Jon Acuff's Blog, page 69
June 26, 2013
Oh, you’re a Christian.
A few months ago, I had a conversation with a woman on a plane.
Thirty minutes into our talk, I mentioned something about faith.
Taken aback, she said, “Oh, you’re a Christian?”
I said, “Yes, why?”
Her response surprised me.
She said, “You don’t seem judgmental enough to be a Christian.”
My hope is that our generation will be the one that rewires that.
My hope is that our generation will be the one that encourages people who don’t know Jesus to say,
“Oh, you’re a Christian?”
“That makes sense. You seemed really gracious.”
“You seemed like you understood how much you’ve been forgiven.”
“You seemed like you know what it means to be given a second and a third and a thousandth chance.”
Someday on a plane, I hope that’s what I hear about our faith.
June 25, 2013
The greatest Jesus Juke ever?
A Jesus Juke is when you’re having a normal situation and someone tries to juke in some Jesus out of nowhere. For instance, if you tweet “I am so excited about the Super Bowl” and your friend responds with “Don’t you wish we were this excited about church on Sunday?” that’s a Jesus Juke. Being excited about the Super Bowl and church are not mutually exclusive.
So today, a woman (@thatpatti) accidentally hit someone’s car door with her car door.
This is the note they left her.
Juke of the year.
Kanye collaborates with God.
On his new album, Kanye West lists one person he collaborated with.
Jermaine Dupri? El Debarge? Lil’ Pant Droopy? (I made up that last one.)
Nope, Kanye collaborated with God.
Here’s the track listing from iTunes:
Track number 3 is the one God apparently contributed to.
Please insert your own cowbell joke right here.
In perhaps the greatest, “Booty, God, Booty,” moment of the last year, track number 5 is called “Hold my liquor.” I haven’t listened to the album so it’s possible that song is about the time Jesus turned water into wine. I could be wrong though.
Fortunately, the lead singer of Stryper commented on the situation, which only amplified my desire to turn this into an SCL post.
Here’s my question for you though, what do you think God did on that track? Vocals? Rap? The Dougie?
June 24, 2013
That time I stole food from an African Children’s Choir.
I am not going to look great in this story.
Not even a little bit, but it’s not as bad as it seems.
Last week, I was speaking at an amazing camp called “BigStuf.”
At dinner time, I was walking through the halls of the hotel when I saw a BigStuf intern carrying six pizzas. Being the jester I am, I said, “That’s a lot of pizza for one person!”
The intern laughed and said, “Ha! It’s not all for me. Do you want a piece?”
Knowing that some nights I eat dinner with the interns, I thought, “Sure, why not?”
I walked to my room and ate the pizza. A few minutes later, I saw this tweet from the African Children’s Choir that was performing later that night.
Whoops.
They also had a photo.
Wow, Jon Acuff, stealing food from African Children’s Choirs.
What could I do?
I had no option but to tweet this:
At the end of the day, it’s about the kids.
I believe that children are the future.
But I also believe that free hallway pizza should never be turned down.
So I believe you can see the dilemma I was in last week.
Tough call. Tough call indeed.
June 21, 2013
Top Ten Potluck Dishes to Avoid
(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from Phillip Wilson. You can check out his blog here or follow him on Twitter. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)
Top Ten Potluck Dishes to Avoid
Church potlucks are always dangerous territory. Dishes abound that are not for the faint of heart. There are concoctions that would scare the pink off a truckload of Pepto Bismol. We are talking about something you are going to PAY FOR in the morning…if you make it till morning. For those reasons, we have comprised a list of the top ten potluck dishes to avoid:
10- Bro. Ed’s Hot Chili: Made with enough peppers to stock Bobby Flay’s chain of Tex-Mex restaurants for a year. (Is that a hole in the wall of that crock pot?)
9- Sister Pearl’s Cream of Something Mustgo Casserole: When everything in the fridge “must go.” Cream of mushroom soup covers a multitude of sins…and leftovers.
8- Anything made with Spam and cheese.
7- Anything made with tuna and cheese.
6- Anything made with Spam AND tuna AND cheese. (Can you possibly imagine?)
5- Mayonnaise Egg Salad Surprise: It’s been at room temperature for 8 hours and you have food poisoning. Surprise!
4- Foods packed in a recycled oleo margarine tub. (Make sure I get that bowl back!)
3- Mable’s Marble Meatloaf: The color, texture, flavor and moisture content of real marble.
2- Aunt Sadie’s Pound Cake: Dense as a brick, and no amount of whipped cream or strawberry juice will penetrate its interior. Guaranteed to maintain that consistency all the way through your digestive track.
1-Cora’s Coconut Cake- Brought by the church cat lady, whose white Persian likes to sit on the counter and watch her bake.
Personally I suggest the no-name, half-chocolate, half-vanilla sandwich cookies straight from the plastic bag, a few stale chips, a couple of brown-and-serve dinner rolls, and a styrofoam cup of weak sweet tea. Enjoy!
(For more great writing from Phil, check out his blog!)
June 20, 2013
June 19, 2013
The F word.
Do you know what is the most repeated command in the entire Bible? Over and over again, this command appears more than any other.
Can you guess what it is?
Do not be afraid.
It’s not “Accept grace.” It’s not “Share the gospel with strangers.” It’s not, “Do not sin.”
It’s do not be afraid.
Do not fear.
Why?
Because fear is brilliant.
A few months ago, we started a site called nomorevoices.com.
You can only do two things on the site, you can share a voice of fear you have or click “me too” on someone else’s. (Fear always wants you to think you’re alone in your fear and that no one feels that same way.)
In the first 24 hours we had 1,000 voices from people. It’s been an amazing experience and sometimes, during speeches I will ask the audience that question.
Last week I asked a room full of teenagers what their voices told them. In less than 5 minutes, there were a thousand pieces of paper sitting on the stage in response.
And the brilliance of fear is that it’s schizophrenic. It argues both sides of the coin so that you have nowhere to stand. One teen girl wrote on her card, “You’re too skinny, no boy will ever like you.” Another teen girl wrote, “You’re too fat.”
It’s not just teens who struggle with both sides of fear.
One day you will wake up and fear will tell you “you’re too young to chase that dream.” You need more time and experience and wisdom.
One day you will wake up and fear will tell you “you’re too old. It’s too late. You missed your chance.”
They can’t both be right.
The reason the Bible mentions fear so often is that it leads to everything else. It leads to hiding and lying and sin. It leads to shallow lives and empty promises. It’s a hinge moment that can shape your entire existence if you let it.
I don’t know what your voice of fear says, but I do know this, fear is a liar.
For twenty years I asked it if I had what it takes to write a book. The answer was always “no.”
Four books later, it turns out fear wasn’t telling the truth.
And I promise it’s lying to you too.
June 18, 2013
Top 16 Worship Music Typos
Recently I did a post about noticing typos in the worship music. The comments on that post were funnier than the post. Here are the best, completely real, typos people have noticed at church:
1. “Lord, You are more precious than silver… Lord, You are more costly than golf.”
2. Easter. The line was supposed to read “We were naked and poor” but instead it read “We were naked and poop.” Quite possibly the best typo of all time. I could not stop laughing for the rest of the song. It was epic.
3. ‘Defender of the week’ like Jesus is getting an award for being great at sports.
4. When we lived in Latin America: the line in the song was supposed to be “levantando manos santas” (lifting holy hands) but they wrote “monos” (monkeys) instead of “manos” and put that on the screen. Lifting holy monkeys. Um hmm. People standing around us thought the shekinah glory had come over us.
5. “Our God is greeter, our God is stronger.” I like that image. God greeting us as we walk into church. He’s like the little old lady who shakes our hands, only…He is God and God gives high fives! I assumed they left out the “a” and forgot to embrace the contraction, so I sing: “Our God’s a greeter.”
6. I made the power points for our colleges ministry and had a slide that, instead of saying Jesus my closest friend, said Jesus my closet friend. Don’t know how many people’s experience I ruined.
7. When I saw “Oh Lord Your Beautiful”, I wanted to stab my eyes. But I chose to say nothing. It was years ago. The fact that I still remember it means something.
8. I’ve noticed that, when we are singing “How He Loves,” the phrase “sloppy wet” gets misspelled to “unforeseen.” Not even close! C’mon, media team!
9. Lion of God turned into “Loin of God.” Fail. My bad.
10. I create the lyric sheets for our small fellowship, and one Sunday the “strumpets” were calling during Days of Elijah. Oops.
11. The slide said “four our sins He died.” Someone behind me asked if we’re on our own for the fifth sin.
12. The best one I have seen was: Amazon love, how can it be?
13. I’m personally a fan of “Angles We Have Heard on High” at Christmastime. I always assume they are right angles.
14. I once attended a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” where the phrase “surely He has borne our griefs” was printed as “surely He has borne our briefs” in the programs given to the audience. I laughed for a while.
15. My favorite? It was in the song “The Great I Am.” “Holy, Holy, Guacamole…”
16. My favorite is not a song lyric–it’s a typo in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our debits as we forgive our debitors…” Not exactly the same meaning.
June 17, 2013
Cigars, the Christian cigarette.
Did Jesus ever smoke a cigar in the Bible?
I haven’t read every translation, but is there one that includes him and Peter watching the sun go down over the sea of Galilee while enjoying a cigar?
There must have been, because every Christian knows you can smoke cigars.
And pipes?
Those are practically Biblical, probably in the Old Testament if I had to guess.
Why?
Because two of our most influential theologians were known to smoke pipes. Who?
C.S. Lewis and Gandalf.
But cigarettes? Oh the shame! You pull out a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes and light up, then people start praying for you.
Pull out a cigar? Completely different story.
Are they both made of tobacco? Do they both in the long run give you cancer? Sure, but a cigar is completely different from a cigarette. I’m pretty sure Paul smoked them. Lot of people don’t know this, but when he got shipwrecked he was actually on Cuba. That dude loved Cohibas.
Even more confusing than that discussion is the “clove cigarette.” That might be the most perfect example of smoking in the world but not of the world.
Is this ridiculous? It is. But I promise you I’ve heard this discussion from countless Christians.
Tell me I’m wrong.
Disclaimer: If you’re a teenager under the age of 18, please don’t smoke anything, except your algebra exam! I was going to put an age verification box on this post that asked you how old you are because no one ever lies on those things, but I didn’t have time.
June 14, 2013
Committee on Committee on Committees
(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from Josh Daffern. You can check out his blog here or follow him on Twitter. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)
Committee on Committee on Committees
Growing up Baptist, I was entranced by the abundance of committees that seemed to cover every facet of church life. A committee for flowers? Check. A hostess committee? Check. (Only later did I realize that this committee had nothing to do with my favorite brand of comfort foods). But one committee always intrigued me with its deeply authoritative and far-reaching title: the Committee on Committees.
This was the pinnacle! This was the magical-smoke-filled-back-room committee where the real power existed. Who wanted to be on something lame like the Properties Committee when you could be on the Committee on Committees? This committee was the supreme power, the Council of Elrond of Baptist churches.
As I grew a little older, my male aspirations of world domination played itself out in my Baptist world, and I created a new, fictitious, uber-powerful committee that would rule all committees: the Committee on Committee on Committees. This highly secretive committee would wield uncontrolled power to install puppet committees throughout the church.
Growing up in a typical Baptist church, here are some of the new committees that the Committee on Committee on Committees would install:
The Surly Greeter Committee - This committee would ensure that the meanest, poutiest, surliest members (and oldest, preferably) would greet at the front doors. They would set an acceptably dour mood for the service.
The Pew Kicker Committee - This committee would deputize one angry couple a week to go throughout the sanctuary and kick guests out of their seats, claiming that they were sitting in their row. They would ensure that the pecking order of seniority remained intact.
The Temperature Complaining Committee - This committee would be made exclusively of senior ladies who would be strategically placed throughout the sanctuary to loudly complain that the temperature was too cold (no matter what the actual temperature).
The Baby Screaming Committee - This committee would commission new moms to keep their babies out of the nursery and bring them into the service, preferably fussy. These moms would assume that everyone would love to watch and hear this new, screaming bundle of joy for an hour.
The Sleeping Choir Member Committee - This committee would enlist at least one choir member per service to fall asleep (noticeably) during the pastor’s sermon. The closer they sat directly behind the pastor, the better.
The Debbie Downer Committee – This committee of highly trained operatives would corner the pastor, preferably within three minutes of the service starting, and complain incessantly about the most mundane issues possible. Wouldn’t want the pastor to be too peppy walking into the pulpit.
The Clothing Diva Committee - This committee would be an added bonus to the Baptist church. This committee would be formed exclusively of median aged wives and moms who think each Sunday service is an opportunity to dress for the Kentucky Derby. Their over-the-top and look-at-me outfits would ensure that people have someone to talk about at lunch.
QUESTION: What new committees would you install for the typical church?
(For more great writing from Josh, check out his blog!)
