Jon Acuff's Blog, page 64

What does the fox say?

The fox says, “Jesus juke.”

The post What does the fox say? appeared first on Stuff Christians Like.

Justify.

I have about a dozen people who give me advice on a regular basis.

From a counselor I meet with to the guy running a global business, I’ve spent the last three years building a board of advisors for my life.

And you should too. We all need wise counsel when it comes to the decisions we make. I implore you to see it, cultivate it and appreciate it.

On the flip side of that, is worry. Sometimes God gives you an idea or a hope or a dream that other people aren’t going to understand. It won’t make sense to them. That’s OK. Neither did the ark. Or the Red Sea. Or the walking around Jericho. Or the savior as a baby. Or Saul becoming Paul.

It’s funny how “senseless” so many of God’s adventures looked in the Bible. It would appear he often refuses to play by logic. He sends a boy to a giant, a party to a prodigal and a group of fishermen to the world.

Someday, you might have a dream that doesn’t make sense. I hope you’ll get great counsel on it from your advisors, but I hope you won’t try to justify it to strangers. That’s a losing battle that ruins most dreams before they even begin.

 

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Jesus spoke English.

A friend sent me this gem.

My first thought was, “This is so going on SCL.”

My next thoughts were:

1. How frustrating was Jesus’ time on earth? Can you imagine being the only one in Nazareth that spoke English?

2. Does the person who wrote that believe that in Israel everyone speaks English?

3. Has this person never heard a sermon where the pastor translates the 57 types of love there are in Hebrew and Greek?

4. Can we all please start saying, “if it was good enough for Jesus it’s good enough for me?” for things that Jesus never did? “Do I eat queso? Well, if it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”

5. Will people judge me if I start saying “a-put?” That is so folksy perfect! “I’d a-put my headphones in if my iPhone case didn’t require an adapter.”

6. If this guy doesn’t like daylight savings time because it’s not in the Bible, he must hate golf. And computers. And the polio vaccine.

Oh, it’s fun to be back.

Do I like blogging?

Well, if blogging was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.

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Stuff Christians Like: Starting over.

For the last 7 weeks, Jenny and I have been discussing whether or not to rebuild Stuff Christians Like.

Was the blog dead?

Is the concept done?

How do you retire an idea?

It had kind of limped along for the last six months and I’d done a pretty lazy job maintaining it.

These were the things we talked about over coffee each morning.

And we thought about it. I have another blog, Acuff.me, and maybe I should just focus on that.

But then I drove by a church that was offering “pet blessings.”

Then I saw an ad for a reality show about pastors in LA.

Then a guy brought his own flute to my friend’s church retreat.

I felt like the bat signal was shining bright over satire city.

There are still stories to tell.

There are still issues to wrestle over.

There are still people receiving blessings for pet iguanas.

It’s going to be messy. I have a lot of work to do on this blog. (All the photos are gone for instance.)

But if you’re still willing to laugh, I’m still willing to write.

So, you in?

Jon

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What to do when Sunday Morning becomes a Match.com Mingle.

(Here’s a guest post from Rachel Mueller. You can check out her blog here or follow her on Twitter @rachelmueller. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)

What to do when Sunday Morning becomes a Match.com Mingle.

I live in a fairly average size city with a high concentration of Christian people. In fact, my city was once known as the ”Christian Ministry Headquarters.” But what there seems to be is an alarming lack of young single Christian men. I decided to turn to the internet to help my quest.

Being a good Christian girl, my go-to was eHarmony. What I got from that website was two stalkers. Literally. However, the inability to browse on eHarmony kept me relatively anonymous. I had no idea if GodsWarrior247 is the sweaty hand-shaker during the greeting, or MarkDriscollRox is my fellow youth leader. (“Though I walk through the pews of my Sunday morning, I will fear no awkward IRL encounter” should be their slogan).

Three strikes took eHarmony out so I hesitantly and rebelliously joined Match.com. The ability to specify my dream man (6′, blue eyes, brown hair, Christian / Other, doesn’t smoke, college degree, in case you were wondering)* gave me literally hundreds of options in my 100 mile radius.

Blessed Be the Name of the LORD! I had walked into the Land of Milk and Honey. In fact, I felt this was a fleece given to me to start my Wedding board on Pinterest. Surely my David was among these men.

But very quickly I saw familiar faces. A boy who I actually dated. Another one I went on a mission trip with, and another who used to be roommates with a friend.

BLOCK BLOCK BLOCK. I hit that blessed button as fast as my Spirit-led fingers could move.

But, soon after, a mustached smiling face appeared in my Daily Matches. I clicked his profile (knowing that he would see I had viewed him) and held my breath. Nice looking, good use of grammar, loves the Lord (or so I gathered from his creative use of C.S. Lewis quotes and Mumford & Sons being a favorite band), and played guitar. I winked and waited. He viewed my profile and didn’t wink back. The online equivalent of “but she’s got a great personality!”

Sunday morning I arrived a little late to church, hurried to find my friends, and settled into my seat. I looked up and nearly choked on my fair-trade organic coffee when on-stage was my C.S. Lewis quoting, Mumford & Sons loving, guitar playing wink.

I ducked down trying to hide my 5’9″ frame. What now? Do I acknowledge that we both looked at each other online? Do I strike up a conversation? Do I ignore him? Maybe I should just change churches. WHY IS THERE NO RULEBOOK FOR THIS?!

So I’ve devised my own. Obviously there are 7 rules because that’s the Lord’s number.

1) Remain calm. They may not know that you know they know you are both looking for love.

2) Alert a wing(wo)man. This is key in helping you make an emergency exit.

3) If possible, initiate conversation elsewhere. Avoidance is the name of the game.

4) If forced to converse, do not bring up online dating, love, romance, Facebook, email or anything else that may potentially connect you.

5) Send out the bat signal so said wing(wo)man can intervene and run interference, allowing you the excuse of a coffee refill or bathroom break.

6) Immediately rush home, check “who viewed me,” to see if they know that you know that they know you’re looking for love.

7) Pray the Lord does/doesn’t tell them you are the One.

If all else fails, enact the Emergency Contingency Plan: Sermon Podcasts for three weeks. Let that dust settle before you go kicking into awkward territory once more.

*dream man parameters have been expanded

What about you? Have you ever run into a match at church?

Failure is a day, not a destiny.

Fear is a phantom, large at night, gone in light.

Fear is a small man standing close to the window of your heart to appear large.

Fear is a candied apple with a razor blade core.

Fear is a storyteller with skills that would embarrass Hemingway.

Fear writes and directs and paints and in the face of your bravest moments reveals a scene of what will be.

The curtain is thrown back and there you are, a failure in the future.

A tomorrow in tatters.

Your actions all wrong, your courage all empty, your hope false.

Fear is a fortune teller who tells you it’s never wrong.

Fear only sees one outcome for you and it is misery.

There are no good days on the horizon.

There is no bright eventual.

It is doom.

It is destruction.

It is over.

Or so fear says as she reads your palm.

But that is a lie.

That is why the most repeated command in the Bible is “do not fear.”

That is why God asks patiently for each and every one of your poisoned anxieties.

Will you fail?

Yes.

Of course.

We all will.

But failure is a day, not a destiny.

An interaction, not an identity.

This is not your forever, this is your Wednesday.

A chapter in a story as long as your life.

Read on.

Throw the lights until they shame the sun.

Tomorrow is coming and fear will not win the day.

Fantasy Football Church Panic

It starts slowly, but across the country a panic has set upon our church pews.

Quietly it grows, row by row, aisle by aisle, service by service as one by one, everyone who plays fantasy football resists the temptation to check their games during church.

It’s difficult, sitting their quietly while your team racks up points, not knowing how you’re doing.

Did the guy you sat blow up today? Is your quarterback playing well? Did anyone get injured?

And it sits there, your answer to all those questions, that tiny black box of statistical goodness.

Pick me up, just for a second, no one will know. It will be over before you know it, just one glance! Pretend you’re reading a Bible verse on your phone!

Do it during the offering and the announcements. That’s not worship, that’s housekeeping. Everyone knows you get a free pass to check your phone then. That’s in the Bible somewhere.

It’s even worse if you live on the West Coast. By the time you get out of church whole games have been played on the East Coast.

You throw the keys to your spouse and collapse in the passenger seat, desperate to see how your team is doing after church. Finally free!

It’s Fantasy Football Church Panic season folks, get ready.

Question:

Do you play fantasy football?

This angel reminds me of Wayne from the Wonder Years.

God won’t help you.

The problem with social media is that anyone can say anything.

I can go online, wrangle a Bible verse way out of context, slap it on a photo of a lighthouse in a storm and severely mislead hundreds of folks.

Our ability to think logically or check sources kind of flies out the window when someone puts a sentence in a nice font.

Case in point, the image below.

I don’t know who created it, but I disagree with it. I think it’s a gross oversimplification of the idea that we have the power of the holy spirit inside us as Christians. Furthermore, I don’t know that there’s a strong Biblical case to be made for a time where God said, “You do it. You’ve already got the power.”

I think about verses like Psalm 121: 1-2,

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

The problem is that it’s easy to create stuff like this, post it online and get 1,000 likes. But every time we do that, we further dilute the truth, we further reduce our shared knowledge and in some cases we further take steps away from the Bible.

I love social media. I think it’s amazing, but let’s use it to encourage, challenge and above all share the truth. Not water it down with fonts and vista photos where people are standing on the edge of a cliff lifting their hands to the Lord, who is apparently not very helpful after all.

Why do I write Stuff Christians Like?

Because of this photo, that’s why.

When I see stuff like this, I am the one who becomes a curious kitten. I have so many questions:

1. Does this Bible celebrate all of the curious kittens that played a role in the Bible? (Like the one who helped David find his rocks when fighting Goliath?)

2. Are there pictures of curious kittens within the pages?

3. Is the cover tough enough for a real curious kitten to use it as a scratching post?

4. Does it meow when you open the cover?

5. Is there a puppy version?

I am overwhelmed with curiosity at seeing items such as this. So write I must!

What do you think about this Bible?