Jon Acuff's Blog, page 63

3 things I wish we Christians did online.

When Christians attack each other online, the gospel moves backwards.

There’s not a single atheist on the sidelines of Christianity who says, “You know, I don’t love this guy Jesus, but his followers sure do hate each other online. Maybe I should get to know him.”

I’ve never met someone with a testimony that said, “The bitter, public backbiting of Christians online is what led me to a growing relationship with Christ.”

I think part of the problem is that we only want “sanctified online conversations.” We don’t leave room for people to wrestle out and discover and grow. We want each post to be written as if the person is already completely sanctified and their thoughts on any particular topic are final. But if we won’t let each other be open and honest online about our doubts and struggles what makes people watching think we’ll let them be open and honest in our churches?

I’ve bumped into this for years as a Christian with a blog. It’s made me want to start a Christian bloggers justice league.

We probably wouldn’t have a secret hangout, but if we did, these would be some of the things we’d agree to:

1. Debate online, fight offline.

Instead of writing a blog post about how much I want to fight your idea, I’m going to send you an email. Or a direct message. Or a small note tied to a pigeon. I don’t think we have to agree about everything, but when you tweet about somebody without trying to contact them privately, you’re not trying to solve the problem. You’re trying to showcase the problem.

2. Don’t use each other for traffic.

If you’re a pastor, blogger, random human, I won’t use your downfall as a means to increase traffic on my blog. If I want to do a blog review of your book, awesome. Even if I disagree with it. But if you fail at something or make some sort of mistake, I’m not going to create a blog post celebrating that just so I can get more traffic.

3. Share best practices.

Sometimes I feel like Christians online are all on these individual islands. You know things I don’t know. I know things you don’t know. Let’s share and amplify the gospel with creativity.

I think about things like this mostly because I’ve done such a poor job with them in the past. I’ve been the person who attacks or writes dumb posts geared at traffic not change.

But the gospel moves backwards when we Christians act like that.

And that’s the wrong direction.

Question:

What point might you add to this list?

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What if Wes Anderson directed “The Fellowship of the Ring?”

Wes Anderson is the genius behind movies like “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Rushmore.”

But what if he directed Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Ring?”

Here’s what that would look like. (This is a “Malnek remix” and it’s a really fantastic example of how music changes everything.)

 

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What my wife won’t let me call her.

My wife is now on twitter.

After 5 years of sitting out, she’s jumped in with both feet. (You should follow her!)

Now that she’s joined, it’s reaffirmed her desire that I never refer to her in a particular way.

I know what you’re thinking, she doesn’t want me to call her “my bride.”

That’s a popular one amongst Christians and I’ve written about it before. (There are 3 reasons that feels a little silly to me.)

Jenny doesn’t want me to call her that, but that’s not the word she is most concerned about. In fact, if she could go back to our wedding, she would insert this demand in our vows.

When I say it, you are going to think, “No one says that online! No one refers to their spouse that way! Oh stop!”

And you will be wrong. So wrong.

What phrase does my wife never want me to tweet? What title does she not want me to share publically? “My lover.”

There, I’ve said it. I’ve seen a few other Christians refer to their spouses that way. It’s usually done in a list of other titles. “I love my wife. She’s my best friend, my companion, my better half, my lover, my partner in adventures.” They always try to slide it in there like maybe we won’t see.

But we see.

I just can’t do it. Maybe that makes me prudish or puritanical or Shaker, I’m not sure. It’s just that every time I hear that phrase I think of Will Ferrell’s skit with the hot tub. And there’s baby oil and awkwardness and grossness by the metric ton.

So although you should welcome Jenny to Twitter, you should never expect to see me tweet the phrase, “My lover.” Unless Babyface releases a new song called that. Don’t act like you didn’t love the song, “Whip Appeal!”

Question:

What’s the weirdest way you’ve heard two married people refer to each other? Or boyfriend and girlfriend?

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YOLT!

There are many things I like about this air brushed t-shirt.

I like that there are stripes on all the letters, as if each one was wrapped in neon zebra hide.

I like that the Bible verse is denoted with an asterisk.

I like that upon completing it, the artist involved really went to town on the G in God. You can almost see he/she, making that noise from Bill Cosby’s “Picture Pages” as they made it. Remember that? I think it was spelled “blpeeiloiiopeeaadoo.”

But all of those things pale in comparison to what I personally believe is the best part of this. What’s that?

 

The sound you’d make when you said this word.

I believe it would sound like saying “jolt” but with a “y.”

“YOLT!”

Like yelling “Steve Holt!” What are you doing today? “YOLT!”

I think I’m going to try to make this a thing, like the time I tried (unsuccessfully) to bring back “No doy!” Next time you see me, please throw up a loud and proud, “YOLT!”

On Twitter, feel free to throw a #YOLT my way @JonAcuff!

You in?

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The truth about callings.

Most days, I don’t feel successful enough to be used by God.

I don’t feel capable.

I don’t feel smart.

I don’t feel prepared.

Surely there is a better Christian out there who can do what God has called me to do.

But then I read the Bible and notice an interesting pattern when it comes to calling.

God found Gideon in a hole.

He found Joseph in a prison.

He found Daniel in a lion’s den.

He has a curious habit of showing up in the midst of trouble, not the absence. Where the world sees failure, God sees future.

Next time you feel unqualified to be used by God remember this, he tends to recruit from the pit, not the pedestal.

 

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Will this matter on judgment day?

My friend Amanda sent me this image.

I immediately was struck with the following thoughts:

1. Remember that verse in Galatians that talked about the need to put bumper stickers on your donkey? Right there on that burro, you were supposed to slap a little Jesus fish.

2. How boring is the rest of judgment day if you suddenly realize you should have put more stickers on a car? No angels, no majesty of God, no wonders filling your vision. It will be so dull that the bumper sticker collection on your 2003 Honda Accord will pop into your head.

3. How sinless has the rest of your life been if a bumper sticker makes the list of things you failed?

4. Can you imagine God saying, “I sent my son to die for you, but it’s time to address your lack of bumper stickers?”

5. Do you think that when you apply a sticker it’s like when Jesus said the angels celebrate over a sinner being saved? Are they in heaven, shouting out in winged jubilation, “Blessed be your name!” (Even there they sing that song.)

6. Once you put a bumper sticker on any part of your car that is not your bumper you’ve crossed into scary territory as far as I’m concerned.

That’s what I think about this sticker.

What do you think?

 

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My new favorite mullet.

If you’re my age, you remember the great Mullet Renaissance of 2001. You couldn’t go anywhere on the Internet without running into a mullet joke.

Things have changed now, must of the mullet culture has gone into hiding.

Fortunately, a guy named “TheBryanRose” on Instagram posted the photo below. The image is humorous, but it was Bryan’s caption that sealed the deal for me. Well played TheBryanRose!

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Making fabulous bulletin art.

I used to work with a guy named Matt. He was a graphic designer with an incredible ability to create comic book quality illustrations in a matter of minutes. Whenever we had a meeting I would try to sit near him just to see what he would come up with. It was funny to watch him bring an entire battle scene to life using only a cheap plastic pen from work. What was even funnier though was when he would draw during his one-on-one meetings with his boss.

Matt’s boss wasn’t the best at his job and for some reason Matt was the only person he was allowed to manage. It was like they were using Matt as an experiment to see if his boss could manage people. And he couldn’t, so Matt would pass the time in his one-on-one meetings by drawing exquisitely detailed pictures of a fist punching his boss in the face. How he was able to sit three feet away from his boss, alone in a small room, carefully sketching, looking up at his face to get the details right, is beyond me. It’s a gift really. My one regret is that I never invited Matt to church. I would have loved to have seen what he could do with a bulletin.

When I was younger, a bulletin wasn’t a piece of paper that contained sermon notes and info about the pot luck jamboree. It was a canvas. A big, flat surface for me to express my creative skills on during church. And I was like the Pablo Picasso of bulletins. Seriously, my friends called me “Pablo.” OK, that’s a lie, but they should have, because I was a master of the 3 techniques of bulletin drawing.

1. The Fill In

The first thing you need to do when you get a new bulletin is color in all the O’s. Some people will fill in the lowercase e’s and uppercase D’s but if you’re a purist like me you don’t worry about doing that. I think that’s kind of amateur hour. And if you close off a u so that it looks like an o just so you can fill it in, I’m not sure we can be friends any more. Cheater.

2. The Capital Campaign

If your bulletin has a picture or drawing of your church on it, it’s time to do some renovating. Add a pool on the roof. Put some new trees in the middle of the parking lot. Draw a zipline that starts on the steeple. Install a skyscraper on the right hand side. You are the architect and only you can decide how this new campus is really going to look.

3. The Photo Touch Up

Finding a photo of people in your bulletin is like striking “doodle gold.” Usually it’s either a photo of the pastor or of a missionary family you are supporting. If there is a photo of your pastor in your bulletin, please color that, he deserves it for handing out copies of what is essentially his headshot each week. Go slow though, you really want to savor this. A lot of people will tell you that adding a mustache is the best move. I don’t know, it feels a little pedestrian to me. I like working in angry eyebrows or unibrow if I want them to look like me. Working on the teeth is nice too. Just enjoy yourself. Really explore the space.

4. Practice your autograph

The bulletin is a great place to practice your autograph as a kid. As a 6th grader I remember drawing big, loopy J’s in my name. I just knew that someday I would be famous for skateboarding. Or, if you’re a girl you can practice writing your name with the pastor son’s last name who you probably want to marry. Most people want to marry pastor’s kids. We’re flattered by this attention. Really, it’s too much.

5. Illustrate the sermon

My friend William Warren doodles during sermons. It’s actually become his full time gig now he’s done it so often. Conferences hire him to illustrate events. Here’s a sermon he recently illustrated. I guess he’s OK.

My mom never hung any of my bulletin masterpieces on our fridge. I thought they were great and magnet worth. She probably didn’t because my dad was the minister and didn’t like the wicked awesome unibrow I gave him in any of his photos.

Have you ever drawn inside a church bulletin?

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Dear Church, 11 signs you’re burning out your staff.

I grew up in the church, literally. I was abandoned as a child and raised by a family of church mice. By day we would hide amongst the pews. By night we would scavenge for things people had thrown away. We were like the borrowers, minus the thievery.

Some of that was made up, but I did grow up with a dad who is a senior pastor. In those 30+ years I witnessed how hard it is to work at a church.

I saw burnout after burnout as staff members fell away from the church, and in some cases the faith, after bad experiences.

I thought it might be good to write a blog post about that. At first I was going to address it to senior pastors but then I realized two things:

1. Senior pastors are the most underappreciated people on the planet.

2. As a church member, I am as much if not more of the problem than the senior pastor.

So this post is about us. You and me, the church attendees and anyone on staff. We’re in this together. We are the church. And it’s also not about any one church in particular. I’ve worked with dozens of churches. This is a collection of the type of behavior I think leads to staff burnout. So without further adieu,

1. You’ve never written an encouraging note.

For every critical comment you make about a sermon, you should have to make ten positive. The problem is that we attendees only notice when things go poorly. We never notice when they go well. Next Sunday, thank the sound guy or girl for doing such a good job. I swear their heads will explode.

2. You underpay your staff.

Let’s not wait to get into the hard stuff! A lot of churches grossly underpay their staff. The reality though is that there’s not a lot of money in the budget. I think the real problem is that churches underpay and under vacation their staff. As a church, you might never have the ability to pay more money to staff, but you have the ability to give them more vacation days. Don’t steal nights and weekends from your staff and then give them the same amount of vacation days an office worker at a regular job gets. If the special production of a musical costs your staff four Saturdays, which are usually a day off, give them four extra vacation days.

3. You think mission trips or youth camps are vacations.

Dear youth ministers, I apologize for every idiot at church who has ever said, “You took the teens to beach camp? Must be nice to get paid to go on vacations.”

4. You shame them into doing extra work.

Sometimes people email me and say, “Since you love Jesus, would you like to support my mission trip financially?” What are my options there? I either give you money, stranger from the Internets, or I must not love Jesus. Never ask a church staff member to do something and then try to shame them into doing it in the name of Jesus.

5. More than 6 people have quit in the last 18 months.

How many people will it take before you admit, “You know what? Maybe it’s not all of them that have the problem? Maybe it’s our culture.” Will you have some people who leave for their own reasons? Definitely. But most people who quit your church are sending out messages in a bottle that if opened and read can be incredibly helpful in fixing things that might be broken.

6.The church steals the staff members’ family traditions.

If your staff is not looking forward to Christmas, there might be a problem. If the only family traditions your church staff gets to enjoy during the holidays is “working at church events,” you are headed to a dangerous place. Church staff have families too. Don’t send them home empty.

7. You have a yes culture.

The quality of a person’s leadership is based in part on the number of people who can tell them no. If you’ve got leaders in your church who you can’t say no to, beware my friend, there is trouble ahead. You are working with an Emperor no one will admit is naked.

8. You have unused vacation days.

I challenge every senior pastor to know the number of vacation days their staff didn’t use last year. If the number averages out to more than one day per staff member you might have a culture that values busyness over rest.

9. You don’t allow staff members to dream.

My friend was a youth minister. One day his senior pastor asked him what his dream was. He told him an idea he had about parents. The senior pastor listened and then said, “Clean out your desk. You’re fired.” I wish I was making this up, but sometimes when you work at a church it’s dangerous to admit God gave you a new dream. Your staff will leave if you create a culture where creativity is punished not rewarded.

10. You demand programs without serving programs.

Want the church to do a musical? Think there should be a softball team? Want the kids department to be better? Volunteer. If you’re attending a church and want a new program, go be the solution.

11. You think this list is dumb.

I took a lot of heat when I mentioned this post on Twitter. If this list fills you with rage, you might be this list.

I love the church and for the part I’ve played in these problems, I apologize.

If you work at a church thanks for doing what you do. My kids, my marriage and my town need you.

Question:

What might be another sign you’re burning out your church staff?

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4 ways to know the sermon is about to end.

I sometimes feel I am a grace filled person until someone takes a long time to get off a plane. After a long flight, there are few things as annoying as the guy that takes 10 minutes slowly getting his stuff together.

Got my peanuts. Got my free copy of Sky Mall. Got my pens.

On and on.

I feel like saying, “We just descended 30,000 feet. Didn’t that tip you off that we were about to land?”

But I don’t because that is frowned upon.

Although I can’t speed exits on planes along, I can give you a heads up on when a sermon is about to end.

There are 4 signs the sermon is almost over.

1. Musicians start materializing on the edge of the stage.

Always look for a slightly anxious worship leader with an acoustic guitar trying to come back on stage. That’s a dead giveaway that the sermon is about to end.

2. In closing.

If a pastor says this phrase, they are legally required to end the sermon within 3 minutes. Pretty sure that’s in the Bible.

3. As we’re wrapping up.

Maybe the easiest end of sermon sign ever. If you miss this one, you are crazy.

4. Ushers start stretching.

If your church does offering after the sermon, I have some thoughts on this approach, it’s a sure sign things are about to end. Look for an usher doing leg lunges to loosen up muscles that got tight during the sermon.

If any of these things happen, get your stuff together. Zip up that fanny pack cover you’ve got on your Bible, stack your communion cup with the rest of your row, and get moving. We got Sunday lunch to get to!

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