by Jon
This church isn’t very friendly. Have you noticed that? We might need to change to a new church, because we’re having a really hard time connecting at this one. We’ve been coming here for six months, sitting in service, not talking to anyone, then immediately sprinting out of the building and going home. And no one has connected with us. Rude!
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by Jon
I need to apologize to every parent I sat next to in church when I was in college. I unfortunately didn’t go that often in college, so the list is short, but I still need to make amends. Why?
I ran into the college version of me a few weeks ago at church.
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by Jon
Last week, I spoke in San Diego about the impact of Christ in the Denzel Washington movie, “Man on Fire.” And for the most part it was a pretty good experience.
Why just, “for the most part?”
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by Jon
At a wedding recently I experienced the musical equivalent of a unicorn.
I would have taken pictures but it would have been weird if everyone was turned to look at the bride and I was taking pictures of the organ player. (Organist? Organneer? Not really sure.)
At this point in church music, I kind of assumed that organ players are an endangered species. Similar to how National Geographic will show you a profile of the Snow Leopard with a red dot in Tibet where they inhabit, I expected that Christianity Today would do the same thing with organ players, showing that their natural habitat is the Bible Belt and that there numbers are dwindling.
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by Jon
A few weeks ago, my 7 year old got sick. If you read my heart wrenching Ray Charles food poisoning tale, then you know what a big deal that is. She hates to throw up like I hate LeBron James trying to make me feel bad for thinking he could have done a better job leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers.
But this time, she was actually pretty good. There were no tears or shouting. She got sick and then laid down on a princess blow up bed that has already been worth its weight in gold. My wife and I complimented her on such a great turnaround from the usual reaction to illness. Later that day though, I pulled my four year old aside and let her know, “You’re really great at throwing up too.” (Lot of parenting books don’t tell you to do that, but then a lot of parenting books don’t tell you that one of the hardest parts of being a parent is having the patience to wait until your kids are asleep to pop their old half deflated helium balloons.)
When I told McRae she was good at throwing up, she looked me dead in the eye and immediately replied:
“I’m the champion of puking.”
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by Jon
I have two predictions I need to make.
1. Tomorrow, we’re going to launch a 24 hour “what if” project at 9AM Eastern that aims to dent the universe and save lives. It will be fun and fast and shine big glory on a big God.
2. This Sunday, your pastor will use a Chilean miner sermon illustration.
Next week when both of these have come to pass, you will email me and ask, “How do you do it?” I will respond, “It’s just what I do. The club can’t even handle me right now!” And we will laugh, oh we will laugh.
But predicting that pastors will dig the Chilean miner rescue story is too easy. Anyone can predict that. I’ll actually tell you the four types of Chilean miner sermon you can expect:
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by Jon
There are two types of people in the world, those who will sit in a seat that’s not theirs at an event and those who won’t.
I am in the “won’t” category. If I have tickets for the nosebleed section at a concert, that’s where I sit. I can’t sneak down front and sit in better seats without constantly thinking the rightful owner of that seat is about to show up at any moment. And he’s probably an Ultimate Fighter with his concealed weapon permit.
Plus, when you get caught you have to pretend you didn’t know you’re $10 tickets didn’t permit you to sit on the front row. “Wait a second, this is row #1? Let me look at my ticket. Oh, would you look at that! I’m in row #1,000. Simple mistake on my part. Whoops!”
I can’t do it. I can’t be that guy, which is why I like the seating arrangement at most churches. No one has a ticket. Each Sunday morning is a seat free for all. And it all comes to a head when the pastor says one thing:
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by Jon
I can’t speak for the entire country, but people in Dallas, Atlanta and Los Angeles apparently like to break up with significant others after church retreats.
I talk about that sometimes when I visit churches and conferences. And it’s true, one of our favorite things to do as a Christian is to dump a boyfriend or girlfriend after a retreat. We do it because on Saturday night of the retreat, which is the cryfest portion or “sloppy agape,” the minister tells us we need to lay something down tonight.
We google our heads and hearts looking for something to give up, until bing! We find it, we should give up our boyfriend or girlfriend. Especially if they didn’t come on the retreat.
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by Jon
My wife is on her third iPhone 4 in six days.
The first one had a hardware and software failure.
The second one sounded like an old timey cotton gin. It was so loud she held it up to our landline at home when she was on the phone with Apple support and they urged her to bring it in. Immediately.
The third one? We’ll see.
The worst part is that she holds me responsible. Because I’ve had one for a year and like Apple, she assumes that I might have hand built these defective iPhones. She’ll call me in the middle of the day and say, “Guess where I am, the Apple store.” Then she’ll get a new iPhone and shake her head at home. Thanks Steve Jobs.
Experiences like this have probably jaded me a little about technology and all the advances in convenience and awesomeness we’re supposed to have reaped. (Although we still don’t have Back to the Future hoverboards.) That’s probably why when someone sent me something crazy that churches are starting to do, I got worried.
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by Jon
I don’t have proof of this, I mean there is no scientific evidence about what I am about to say, but I think it’s true:
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Jon Acuff is the New York Times Bestselling author of four books including his most recent, Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average & Do Work that Matters. Read More…