SCL

A few weeks ago someone asked me, “Is there anyone you won’t take a shot at?” The truth is that although I fail at this sometimes, I don’t like to take a shot at anyone not named Jon Acuff. Mockery gives you a shortcut to an easy laugh right now but it takes away your ability to speak love later. But the more I thought about the question, the more I realized I did have a specific answer to who I won’t take a shot at:

“The Power Team. One of the rules I live by is never make fun of a ministry that is based on feats of strength.”

I don’t care who you are or what your blog is, that’s just smart living right there. But maybe you’ve never heard of the Power Team. They were/are a group of weightlifters who travel the country doing strong man acts like blowing up water bottles with their lungs, ripping telephone booths in half with their bare hands and breaking baseball bats over their knees. Or as we call it at the Acuff house, “Saturday afternoon.” What can I say, that’s just what we like to do.

Today, instead of making fun of the Power Team, I decided to give them a few free ideas. Ways to become more relevant and dare I say, awesomer? And if the Power Team doesn’t like these, well, I once heard Carlos Whitaker say that he didn’t like your tank tops so you should probably arm wrestle him first instead of tuning me up.

Without further ado, I give you:

Stuff Christians Like Suggestions for the Power Team

(Click “continue reading” below for the rest of the post)

1. More Animals

I don’t know if it’s difficult to get a lion, but please get a lion. My friend’s parents toured around the country with one in a motor home during the 70s as part of a promotion for Born Free motor homes and their stories are fantastic. Think of all the Bible tales you could reenact. Benaiah in the pit on a snowy day. Young David out in the field playing his pan flute like Zamfir suddenly having to wrestle a lion. Daniel in the lion’s den. Yes, things briefly did not go well for Siegfried and Roy but that was a tiger, not a lion. And if a big jungle cat is too expensive, at the bare minimum train doves to fly around the room dropping souvenir olive branches on people. (Insert your own worship eagle joke right here.)

2. More Mountain Dewish

Is “dewish” not a real word? Well it should be. If you’re not willing to change your name to the “iPower Team” or the “XPower Team,” the least you can do is to start working some X-games like flair into your routine. Instead of trying to do a walk on water feat of speed, get somebody who is really good at skim boarding to slide across the stage. You’re chopping through boards with your hands? Boring. Chopping through Zoo York skateboards? Relevant! Look at your entire program and ask yourself “What Would Dew Do?” And then laugh that you just said “Dew Do.” And then get Xtreme!

3. Better Nicknames

I took a look at your site and I gotta be honest with you, you guys need better nicknames. That’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. I tried to get people to call me “Jonathan Atuff” instead of “Jonathan Acuff” in middle school and that didn’t catch on. You know why? Because I’m not tough, but you guys are. You’re doing some big, cool, crazy things right now. Your nicknames need to reflect that. I saw that one of the girls in your group is nicknamed, “The minister of pain.” That’s a good start. On the other hand I saw one of the guys is named “Jonathan.” Seriously? That’s my name, that sounds like a pale skinned, soft handed copywriting blogger. No one in the history of spoken English has ever yelled, “Watch out, it’s Jonathan!” Please start calling him “Hammer of God” or the “Missionary Machete” or something like that.

4. Throw more things

I’ll admit, I haven’t been to one of your shows in a long time. (Ever?) But I guarantee that you guys aren’t throwing enough things. If I was running the Power Team, I would focus on three activities: Breakin’, Liftin’, and Throwin’. Based on your web site it appears you’ve got the first two down, but it’s time to up your throwin’ quotient. The best event on the television show, “World’s Strongest Man” was when the contestants would try to throw as many empty beer kegs over a high wall as they could. Granted, we’re going to need to change that one up a little, but what if you threw old school Old Testament cisterns over a high wall? Or what if you ripped doors off of hinges a la Samson and then threw those? I’m just saying, start throwing. People love throwing.

Those are my four recommendations for the Power Team. And I want to reiterate, I am not making fun of the Power Team. I’m talking directly to you right now, Jeremy the “Human Canonball.” I read your bio. You live in Atlanta and are capable of diving head first into a 9 foot thick wall of ice. I live in Atlanta too, let’s not be rash.

What feat of strength would you love to see the Power Team add to their show?

• 1112Comment (91)http://stuffchristianslike.net/2009/10/the-power-team/The+Power+Team2009-10-05+09%3A20%3A03Jon
• Get Feed
• Print This!