Jon Acuff's Blog, page 98

Meet the super humans.

This is brilliant and inspiring and other words that mean awesome.

I dare you to try to only watch it once.

Why I’m happy the disciples were a mess.

Someday, you’re going to feel afraid. (Especially if you live in Louisiana. From what I can tell on the television, that state is covered with alligators you have to wrestle and bearded swamp drifters you have to plan reality shows with. Terrifying.)

You’ll fear something. You’ll doubt God. You’ll worry that maybe he doesn’t have this whole thing in his hands.

Your job.

Your marriage.

Your future.

Your anything.

And when you’re afraid, doubt and maybe even guilt will try to piggyback on fear and ride into your heart too.

“If I was just a better Christian, I would trust God more! I’m such a failure of a Christian! Why do I still doubt?”

And when those feelings stumble in, like the drunk, little jerks they can be, I want you to remember the disciples.

Because fortunately, those guys were a mess.

Don’t believe me?

Here are a few things that the first disciples witnessed Jesus do in the first four chapters of Mark:

Jesus drove out an evil spirit. (Mark 1:25)

Jesus healed “many” people from all over town. (Mark 1:24-25)

Jesus healed a man with leprosy. (Mark 1:42)

Jesus healed a paralytic. (Mark 2:10-11)

Jesus heals a guy with a shriveled hand. (Mark 3:5)

Over and over again, these first disciples witness Jesus doing some absolutely wild things. Having witnessed these things first hand, it only makes sense that in Mark 4, when a storm threatens their boat, they immediately proclaim “No problem! We’ve got Jesus with us! Any boat he is on is like a Carnival Cruise!”

Actually, they freak out. They wake Jesus up and instead of just saying, “Help, we’re going to drown!” they go with the far whinier, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” They manage to actually sound selfish in their cry for help, which is a difficult thing to do.

Think about if your house were on fire. From a second story window, what would you shout to the firemen below? You’d shout, “Help! There’s a fire!” Not, “Don’t you care if I catch on fire?” (A fireman who heard that would probably punch you in the face as he rescued you.)

After being woken by the disciples, Jesus calms the storm. He questions the disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

Their reaction is to huddle in terror, look at each other and say, “Who is this?”

They’d witnessed countless miracles.

They’d seen things we can barely begin to fathom.

They’d experienced first hand the majesty of Jesus.

And they doubted.

They feared when the storms of life battered them about.

It’s possible they will batter you one day too.

And in that moment, don’t let shame ride the storm in. Don’t think you’re a failure for being afraid. Don’t think “real Christians” don’t have to cry out in storms.

They do. Even the disciples, who spent every night and day watching miracles, were afraid of the waves sometimes.

We all are. And the good news is we have a God and a grace that is big enough to handle that fear. He’s big enough to calm the storms. And he’s big enough to love us even when we lose sight of how big he really is.

Greatest Christian Bumper Sticker Ever? Probably.

I applaud you, sir. Or madam. I don’t know who you are, but you are awesome.

I’ve seen a billion silly Christian bumper stickers. I’m looking at you right now, “Are you following Jesus this close?”

But this one made me do a slow golf clap in the parking deck when I saw it in Franklin, Tennessee.

It’s so simple and so funny. If I ever got a message tattooed on my knuckles, this would probably be it. Or blinged out knuckle rapper rings. Either way, it’d be fantastic.

 

 

Have you ever seen a funny Christian bumper sticker?

 

Not knowing how many sneezes to say “God bless you” for.

Can we get a ruling on this one?

Can we put our heads and hearts (which is the hardest 12 inches to travel) together for a second?

How many sneezes are we supposed to say “God bless you” for? Is there a limit, or are we supposed to just be bottomless with those things?

I only ask because they moved my cube at work, and I’m sitting in a much sneezier group of people. (Don’t worry they’re not very impressed that I have a blog and don’t read it. They’ll never see this.)

Are you the type of “God bless you” person who doles them out individually like hard candies? Each sneeze, no matter the time interval upon which they came, gets one?

Sneeze! God bless you!

Sneeze! God bless you!

Sneeze! God bless you!

Or do you deliver your “God bless you’s” in bulk, like Costco? You wait until you can tell a multi-sneeze event is over and then just do one God bless you that covers all of them? That’s not a bad approach. It’s efficient. I’m pretty busy. I can’t be constantly interrupting my work with your refusal to take Claritin-D (Who am I kidding, I don’t take Claritin-D either. What am I made of money? I take knock offs, like  Walgreen’s version “Wal-tin-D,” or the even less expensive “Shell Gas Station-Tin-D.”)

Is this a 7 times 70 thing, like forgiveness? We just have to go and go and go?

Or can I throw one out at the beginning of the day that covers me for the next 8 hours?

Would that be weird if I walked in each workday and said, “Hey, everyone who is in my cube’s radius, ‘God bless you!’ All day! Done and done!”

What do you think?

What’s your approach to the “God bless you” dilemma?

Christian trending topics on Twitter.

A few months ago, I gave you a very helpful Twitter tip that a lot of social media experts won’t tell you:

“Never offend someone who has a Rottweiler in their profile photo and is in charge of the unofficial Eazy-E fan club.”

Sounds obvious, but oddly enough, this was a tip I had to learn through experience. Another free social media observation is that given one glance at the trending topics of Twitter proves we don’t need a Christian version of Twitter. We just need to be Christians on it.

At the time of this writing, which makes me sound like a journalist wearing a “press hat,” here are a two things that were trending:

 “Luke 8:48.”

“theBibleSays”

Now if you’re not familiar with Luke 8:48, it says, “A wise man never responds to a hater on Twitter.” Luke is a pretty progressive book. He even predicted that Friendster would become the next MySpace which would become the next Facebook which would become the next … you’ll have to read the Bible for the answer. I don’t have time all day to be transcribing the entire Bible for you. There’s an app. (And even a Christian iPad.)

Someone mentioned that Twitter is starting to skew trends to your personal tastes so I might be seeing more holy sounding trends than you because, well, I’m holier.

But if that’s the case, why was “Fleetwood Mac” and “Euthanasia” trending for me? I can’t even spell that last word correctly and certainly haven’t be tweeting about “euthanizing Fleetwood Mac.” That’s just mean.

I will say this though, in the midst of the awesomeness of seeing truth trend, let’s sidestep one thing:

The temptation to be judgmental.

Let’s all promise each other, pinky promise if your area of the world respects that, that we won’t use Christian trending topics as an opportunity to be a jerk or Jesus Juke folks.

Case in point, here’s what one person tweeted in response to “He is Lord” trending:

You may not participate in the “He Is Lord” trend on Twitter today, but you will participate on the day of judgement.

The first problem is the typo in the word “judgement.” That “e” is the devil, constantly trying to sneak into that word.

The second problem is that they somehow found a way to compare participating in a twitter trend with participating in judgment day. I’d say the gap between those two activities is fairly wide. My great fear is that soon, if you don’t participate in trending topics on Twitter people will start judging you. It’s not really a “great fear” but more a “mild fear.” My great fear is when people have ferocious dogs and invisible electric fences they don’t tell you about.

The dog sprints with murder in it’s mouth right to the edge of the yard and then pulls back right at the last second once you’ve peed yourself a little. That’s my great fear. Judgment on Twitter is only my mild fear.

In summary. Christian topics trending? Yay!

Finding new ways to Jesus Juke people? Boo.

Question:

Have you ever seen a Christian idea trending?

Smuggling your own candy into the movie theater.

Is that a sin?

Could someone who knows Greek or Hebrew jump in on this one?

Is it a sin to buy your own candy at CVS or a Walmart before you get to the theater? And maybe wear pants that have big enough pockets to accompany family size containers of Junior Mints? And then walk slowly so as not to rattle said candy near the guy tearing the tickets, but not so slowly that the mint amazingness melts into one solid Junior Mint that you have to hold like a chocolately baseball during the movie?

How about sandwiches? What’s the rule there? If the theater doesn’t offer meatball subs, and it just so happens that a six-inch meatball sub will slide up the sleeve of your coat, and it just kind of looks like you work out your forearms a lot like Popeye, is that bad?

Is it OK if you justify it by saying “the movies are so expensive these days!” so smuggled candy is all I can afford? Is it extra wrong if you hide your candy in your kids’ pockets? Is using your kids as a mule for the Junior Mint underground bad?

Did the disciples ever encounter this dilemma in the Bible? Whole gang went out one day to watch a play and maybe one of them, probably Judas, snuck a fish in? Probably not. It’s hard to sneak fish anywhere. Especially cod. If you’re going to hide a fish in your cargo pants, you’re going to want a flaky white, fairly odorless fish, like a mahi mahi.

What if you tithe the money you save by not buying candy at the theater? Can we pretend that is happening? You take all your candy savings, and use it to buy canned goods for your church?

Is it a sin to bring your own snacks to the movie theater? Can we get a ruling on that? And if not, can we please get at least one comment from one angry person whose dad used to have a Junior Mint farm and his biggest client was movie theaters, and it’s awful, just awful that anyone would ever smuggle in candy?

Anyone?

I’m asking for a friend.

I wish every church said what this church says in their bulletin …

It’s easy to poke fun at some of the things churches say on their welcome sign. It’s easy to question some of the things that make it inside a church bulletin.

It’s easy to say “this is bad,” but it’s a lot harder to say “this is good.” Anyone can critique, but creating is a lot more difficult.

So what does a great welcome message look like? What does an awesome welcome message look like?

It looks exactly like what “Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Community” has in their church.

My friend attended there recently, and I got a copy of what they hand out. I posted a photo of it below so you could see what it looks like, but the image got cut off so here’s what it says:

We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, yo no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.

We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re “just browsing,” just woke up or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism.

We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organized religion,” we’ve been there too.

If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.

We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!

Bravo to Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Community! That should be made into a poster and hung in church offices around the world.

I love the thought that a few members of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Community getting together and saying, “Let’s invite everyone to come meet Jesus!” And then they started writing their list.

And it got long. Why?

Because everyone needs Jesus.

Everyone changes when they meet Jesus.

And they wanted to make sure everyone knew they were invited to meet him.

How to get a waiter to come to your table immediately.

Pray.

There it is, a secret we Christians have been holding on to for years. Guarded closely by the Knights of Red Lobster, lo’ these many years, most Christians don’t dare breathe these words for fear that our secret will lose its power.

But it is true: If you ever want to get a waiter or a waitress to come over to your table, just start praying.

The second you bow your head, they will appear at your table. The moment your eyes close, they will materialize at your side.

Need a refill on the water? Start praying.

Need more rolls? Start praying.

Need a different salt shaker because your kid licked the top of the one at your table? OK, probably just my family.

With a prayer interrupting radar that is more highly tuned than my ability to tell the difference between Polo shirts and the ones I wore as a kid (Knights of the Round Table), waiters will arrive.

Secret is out.

You’re welcome.

The 5 Commandments of Christian Passive Aggressive Notes

Recently, someone sent me a Christian Passive Aggressive Note or CPAN if you will. (Not to be confused with CSPAN.)

A coworker left the note on the fridge at the ministry he worked at.

How do you write a really good CPAN? Well, allow me to enlighten you with this real-life example:

 

5 Commandments of CPANs.

1. Use at least one Bible verse.

It’s not a Christian Passive Aggressive Note unless you’ve got at least one Bible verse. Whether you want to go old school and quote the OT is up to you. This person chose to drop by Exodus and Deuteronomy. Well played.

2. Don’t write out the verse.

Just use the reference or “address” of the verse if you will. This accomplishes two things: One, it makes the offending party feel like a sinner if they don’t have the verses memorized and know them by heart. Two, it forces people to read their Bible. Win, win.

3. Make fairly broad claims.

My first thought upon seeing these two Bible verses was, “Is there a verse about a fridge in the Bible? Did Moses ever confront Pharoah about how the Israelites were tired of him eating their leftover Jason’s Deli sandwich that had been clearly marked with papyrus?” Alas, that is not in the Bible. Instead, these verses both say, “You shall not steal.” I like the broad assumption that there is a cold item bandit on the loose, not that it’s possible two people bought the same exact Dannon yogurt and one got eaten by mistake.

4. Leave it anonymously.

Why should you never leave your name on a CPAN? Because that might lead to conversation, not condemnation. And there’s no doubt about which one you’re going for here. Make sure you type the note so that no one in the general area can tell it was your handwriting.

5. Get creative.

Big points for incorporating math into the mix. Check out the brain on Brad! This also gets a little dig at someone who might not be a Christian. The thinking is that perhaps this fridge felon is not a believer, sees the note and then says, “Bible verses, who cares about those? I’m still eating your old lasagna, there is no God! Wait, hark! What is this? Math and common courtesy? Who could argue with those? You’ve got me you wry note writer!” If that wasn’t enough, the note continues at the bottom with something called the “Toddler’s Rules.” Here we see the passive aggression reaching new levels. The photo doesn’t show it well, but the rules say things like: “If I like it, it’s mine. If it’s in my hand, it’s mine. If I can take it from you, it’s mine.”

Hopefully, those five commandments will help clear up any confusion you’ve been feeling about how to write a Christian Passive Aggressive Note.

I will say this, though, the hardest part of writing a CPAN is making sure that you act in passive aggression quickly. You’ve got to get back to your computer, look up Bible verses, look up creative additions like the toddler rules, print out your note, get it from the printer, find tape, wait until no one is around wherever you are going to put it, and stick it quickly.

The last thing you want is patience, understanding, or civility to get the best of you before you’re able to execute a really amazing CPAN.

Question:

Have you ever seen a great CPAN?

The Bourne-Again Identity

(It’s guest post Friday!  Here’s one by Joanna Miley King . You can check out her blog here.  If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)

The Bourne-Again Identity

Is God disappointed that Matt Damon isn’t in the new Bourne movie? Probably not. He’s God, after all. He’s probably pretty excited for that other guy, too. Hard to say. The Old Testament and New Testament do very little to clear up those kind of issues. But I do find myself thinking about the Bourne movies a lot, especially when it comes to prayer.

Some people seem to be so in tune with the Holy Spirit that it’s like they’ve got some kind of signal booster giving them the inside track on the Trinity’s conversations. Are they wiretapping or something?

You know the type I’m talking about. They’re the people that sit up in bed at 3:22 in the morning with a name or a face on their mind. They sense an urgency to pray. They are like the Jason Bournes of Christianity, like there’s some kind of secret fraternity of Treadstone-like prayer assassins.

Here’s a very recent example. My husband and I had a seminary friend call a few weeks ago.  The conversation went something like this:

“Hey Joe, this is John David.  I know we haven’t talked in a while, but God laid you on my heart early this morning [which is Treadstone code for: “I received a small safety deposit box containing a manila envelope with your name and phone number on a 3x5 notecard, along with a passport, $1,200 in unmarked bills, four language translations of Gideon New Testaments, and a 45 Springfield 1911 with three full clips].  I just felt like I needed to give you a call.  God is telling me to affirm your gifts of leadership. Let’s get together and do lunch soon.”

Later that afternoon, our pastor walked in and told Joe (the youth minister) that he would be resigning. From now on, Joe would be taking over responsibilities regarding our building project for a new education building, to begin the month after the pastor leaves.

How did that friend know to make that phone call?  How did he know to encourage my husband to be sure of himself as a leader?  Did he know our pastor was about to resign?

The answer, OF COURSE, has to be that he has an acetaminophen soft-gel sized tracker lodged near his spine, which imports information from headquarters.  God’s up to date on these kinds of things.  He kicks it on in during those times between waking and sleeping where the host is less likely to refuse or rationalize away the instinct to pray or act specifically and spontaneously.

I wake up some times in the middle of the night and think: “Do I have to pee?  Or is Julia Stiles trying to upload a file to my subconscious?”  I close my eyes and press on them with my thumbs until I see white flashes.  “Anything?  A name, a face, a situation?”

Question:

Have you ever been the recipient of such a message, as either the agent or the target?  How did it turn out?

For more great writing from Joanna, check out her blog.