Jon Acuff's Blog, page 54

4 questions everyone should ask.

I recently did a video with Relevant magazine. It’s a quick set of four things everyone needs to review in their lives. (I think the one I’ve had the most reaction to is the last one and it’s a question my dad asked me when I was growing up.)

It’s only 2:32 long but covers everything from social media to relationships.

Enjoy!

The post 4 questions everyone should ask. appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

Finally, a church deals with gluttony.

When I saw this typo in a church bulletin I laughed. Mostly because I am not as mature as you. Things like this tickle me.

This isn’t my church. A friend sent this to me and I figured he’d like to remain anonymous. Or not, if he wants to be known I will put his name in here and he can be nonymous. (Pretty sure that’s right.) I also didn’t blank out part of the church’s name because I googled “First Free” and there was 3.7 million responses. If you are able to figure out which church is, congratulations, you are Inspector Gadget.

In my head I immediately thought about what it would mean to have glutton free communion.

It would probably take a special squadron of ushers trained to recognize the classic signs of someone who is about to grab too much communion. The clawed hand like a kid at Halloween scooping out too many treats. The greedy, beady eyes. The nervous laughter and rotating head to make sure no one is watching. The ushers would swoop in and …what? What would they do? My heart tells me “taser” but that seems too violent. And I recently took some heat for writing about violence.

Maybe they’d come in with sanctified squirt guns ablaze, showering that glutton in discount orange drink from youth group. Maybe they’d punish the offenders, sentencing them to church jail or as you might know it “volunteering at VBS.”

Hard to say, how do you imagine a church enforcing glutton free bread?

The post Finally, a church deals with gluttony. appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

Watching HBO and R-rated movies but only if the content is violent.

A few months ago, my friend asked me a question, “How come we Christians get upset about the nudity in the show ‘Game of Thrones,’ but not at the violence? How come I haven’t heard anyone protest the idea that a little kid got thrown out of a window? On purpose.”

Great question and I should have referred him to page 18 in the Stuff Christians Like book. It pretty much explained it.

For Christians, we think it’s completely okay to watch R-Rated movies and HBO programs, but only if they got that rating because of violence. If they’re rated R because someone is getting their head cut off or there’s a wedding battle so gory that blood splashes on the camera lens, don’t worry. God’s cool with that. However, if the movie is rated R because of sexuality … well, I hope you enjoy your fold-out couch bed in hell. It’s gonna be a hot one, my friend. A hot one, indeed.

I’m not sure where this rule came from, but it’s true. Not only do Christians watch violent R-rated movies, we’ll quote them from the pulpit, build sermon series around them and even show clips of them during service. I call it the “Braveheart rule” and my theory is that it’s because of the Old Testament.

Have you read the Old Testament lately? It’s hardcore. Samson smashes people in the head with a donkey jawbone. A priest runs a spear through two people having sex. David carries Goliath’s head around like a bowling ball. It’s violent. I think that some Christians read that and assume, “Cool, God’s down with some wanton violence. R-rated movies, here we come!”

But if there’s any nudity, if a single nipple makes a cameo at any point, forget it. Throw that piece of nonsense in the trash. That is horrible.

That’s what makes Game of Thrones so frustrating for Christians. It’s got gobs of violence. Author George RR Martin kills characters like I kill beats. But, because it’s on HBO there’s also tons of nudity. HBO is the kind of channel that even does background nudity, where even during the main dialogue between two characters there are people in the background of the scene nude, seemingly for no reason whatsoever.

It’s a real pickle.

At the end of the day though, don’t forget this.

You can wait until they show the 37 minute long edited version on TBS.

The post Watching HBO and R-rated movies but only if the content is violent. appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

Sometimes you only get 4 words.

Sometimes it feels like God is quiet. I want paragraphs of conversation and tweet length thoughts don’t even come through. It’s during these moments that I tend to run into people that tell me God is talking entire phone books of information to them.

Like the guy I’ve mentioned before who played a song at church in Birmingham. I asked him if he wrote it. He said, “No, God did.” Fantastic. That didn’t feel condescending at all. My friend is a musician and sometimes people will tell him, “God gave me this song for you.” The songs are usually horrible and my friend thinks to himself, “God probably gave it to you because he didn’t want it. Angels prefer to sing good songs.”

But there are moments of quietness in our lives and its interesting to see in the Bible that other people had similar moments.

In 1 Samuel 23, David and his men are hiding from Saul when they hear that the Philistines are attacking Keilah. Against the wishes of his men, David leads his army into Keilah to defeat the Philistines. Saul figures that with David and his men tired from their battle and trapped inside the walls of Keilah, now is the perfect time to attack. David learns of Saul’s plans and tells his priest, “Bring the ephod.” He cries out:

“O Lord, God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the town on account of me. Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me to him? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O Lord, God of Israel, tell your servant.”

Sometimes I feel guilty about asking God specific questions but David is detailed here. God’s answer to the question will Saul come down?

“He will.”

The verse continues “Again David asked, ‘Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul?’”

God’s answer?

“They will.”

Forget for a moment that certain death is marching toward David. Forget that the people he’s just saved are going to turn him over as soon as that certain death arrives.

At this point in the story there are 600 adrenaline drunk, battle beaten men trapped inside the walls of a city that is not their own. The streets were littered with the dead, the doors and windows of every home shut.

David reaches out to God for a message. Surely God has some deep, possibly detailed thoughts about this situation. Surely he has instructions for David.

But all God does to break that silence is give David four words. He will. They will. So often I demand more words than that from God just to motivate myself to get out of bed. David had four. With four words he had to motivate 600 men to flee. Have you ever tried to motivate six people to choose a restaurant for dinner?

Verse 12 ends “And the Lord said, “They will.” Verse 13 begins with “So David and his men, about six hundred in number, left Keilah and kept moving from place to place.”

Where was the analysis? Between verse 12 and 13, where was the wrestling and triple checking and months of prayer? There wasn’t any. In the space of a verse, David left and in doing so saved the lives of his men and the entire city, for the second time.

Next time I find myself asking God for detailed instructions I should instead ask him for the wisdom to hear the four words he does give me and the courage to act on them.

Question:

We’ve talked about the quietness of God before on this blog, is that something you can relate to?

The post Sometimes you only get 4 words. appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

3 things you can only do in church.

Years ago, my friends Tripp and Tyler did a video about the things you can only do in a pool. It was a hilarious look at those two guys spitting water at people on the sidewalk, making absurd underwater faces and in general being perfectly silly.

It made me think though, are there some things you can only do at church? Are there some weird things we take for granted that if you did other places would seem ridiculous?

I think there are and here are the three I came up with:

3 things you can only do in church.

1. Ask a stranger to scoot in to the middle.

If you’re late to church one morning, it is perfectly acceptable for you to ask a complete stranger sitting on the aisle to scoot in to the middle. You might not think that’s a weird thing, but try that same thing the next time you fly Southwest. If you’re in the B boarding group, walk onto the plane and find someone from the A group who has claimed an aisle seat. Walk up to them and say, “Excuse me, will you scoot in to the middle?” Let me know how the rest of the flight goes.

2. Hug people you don’t really know.

Your church might not do this, but I’ve been at plenty of churches where the pastor said, “Turn to the person next to you, give them a big hug and let them know you’re glad that they’re here!” (Cue collective introvert shudder.) Try this one at Starbucks today. As you wait in line, just turn to the person next to you, embrace them in a full frontal hug (no leg wrap please) and say, “I am so glad you are at Starbucks!” Please do not mention this blog post in the arrest report.

3. Shout phrases of encouragement when someone says something good.

I love when people shout “Amen!” at church when I am speaking at a church. I also like “That’s the truth!” I find both of those things encouraging. But next time you’re in a meeting at work, try that. When your boss reads off the plans for a new client, just scream from the back of the room, “That’s the truth!” Or better yet, scream out, “Devil is a lie!” Then email me and I’ll help you figure out what it feels like to be unemployed. (Technically you can yell at concerts but I don’t cotton to sitting near the guy who screams “Jesusssssss!!!!” directly in your ear canal all night.)

There are a lot of things you can only do in church. Those are my 3, what do you think is something you can only do in church?

The post 3 things you can only do in church. appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

Why some Christian leaders fail.

Celebrity is the worst drug in Christian leadership right now.

The problem is, it often starts from a good place.

You’re a young Christian leader with a platform that starts to grow. Your church does well. Your blog blows up. You start speaking at a lot of events. And in the midst of that swirl, you quietly start to think to yourself, “If I get a bigger platform, God will get bigger glory.” But eventually as you start to believe your own hype, that mutates into “If I get a bigger platform, I’ll get bigger glory.”

This happens for a lot of reasons. Sometimes it’s because Christian leaders refuse to have people in their lives who can tell them no. A church where the word “no” is off limits is doomed. Sometimes the leader is trying to heal an old wound with new attention. I’ve done that. One day a friend said to me, “No offense, but if the attention you’ve gotten so far hasn’t healed whatever wound you think you have already, none is going to.” He’s right. That’s one of the reasons I go to counseling.

But I think there’s also a part of us that thinks God needs our platform. He needs our abilities. He needs us to win. Here’s the truth about that:

God will never be handcuffed by your failures or unleashed by your successes.

He doesn’t need me to complete him. He is already complete. He doesn’t need me to play my role in his story or it won’t be told. It will be, his plan will be done, regardless of my ability to do it. He doesn’t need me, he loves me. He invites me into his story and allows me to be part of it as an act of love not desperation. There’s a big difference.

For the last few years I’ve been coaching leaders, especially given the minefield that social media offers us. I’ve learned something. Influence is not a good thing or a bad thing, it is just a thing. It is a knife, useful for cutting through lies and clearing the clutter to show people the truth. You just have to make sure you hold the right end.

 

The post Why some Christian leaders fail. appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

Was Peter this diesel?

Please, for the love of all that is holy and funny, caption this painting of Peter.

The post Was Peter this diesel? appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

How to not sing with your hands raised and still love Jesus.

There are two things I don’t prefer to do with my hands at church.

I know you’re probably thinking that “throat chop” is one of them, but that’s not really in my control. If I run into a cat burglar stealing the offering, I can’t tell a killer whale not to be a killer whale. Nature tends to run its course.

And it’s not that I don’t like shaking hands with people. Our church doesn’t do the “turn to say hi to the person next to you,” but if they did, I would be pretty amazing at it. My greatest skill in those kind of moments is trying to shake someone’s hand who is trying to hug me. I am so awesome at that.

No, what I don’t particularly like doing at church is clapping my hands and raising them during worship.

I don’t judge people who do. (Except if you brought your own tambourine.)

I am glad you like to clap and happy you feel called to sing with your hands raised. I don’t and for years have felt what doctors call “lazy hand shame.” Have you ever felt that too? It’s the feeling you get when you find yourself sitting in a flock of hand raisers or aggressive clappers. You look at your dumb mitts and think, “Why do you hate Jesus so much?” But deep down you know you don’t have faithless digits. You know your hands are full of hope, but they don’t want to get down like everyone else.

For years, I suffered in silence, alone in my own Creed like prison. But no longer.

I have the solution my hand challenged friend. I have the cure to all your appendage woes. And it is so simple. Ready?

A coffee cup.

That’s it. That’s all you have to do. Next Sunday, bring a cup of coffee into church. You can’t clap with coffee in your hand, that’d be crazy! You can’t raise your hands when God is roaring like a lion, or raining down love like water or doing whatever like fire or something, it’s pretty early and I’m kind of tired.

I would love to, but look at my hand! It’s full of hot liquid that I would prefer not to spill on you or God’s carpet.

And if you attend a church that doesn’t allow coffee, all the better. People will be so offended that you are breaking the rules they won’t even notice you are not clapping. Win to the win.

So grab a cup. Kick lazy hand shame to the curb.

You’re welcome.

Question:

Do you sing with your hands raised?

The post How to not sing with your hands raised and still love Jesus. appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

The new Jesus fish for Southern Baptists.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. I’d still attend one but when you register a wordpress blog they make you start going to a non denominational church. I digress. Today I got a book in the mail that made me laugh a lot.

A talented guy named Jess MacCallum printed this. He said it was the new Jesus fish for the Southern Baptists. If you disagree, please try to go to lunch at a restaurant in the south on Sunday afternoon. Let me know how that works out for you. He actually had about 40 other designs so don’t worry that he was just picking on us. But well played Jess!

 

The post The new Jesus fish for Southern Baptists. appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

I need this cone.

The irony of sharing this cartoon on social media and therefore phones, is not lost on me. But cartoonist Liam Francis Walsh knocked it out of the park with this one.

Do you need this cone too or am I the only one?

The post I need this cone. appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.