Jon Acuff's Blog, page 94

The 1 person you should never help.

According to the Bible, we’re supposed to love our neighbor and our enemy. Yikes, that seems like it covers everyone. Who isn’t in one of those two categories? The pressure! The pressure!

Fear not, though. I found someone you should never love or help. In fact, a whole category of people. I actually got an email from one of them the other day. The email address was oncall4Jesus@yahoo.com. Definitely a neighbor, not an enemy. The subject line of the email was “urgent,” and being a helpful Christian myself, I immediately opened it. I was shocked at what I discovered inside, and I thought it might be good to break down the email in case you ever get sent one like this. Here is the actual text of the email and my thoughts:

I really hope you get this on time.

(Don’t worry, oncall4Jesus, I did get it on time. Proceed, with urgency.)

I didn’t tell you about my visit to Spain with my family for a short vacation,

(Kind of bummed about that right off the bat. You think you know someone and then they jaunt off to Spain with their family without even letting you know.)

but unfortunately we were robbed at the hotel where we lodged along with other folks.

(What??!! Oh no! Not only did they get robbed, they started using “lodge” as a verb, as if that’s common. Good thing that, like every other hotel on the planet, there were “other folks” staying there.)

We didn’t bring our phones and the hotel telephone lines were disconnected during the incident.

(What kind of Ocean’s 11 heist was this? In addition to robbing you, the cat burglars went to the trouble of disconnecting the hotel phone lines. As the Spanish and Bart Simpson say, “Ay Caramba!”)

So I have access to only emails.

(Thank goodness the thieves did not mess up the wifi at the hotel. That was their first mistake. George Clooney would have.)

Please I’m going to need some sort of loan from you for us to relocate to another hotel close to the embassy

(Smart move, oncall4Jesus. Get the embassy involved. I’ve seen enough movies to know that’s the first thing you want to do when you’re up against a Spanish thievery ring. And loan? It’s kind of you to even use that word, that gives me the sincere assurance that this money will be paid back promptly. But, as we both know from Romans 13:8, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”)

and also to get another flight ticket.

(Is that what they’re selling now in Spain? “Flight tickets?” Oh the miracle of flight, now finally available. The Wright brothers would be thrilled, if they weren’t currently lodging in coffins.)

Those thieves made away with our credit cards as well which is why this can’t be resolved instantly.

(Credit cards too? Those rapscallions! Is there anything they did not take? They stole your money and your credit cards, but they can never take your freedom! Not as long as flight tickets are available for purchase. As a Dave Ramsey guy, I personally think those thieves did you a favor by stealing your credit cards. You were being robbed by the credit card companies already, but we’ll talk about that over lattes when you get back!)

We have been to the Embassy and the Police here are not helping issues at all and our flight leaves tomorrow.

(I appreciate you capitalizing “Embassy.” Your earlier lowercase made me nervous. They’re not helping now? I’m confused why you wanted to move your hotel closer to them then, but what do I know. And the police? I’ve seen Taken a number of times. You’re better off throat chopping your way across Europe than you are trying to work with the international police. As far as your flight goes, did the thieves steal your flight tickets as well? Surely you did not go off on this secretive Spanish vacation without buying a return ticket? That’s just like you oncall4Jesus! Fly all the way to Spain on a one-way ticket, and then hope against hope that you do not run into a band of Andalusian marauders.)

Please, Let me know if you can help us out? I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Jean

(Jean! Oh, for a second I was hoping that your name would help me remember if this was coming from the husband or wife of this stranded family. But that name is perfectly in the middle. Sure, most male Jeans are spelled “Gene,” but it could still go either way. Curses Pat, Chris, Jordan, Jesse, Kelly! Can I help? of course! But first let me say how fortunate it is that the thieves did not take your passports when then they were stealing your money, your credit cards, and flight tickets. That would have been a real pickle.)

At the end of the day, I wasn’t able to help Jean. Upon further review, I started to feel like maybe Jean wasn’t being completely honest with me.

So there. There’s at least one person on the planet we don’t have to love or help.

Christian live tweeting

(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from John Hughes. You can check out his blog here. You can also follow him on Twitter. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)

Christian live tweeting

Live tweeting is all the rage at any conference or gathering of people.  And like many things, the church is starting to pick up on this.

I was recently at a denominational conference, and we were given the opportunity to live tweet while the speakers were delivering their message. Being not so new to Twitter, but entirely new to live tweeting, I was a bit apprehensive as the conference kicked off.  How many people at a rural denominational conference are going to actually tweet?

In the most southern of sentences, it was “a whole bunch.” I floundered to find my voice and eventually caught on to the different personas that exist during a live tweet.

And what are they you ask?

I’m glad you can read my mind.  A non-exhaustive list follows:

1.  Requoter: The person who does nothing more than simply tweet an exact quote from the keynote speaker. They worry that the original message is more important than self-application so they refuse to modify anything. This is helpful at any conference where a transcript of the message will not be available later on.

2.  Introspecter: The person who really takes the message to heart. So much so they must relate in 140 or less characters how moved they were by a simple statement. These people tend to be a little furry and hard to pin down. Often, the association of their emotion to the speech is loose at best.

3.  Quick Draw McGraw (I hope that isn’t a copyright infringement!): This person’s sole purpose is to get a comment or quote out about a particular thought before the rest of the group can. These are the same people that buzz in on Jeopardy before the full question is stated and flounder for the answer.

4.  Retweeter: All this person does is retweet what others have stated. It appears this person is incapable of original thought. Honestly they may be robots. Christian robots here to take your KJV translations.

5.   Master Distracter: Not to be confused with the introspecter, this person has some of the same goals, but they really don’t care about the message being delivered. They will use a speech on quantum physics to tell you about their hard times or prayer needs. If you follow them long enough, you will forget there is even someone speaking.

6.  Incessant Tweeter: This person seems to not really hear any of the message. All they do is tweet. Honestly, they may not even really be there. They can just take cues from other commenters and fake it. Whatever you do, do not engage them. This will result in a 4-day  conversation about the event they may or may not have actually attended. And Twitter etiquette requires you respond to anyone who addresses you.

7.  Clueless: This person is new to Twitter and just can’t quite seem to get it. They may get the hashtag correct, but they don’t actually include any content, or they spend the entire conference using the wrong hashtags and wondering where all the other Twitter users are. We have all been this person. Just gently nudge them in the right direction, and if they don’t seem to catch up, just block them.

I think we have to be careful with live tweeting however. I love the concept, but as a one-sided conversation, live tweeting can become a conversational bully. Blowing up feeds of people with line after line of sermon tweets will get you blocked quicker than posting pictures of Jesus wagging his finger at you.

What are some of the personalities you have encountered during a live tweet session?

For more great writing from John, check out his blog.

Fearing your church will do something wacky the one time you invite a friend.

The only thing Christians like more than inviting friends, coworkers, and family members to church is fearing that on the Sunday they do, all hell will break loose during service. (Not a swear. This is a Christian blog; I get to use that one.)

It doesn’t matter how great your church is Sunday after Sunday. On the one day you actually invite a neighbor for the first time, there’s a moment of panic that passes through you.

Worship music top notch week after week?  Well this will be the Sunday the lady who owns a mission trip rain stick souvenir will be doing an interpretation of the song “I Can Only Imagine.”

Pastor always brings his A game?  Well this will be the Sunday he starts his sermon by saying, “Today I want to talk about why you should give all your money to the church unless you want to go to hell.”

Never done any old school snake handling at your church?  Well this will be the Sunday where they hand out a free pit viper with each bulletin.

Your only defense against this fear is to prepare a really good church disclaimer.  As soon as the service jumps off the tracks and you see your friend squirm, lean over to them and call a mulligan, “Church is never like this. I don’t know what’s going on today. Will you please come back next week?”

(This originally appeared in the Stuff Christians Like book. If you want to pick up a copy, click here!)

The Carpet Bomb.

Conner is going to eat too much Halloween candy and throw up.

You won’t even notice him eating it either. You can come up with all the plans you want, that is happening. On October 31, Conner will get sick from too many twizzlers, too many dum dums, too many tootsie rolls.

That’s what 7 year old boys do. They sprint up front stoops, ring door bells with enthusiasm, and pray they find a house with an unattended bucket that says, “Please only take one.”

This is one of my many memories of our neighbor Conner who lived a few houses down from us in Atlanta. I had two daughters, they had two sons and they all became friends before any of them contracted cooties and could no longer play together.

Blonde haired Conner loved my skateboards, something a dad in the suburbs is not expected to have. He was a tornado of energy and excitement, the king of jumping in the pool or building a zip line in the backyard. And then cancer snuck up on all of us.

Conner fought it. For years we thought he had beat it, but then it came back.

At an age when learning cursive in the second grade should be his biggest challenge, he’s facing 200 days of chemotherapy. At an age when his 9 year old brother should be watching his toys to make sure his little brother Conner doesn’t take any, he’s watching his little brother lose his hair.

A few weeks ago I read an update on his progress on Caring Bridge. (His name is ConnerArneson1 on Caring Bridge) His mom said it meant so much to her that people who don’t even know Conner were praying for him. And then I remembered, I know a lot of people who don’t Conner.

I know thousands of people who don’t know Conner.

So today, instead of a normal Serious Wednesday, I want to do something different.

Today, I want to carpet bomb Conner with prayer. We always hear about the dangers of social media, but as a member of the SCL family for four years, I’ve had a chance to see the beauty of it too.

Today, pray for Conner. Leave a comment to let his mom know you did and if you don’t mind, post where you’re from. I’d love to send her the link to this post and let her see hundreds of people from dozens of countries praying because they know a Conner too and they know how much prayer can matter to a mom with a son in the hospital.

Thank you.

Jon

What would you spray paint on this dumpster?

How’s that for a headline?

A friend took this photo and emailed it to me. (Feel free to send me stuff at jon (at) jonacuff.com)

I thought it was funny and, perhaps, a borderline Jesus Juke. (Name dropping God to prevent illegal disposal of garbage.)

But what I thought could be even funnier was spray painting something under that message. A response, if you will.

If you were going to write something back on this dumpster, what would you say?

(I’d probably go with “Doesn’t The Message saying something about ‘loving your neighbor and helping them dispose of an old mattress’?”)

Let’s see who can post the funniest comment!

God or Girlfriend? (Mumford & Sons Edition.)

Ever heard of the game “God or Girlfriend?”

Of course not, I just invented it!

Don’t worry, though, it’s easy to play. All you do is take the lyrics of a popular song and ask yourself, “Is this singer talking about God or Girlfriend?” (You can play “God or Boyfriend” with Florence + The Machine.)

Today’s song? “I Will Wait” by Mumford & Sons.

This one is a little tricky because they’re clearly not a worship band, so you’d think, “This song is about lead singer Marcus’ girlfriend who he recently married.” But, not so fast, his parents are the national directors of the Vineyard Church in Great Britain.” As far as I’m concerned, he’s a pastor’s kid.

But don’t listen to me. Let’s look at the lyrics.

God or Girlfriend? Mumford & Sons Edition

“Well I came home”

Clearly this is a Prodigal Son reference.

“Like a stone”

Probably referring to the stone that was rolled away from the tomb.

And I fell heavy into your arms

Not sure, could be a girlfriend or God. Although it’d have to be a strong girlfriend to catch you if you fell that heavy. Probably does P90X. Or it could be about doing a trust fall during a youth group retreat. Too close to call.

“These days of dust”

This is about God and Adam, we all come from the dirt.

“Which we have known

Will blow away with this new sun”

Psalm 68:2 As smoke is blown away by the wind, may you blow them away. I’d feel better if the word “sun” was in that Bible verse, but close enough.

“But I’ll kneel down”

What do you do when you pray? You kneel! This song is about God!

“Wait for now”

Next to journaling, “waiting” is Christianity’s favorite verb.

And I’ll kneel down

Know my ground

And I will wait, I will wait for you

And I will wait, I will wait for you

“So break my step”

God is our shepherd. One of the things shepherds sometimes do with a wayward sheep is break his leg and then mend it. It helps the sheep stay close and learn. Don’t make me quote Isaiah 19:22, “The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.” Plus, this has to be about God. If you told a girlfriend, “So break my step,” she would sweep your leg and yell, “There is no pain in this dojo!” That relationship would be horrible. 

“And relent

Well you forgave and I won’t forget”

Seriously, do I have to explain this one to you? This clue is 7 times 70 easy! Who is all about forgiveness? God!



“Know what we’ve seen

And him with less

Now in some ways

Shake the excess”

Not going to lie, this one is tricky. I think he’s saying. “You know what we’ve seen, we’ve been to the Grammy’s. I wore pants made of gold and unicorn manes.” And the him in “him with less” is referring to all of mankind, those of us who do not have access to pants woven from unicorns. He is asking God to shake the excess lifestyle from him, but saying “I don’t want to wear golden pants” would make for a really dumb lyric.

cause I will wait, I will wait for you

And I will wait, I will wait for you

And I will wait, I will wait for you

And I will wait, I will wait for you

“Now I’ll be bold

As well as strong”

Deuteronomy 31:6. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (This is practically a VBS song at this point!)

“And use my head alongside my heart”

So obvious, this is Marcus Mumford singing about taking something from your head to your heart, the hardest 12 inches to travel.



“So tame my flesh

And fix my eyes”

2 Corinthians 4:18. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

“A tethered mind freed from the lies”

You say tomato. I say tomato. You say “tethered.” I say “yoked.”

“And I’ll kneel down

Wait for now

And I’ll kneel down

Know my ground

Raise my hands”

A subtle reference to singing with your hands raised during church.



“Paint my spirit gold”

Wow, I should practically get seminary credit for listening to this song. Here we go with Job 23: 9-10

When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;

when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

But he knows the way that I take;

when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.



“Bow my head”

Bow my head? Could this song be more about God?

Keep my heart slow

’cause I will wait, I will wait for you

And I will wait, I will wait for you

And I will wait, I will wait for you

And I will wait, I will wait for you

This one feels pretty easy. Roughly 82% of the Bible was referenced in this one song. But what do you think?

Question:

God or Girlfriend?

(Below is a video of the song in case that helps you make your decision.)

 

Parent Prayer Closets

(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from Taleena Sinclair.  If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)

Parent Prayer Closets

If you have children, you may have a hard time finding a “prayer closet” without literally crawling into a closet and closing the door. If you have children like mine, they would take that as a signal you are playing hide and seek and shout “FOUND YOU!”  just as you are trying to move on to the petition part of prayer time. If you’ve got kids, here are four ways to find time to pray:

1.   Wake before your early riser.

4:30 am?  Nice thought, but I have a day to get through without falling asleep behind the wheel. I have tried praying early in the morning and had to ask God to forgive me for falling asleep when I woke up. This early morning prayer only works if you are a morning person or part of a men’s prayer breakfast. I have never been to one of those, but I have always pictured men punching each other to stay awake as they gather to pray.

2.  Pray at night.

You put the kids to bed, then you and your spouse join in prayer instead of watching So You Think You Can Dance and marveling at the pop and lockers and breakers.  This could work, except that the 7-year-old has the amazing ability to look cute while asking for a glass of water, a trip to the  bathroom, help with her covers, killing a spider, evicting the cat from her room, and an emergency prayer request for her class at school’s guppies. It’s a lot easier to pause the TIVO on Mary Murphy’s screaming than to find your prayer groove after every single one of those interruptions.

3.  Pray during exercise.

My Dear Husband and I recently started running and completed our first 5K. I thought run time would be a good time to pray, and I was right. Mostly I was praying, “Dear Lord, give me renewed strength as I run, help me not to have unloving thoughts at my husband for suggesting this. Help me to resist the brownies next time I make them for the kids.”  Not exactly intercession for the missionaries and orphans.

4.  Pray in the Shower.

This is my prayer closet. The time when it is just God and me and Suave’s Rosemary Mint Shampoo. It is not spikenard, but it has a pleasing aroma all the same.  With the water running, I can’t hear the kids whining at me outside the door. My praises sound better bouncing off the shower tile. I am literally naked before God, and that does something to strip away the phony baloney pretensions I have about my character and need. It makes my prayer focused because I have a limited supply of hot water. I strive to listen for God’s voice, because whether or not the water turns cold when He is talking, I need to let Him in on the conversation if it turns cold while I’m still talking.

Bonus: I get to use my hair dryer as a microphone when I finish my prayer session with more praise. I can let my inner gospel singer come out and no one is the wiser.

Question:

Where do you pray the most?

You laughed when I predicted this would happen, who is laughing now?

Let the record show that on July 9, I reached out to the greater Christian community with a desperate plea. What was my dire request? “Let’s not make a Christian version of 50 Shades of Gray.”

I warned you that “50 Shades of Grace” was inevitable, but you did not believe me.

Well my friend, here’s the sign from a church that is doing a new series. Who is laughing now?

 

When it feels like God is hiding.

A few weeks ago, I went jogging with a friend.

He’s that friend who decides to run his first marathon and then finishes it in 3:39.

He’s fast and tall and made in a factory that produces long distance runners.

Suffice it to say, I have a hard time keeping up with him, but it’s great because it forces me to run faster. (Pretty sure that iron sharpens iron verse applies to neighborhood jogging.)

Toward the end of the run, I was doing my best hold it together. He was still producing paragraphs of conversation, barely out of breath. I was just yelling single words like, “Sure!” or “Yeah!” or “Car!” I also had headphones in, adding a soft undercurrent of Explosions in the Sky to the run. I was thinking about a speech I was giving at Belmont the next night. And last but not least, I was trying to avoid packs of feral dogs. Not that I’ve seen any in our neighborhood, but I swear to you I saw some sort of jackal/coyote hybrid run into a drainage pipe at the library.

Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.

Needless to say, during the run I was distracted. I was bent on moving forward, on keeping pace and not losing focus on what was in front of me. As we turned the last corner though, I saw a reflection on a sign ahead. I turned around for the briefest of moments and this is what I saw behind me.

It was massive. It was colorful. It was beautiful without me adding a single filter to it. It was breaking over the river and through the woods, like it was on its way to grandmother’s house. And I almost missed it.

I was so distracted by life that I almost missed what was behind me. What was inescapable once I paused for just a second and looked around.

I think, all too often, that’s what happens with God too. We get in a rush. We get anxious about something right in front of us. We try to hold it together and just keep going and we don’t see him. It feels like he’s not there. He’s nowhere to be found. Fear spurs us on faster. Worry throws blinders on our day.

But, if we’d turn around for a second, if we’d stop running for a second, we’d see him. Maybe not in a way that would make a wicked awesome Instagram image, but he’d be there. He’d be there behind us, reminding us of all the other times he’s pulled us through a situation. All the times he’s been faithful and good because that is his character.

Maybe you’re better at pausing than I am. But if you’re not, the next time life gets fast, don’t be too busy to stop and look around. You just might be surprised by what you see.

Host the Quitter Conference Simulcast at Your Church!

As I recently shared on my other blog, my wife used to call me a “Sunday Jerk.”

Why?

Well, on Saturday I was fine. I was happy. But on Sunday, I could feel the weight of Monday morning building. I could sense the stress of the clock ticking as I got closer to returning to a job I didn’t feel called to do.

At first I thought it was just me, but then I started to talk to people and realized we’re becoming the “I’m, But,” generation. When I ask someone what they do, they tell me the same thing, “I’m a teacher, but I want to be an artist.” “I’m a customer call center representative, but I want to start a business.” “I’m a ________, but I want to be a _________.”

Across the country I heard that same story from people of all ages.

More than 80% of employees in the US want to change jobs.

College graduates face a 16.4% unemployment rate when they finish school.

People in their 50s are being forced to look for “encore careers” due to layoffs.

In order to provide hope and a plan for folks facing these situations, I wrote the book Quitter and started the Quitter Conference. This two-day event is a crash course in closing the gap between your day job and your dream job. When the last two conferences sold out, churches began to ask if we would take the show on the road.

After a conversation with Dave Ramsey, we realized the best thing to do is offer a simulcast of the entire event to churches like yours on September 21-22. (It starts on Friday at 6PM Central – 9PM and then Saturday 8AM – 4PM Central.)

If you’re familiar with my blog and book, Stuff Christians Like then you know the event will be a fun, honest, insight packed event. (With possible bouts of breakdancing from me.) Invite everyone from high school students to single adults and married couples. (It’s hard to find someone these days who is not in the middle of a career transition.)

You don’t have to be a tech genius to run the simulcast, we’ve got an entire team to help make it an incredibly easy experience. And whether it’s held in a Sunday School classroom or the sanctuary is up to you depending on how many folks you invite. Don’t miss this special event. If you’d like to bring the Quitter Conference to your church call 800-572-0375 or email us at simulcast@daveramsey.com.

p.s. Not a church, but still want to see the Quitter Conference? We’re live streaming the Friday night session. You can sign up here for an individual pass.