Jon Acuff's Blog, page 55

7 ways to give up the Internet for Lent.

In case you hadn’t heard, Lent started. And do you know what’s the number 1 thing people will be giving up, based on a short survey I made up in my head? The Internet.

Mark my words: The only thing Christians like more than the Internet is taking a break from it. A digital fast if you will, where you swear off the Internet or a particular flavor of social media for a prolonged period of time. (The irony is that if you are on a digital fast right now you won’t be able to read my helpful article about it. Have a heathen friend read it to you.)

Since you missed the start of Lent, maybe instead you can do a good old-fashioned digital fast. (By “old” I mean circa 2007, which in Internet time is approximately 87 years ago.) But how do you do it? What are the rules? How do you take a really good, really helpful digital fast? The Bible is very thin on the best way to wean yourself off a Twitter addiction. Not once does Peter say, “Follow me on Twitter, I’m @Rock.” Or better yet for all you old school rap fans out there, “@PeteRock.”

So today, in case you’re curious about starting a digital fast, I thought it might be good to review the 7 steps:

Step 1: Go online crazy.

Unless you’re online all the time, it’s really not a big, dramatic deal for you to go offline. So the first thing you’re going to want to do is make sure you’re online 24 hours a day. Tweet everything that happens to you, no matter how insignificant. “Just ate a sandwich. Ever thought about that word? It has ‘sand’ in it. That would be gross if they really have sand in them.” Change your Facebook status roughly every 90 seconds. Update your blog as frequent as Lowell said something dumb in the television program Wings. (Old school topical!)

Step 2: Write a blog post about taking a digital fast.

The irony of writing online about how you are going to take some time from being online is so rich that it’s like a delicious sandwich spread made of boysenberry and irony. Technically, the Bible says we’re not supposed to tell people when we fast. Maybe posts on your blog don’t count. Maybe.

Step 3: Start a Twitter countdown.

You might have missed the start of Lent, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start your own digital fast next week. Every day, in the week leading up to your digital fast, tell people how many days until you take your digital fast. Or start a group on Facebook called “Friends taking a break from Facebook.” The goal is to make sure you get as much attention possible about your very private, very personal digital fast.

Step 4: Go offline.

For a predetermined amount of time, just log off. Don’t check email or fantasy sports scores or Facebook or anything else. And say things like this to your friends: “Oh man, I know how smokers feel when they quit. This is hard.”

Step 5: After a week, go back online.

Make a triumphant return. Maybe write a blog with a headline from Eminem, “Guess who’s back, back again? Guess who’s back? Tell a friend!” Jump back online with both feet.

Step 6: Share the valuable lessons you learned while on your digital fast.

Turn three days offline into 10 days of blog material. Try to use the words, “community” and “fellowship” a lot, as if you suddenly discovered the real meaning of those during your 72-hour hiatus. If possible, post photos of you doing non-digital things, like flying a kite or making a sailboat or getting cats out of trees for people in your neighborhood.

Step 7: Return right back to your pre-digital fast amount of online consumption.

This wasn’t about learning or praying or anything like that. This was about digital showmanship. You were like an Internet David Blaine holding your breath offline for three days straight. Return to the Internet like David Blaine would return to dating models after a three-day hiatus in a solid block of ice.

Hopefully, these steps will help you with your first digital fast. I can’t wait to read all about it online and in the email newsletter you create. Just promise me you won’t do what my friends who are actually giving up the Internet for Lent are doing. Praying, being contemplative, serving people, having long conversations where you actually talk to the people you’re with, instead of texting other people you’re not with! There was no drama in either of those decisions. Where’s the fun in that?

Have you or a friend ever taken a digital fast?

Did you give something up for Lent?

(This is a Throwback Thursday post from a few years ago.)

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17 questions for online church.

Streaming your church service online right now is very popular right now. Why? Because Internet.

But we’re still working out a lot of the kinks. There are still questions. Lots of them, like these:

1. If I’m watching a sermon online and I open up another window and answer some emails at the same time, is that a sin? Isn’t that the cyber equivalent of doodling in your bulletin? If I have a really big monitor, does that change your answer?

2. What if the emails are from people I’m in a Bible Study with, so technically speaking, I’m participating in fellowship? I’m not multitasking, we’re doing life together!

3. Do I have to stand up when the worship leader calls us to our feet? If you’re my neighbor and you’re walking your dog, is it weird seeing me stand up and down in my living room?

4. If I don’t like the worship songs that day, can I DJ myself with some songs I like from iTunes?

5. If I have a bad connection or the wrong version of flash or my computer crashes, is it safe to assume that I can blame that on the devil? If so, can I put him on notice?

6. How long can I pause the sermon, go do chores/answer the phone/find more comfortable socks to wear etc. and then come back without it seeming like I’ve left church?

7. There are only two occasions in which I wear a belt: A business meeting at work where I want to look smart and church. Do I have to wear a belt to attend online church?

8. Is it weird if I’m still shy about singing with my hands raised during online church? Should I still be doing the ninja in my own home? Is that something a counselor can help me with?

9. If I watch the sermon on a podcast, do you mind if I fast forward through the first few minutes of the sermon where you recap last week’s message for the people that weren’t there? I was there. I remember. I don’t need the recap.

10. Someone once told me they consider eating at Chick-Fil-A to be tithing. Now that I’m using my computer to attend church, can I consider a new Mac purchase to be like one big, silvery cool tithe?

11. Will you please not cut off the podcast before or in the middle of the closing prayer? People at home like closing prayers too. (I’m talking to you Matt Chandler.)

12. Is there anyway that you could create a frame around the video player that has a graphic of someone giving someone else a back massage during church, someone coughing and the heads of the tall family I inevitably manage to sit behind every Sunday so that the experience will feel more authentic?

13. If you ask us to hold hands with the person next to us for the closing prayer, should I extend my hands out like a mime, or instead hold my own hand?

14. Can you please stop telling me hello at the beginning? I know you know I’m here online. You built an entire website, hired a streaming company, timed your sermon perfectly and told me that this was available. At this point, I am well aware that you like me and know I exist. We’re good.

15. What do we do we communion? You can’t make communion jokes. That’s in the book of Joel, so I’m just going to leave it right there.

16. Should I mill about in the foyer of our house with my family to recreate the after church conversations you always have.

17. I usually lose a fair amount of the grace I gained in the sermon trying to get out of the church parking lot. To recreate that, should I just go sit in my car in the driveway and yell a little?

Those are the questions I have.

Does your church have an online version?

Would you have asked something different than me?

What do you do online when it comes to church? Blogs? Podcasts? Video sermons?

Are you currently doing anything church related online?

So many questions!

What would you ask your pastor about online church?

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What to do if someone doesn’t use enough Bible in their communications.

Sometimes people will tell me they switched churches because they “weren’t being fed enough meat.”

Other times people will tell me a book they read didn’t include enough scripture.

Occasionally I’ll hear people criticize friends’ blogs for not talking about God explicitly enough.

Whenever someone tells me something like this I immediately think to myself:

“You would have hated Jesus.”

Seriously, have you read the parables? Talk about lacking meat! Talents? You’re telling me about talents? Give me some OT! And don’t get me started on the good Samaritan.

The worst of all is the prodigal son. God doesn’t even make a cameo. Sure, I guess I could infer the father is like our father God, but I don’t do “infer.” Inferring is a slippery slope to storytelling. And storytelling might lead to art which is usually pleasing to the eye first and functional second, which is horrible and kind of exactly what God did with the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:9.

The truth is, we have a God who loves art and storytelling and subtlety and directness and the swirl of honest communication. Will there be times when we have meat and Bible verse after verse? I sure hope so. Will there be other times when we have art? I sure hope so.

Don’t fight the idea of poetry and beauty and storytelling. There’s a guy in the Bible who didn’t and I really like him.

His name was Jesus.

 

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Sitting next to someone with a cold at church.

A few weeks ago, the person next to me at church didn’t have a nose.

They just had a faucet that was continually dripping extras from that Mucinex commercial. (Grossest mascot ever.)

They were also doing “sprinkler coughing.” That’s where you rotate your coughs from side to side, covering the most square foot radius with your germs like a sprinkler across a lawn.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Jesus loved the lepers.”

That’s a good point, and I thought about it. Jesus was a friend and fan of the sick, but is there any Biblical proof that he sat next to one of them at church? Is there a scene from the Sermon on the Mount where he’s sitting in the crowd? Maybe Peter is introducing him, “Back from a 40 day tour in the desert, here for a very limited engagement, you’ve seen him walk on water, know he heals the sick, help me give a warm mount welcome to Jesus!”

And Jesus fist bumps that sick guy next to him, stands up and grabs the mic. Did that happen? Because otherwise I feel like this situation is not directly addressed. You can’t move seats either. That’s super rude if you have a small church.

I ended up staying there and just started wearing a feedbag of grapefruits and oranges around the house the rest of the day. Regardless, I didn’t do what a different lady at church did to me one day. During the middle of the sermon, she reached over and handed me a kleenex.

Don’t confuse that with compassion. If I had asked for a kleenex, that was compassion. Since I didn’t, the goal of that kleenex was simple, “Shut up. You are ruining the Jesus with all your coughing.”

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5 things I’ll be tweeting about now that the Olympics are over.

As some of you know, saying many felt too many, I’ve been live tweeting the Olympics via @JonAcuff. Not all of them, there are only so many things I can say about the biathlon. Such as, “Have you ever noticed they don’t have those Ameritrade ads that show home footage of the Olympians growing up as kids for biathletes?”

But now that the Olympics are over, what will I be live tweeting? I have five options:

1. The Costume Designers’ Guild Awards.

Sure, they were held yesterday, but that just means I have a whole year to get ready. Right now all I have is, “Wow, that dress is pretty!” So I probably need the year to get my tweets together.

2. My search for Bigfoot.

If someone is willing to renew a show called “Finding Bigfoot” that is currently 0 for every episode as far as finding bigfoot goes, certainly I can live tweet my search. Here’s a sample tweet, “Man, I bet bigfoot is in these woods. I mean probably. He loves woods.” (I might title the show, “Bigfoot is not in this freakin’ forest.”)

3. Is that a famous person drinking coffee next to me?

This is a very popular game to play in Nashville. It involves quietly staring at people you think might be famous while they drink coffee at a hipster coffee shop. Riveting stuff really.

4. Kiss Jenny on the mouth.

My wife Jenny Acuff hates public displays of affection. So often, when we are in public, I like to play a game called “Can I kiss Jenny on the mouth without her hitting me?” It’s a dangerous game.

5. Just live my life.

This is definitely a viable option. I could go outside, let the sun land on my pale, Twitter skin, breathe fresh air. That kind of thing.

All that to say, even thought the Olympics are ending. I have options.

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Armadillo dancing to Billie Jean.

Yes, you read that title correctly. This is 15 of the most delightful seconds of video you will ever see. Why did I post it on Stuff Christians Like? Because I’m pretty sure that armadillo is a Calvinist.

Or because I like what I do. I do what I like. I could quit and get it back like I’m riding a bike. Or to put it less lyrically, because I like posting things that made me laugh. And this did.

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Church Signs, a Blurred Lines Parody Video.

About 50 people sent me this video, but I didn’t watch it at first because I thought it would be cheesy.

I was wrong.

A brilliant guy named Dustin Ah Kuoi created this. The thing I loved about it was that it parodied church signs perfectly. It was like a parody inside of a parody wrapped inside an enigma. Like Newman.

All that to say, enjoy.

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Why it’s hard to be a Christian online.

For the last 3 years I’ve been writing about two distinct topics:

1. Christianity.

2. Business.

The weird thing is that I’ve found it’s a lot easier to write to a business audience. The ideas I share are received with more grace, acceptance and discussion in the business world than they are in the Christian world. That’s a strange thing to me. You would think that if someone had the corner on grace, it would be us Christians.

I think I figured out why it happens, particularly online.

When the business world disagrees with your idea, they critique your idea.

When Christians disagree with your idea, they critique your soul.

Case in point, I recently wrote a post that said I didn’t think tracts that were disguised as money were the best form of evangelism. A Christian band then went online and said, “@JonAcuff I’m sorry you think spreading God’s Word to those otherwise totally uninterested isn’t worth your time.” They tweeted a lot of other things, but that was the one that struck me.

For a faith called to live out the great commission, deeming that I have declared spreading God’s Word isn’t worth my time is a fairly weighty accusation. Had I said that in my post? No. If anything, dropping a fake money tract on the ground is an incredibly effective use of my time. That saves me all that hassle of actually having a relationship with someone and telling them about God in that context. Relationships take forever, ugh.

But when we as Christians attack each other’s souls we forever lose the ability to get better. When we can’t debate without it turning into a soul attack, we can’t grow.

I’m not saying I have the answer, and to be honest, there have been times when I’ve been the passive aggressive loser in a conversation. I’d love to say I’m great at focusing on the idea and not the individual. But I get it wrong too.

My fear is that we’re missing something pretty powerful in this type of situation. My fear is that no one in the history of mankind has ever said, “I saw two Christians on twitter attacking each other and that made me want a lifelong relationship with their Christ.”

And that should matter to us.

Question:

Have you ever been attacked by a Christian online?

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Bad Christian drivers.

I’m not going to do this idea.

Fear not when you read it that I am on the verge of implementing it because I’m pretty it’s illegal. I’m just brainstorming here.

But have you ever been cut off in traffic by someone who had a little Jesus fish on the back of their car? There you were, driving along merrily, perhaps seat dancing to the impossible to be sad to “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins.

Suddenly a Saturn you didn’t see speeds up on your right in disgust, passes you and then whips in front of you forcing you to slam on the brakes. A quarter mile later you are both at the same red light, where you to think to yourself, “I’m glad being the length of my car ahead of me was so important to you.”

That’s when you see it, a tiny Jesus fish. That was no mere mortal, that was an immortal Christian! (How weird does it sound to say it that way? Like we’re superheroes or something.)

I wish in situations like that you could get out of your car and remove their Jesus fish. I wish in the Christian community we all had Jesus fish revoking privileges, like citizen’s arrest. In my head I imagine it like the scene from “Fight Club” where Brad Pitt collects other peoples’ driver’s licenses under the threat that unless they chase their dream he will come get them.

Maybe that’s too much power for ordinary people. Maybe the cops could do it. They pull you over for speeding and say, “Sir, I’m going to need to see your license, registration and Jesus fish. I’m taking that last one.” And then Carlos Whittaker, my worship leader friend who knows every cop in the southeast would turn in his fish for speeding.

Again, this is probably illegal, but I think the idea has some merit.

Have you ever been cut off by a Christian?

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The Samson Valentine’s Day card.

Lest you ever doubt that I am a romantic at heart, I present to you this. (I didn’t paint that in case you were wondering. That’s by Giuseppe Nuvolone.)

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