wound. Mockery always has a victim and sometimes not a point other than pain. Granted, mockery is a fast way to get a laugh. Read some of the old posts on this site, I was definitely writing more from a place of mockery. But what I learned was that mockery is a great shortcut to a laugh now, but it removes your ability to speak in love later. And the love later mattered more to me. (Also, God is pretty clear about his feelings about mockery in the book of Proverbs.) That’s why I try to write about issues, not individuals. When I write about issues, folks show up and have a rich discussion from a lot of different angles. When I write about individuals, sharks show up at the smell of blood in the water. Are you going to make mistakes at this? Sure. But know this, you’ve got a choice. You can attack people or you can love people. Just be consistent.

I hope these tips help if you decide to go deeper into the wondrous world of hypocrisy. Or you can do the opposite and just be kind online. Hopefully, you’ve never even bumped into someone mean online. I know people like that.

I’ll have conversations with friends that go like this:

Me: This guy said something really horrible to me online.

Friend: Just do what I do, ignore it!

Me: You’ve had some haters at some point? On Twitter?

Friend: No, I have about 800 followers and most of them know me personally.

Me: Oh, you have a job that people publically criticize you for? Like being an author, musician, blogger, pastor, etc.?

Friend: No, I’m an accountant.

Me: So then, you’re kind of telling me to do what you do when responding to haters except you don’t have any and haven’t had to ignore a bully since 8th grade?

Friend: Uh, yeah.

The majority of people who try to Frozen me and say, “let it go” with haters never really seem to have any. If you grew up in the desert you wouldn’t tell someone who grew up by the ocean to quit thinking about sharks.

The waters are full these days, I just wish less of them kept telling people they were Jesus fish.

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