Caught Somewhere In The  Middle

Have you noticed, over the last few years, the alarming rate at which the average churchgoer uses the word “Amen” in place of the word “Yes?”

Who instituted the “Amen for Yes” lexicon upgrade?

All that Amen-ing may get you in the affirmative with your congregation, but it doesn’t travel well outside of the Christian environment. Unless, of course, you live in the South (Bible Belt country) or Branson, Missouri, you may find yourself wishing you had a guide that alleviates this stressful decision-making conundrum. Wish no more.

To keep you from the embarrassing dilemma of the Amen Religious Affirmation Syndrome, I have written a few pointers. These are sure to help you navigate the often turbulent seas of positivity.

You are allowed to use the word Amen, in substitution for the word Yes, if:

1. You are on the church property, to include inside the building, in the gym or in the parking lot.
I know this seems like a no-brainer, but many have mistakenly reserved their deified version of “I’m down wit dat” for service times only. Nope. As long as you are on the church “campus,” our new favorite word, you can say “Amen.”

2. You are at a restaurant immediately following a service or meeting, and there are other church members in the establishment.
The rule is that the ambient churchiness has hitched a ride on your aura, uh, spirit. The wait staff are professionals. Don’t worry, some may even be Christian, so they will surely understand the lingo. There is one “amendum” to the restaurant rule—the buffet.

3. You are at any buffet-styled eatery.
Case studies have documented that the word “buffet” is more closely associated with Christians than any other group except for retirees. It’s safe to say in this environment that there are enough Jesus people bellied up to the hot bar to support the use of Amen.

4. You are at Chick-fil-A.
Amen all day, son! All day! Except Sunday, of course. They’re closed. Not sure if you knew that or not.

5. You are having a conversation with the pastor or an elder.
The locale of this conversation is not nearly as important as those involved. Sure, you may be discussing the merits of selective mating among your milk goat populace, but it’s the pastor. You have to ratchet up the Yes-to-Amen ratio. (How niche was that example? Be honest: Have you ever seen the phrase “milk goat populace?” If you are a milk goat farmer though, I bet you said “Yes!” or Amen as it were.)

You are NOT allowed to use Amen in substitution for the word Yes if:

1. You are eating at Hooters.
Regardless of how many church members are there, it just doesn’t float well. It tends to “harshen up the hot wing mellow.”

2. You are watching a publicly televised national championship game and your team just clinched the title with a clutch play.
This is a “YES!” moment. No arguments. Yes is the only acceptable answer.

3. You are attending seminary.
I know this is a tricky one. You would think with all the Bible, God and church-ness happening this would be prime Amen real estate, but it’s not. You will immediately be branded a fake. Authenticity is the name of the game here. Your only hope of recovering from a slip of the A-word here is if you happen to have a caveman beard like David Crowder. The beard gets a bye.

Hopefully this little primer helped educate you on the proper use of Amen in place of Yes and stabilized an otherwise tumultuous situation.

So, do you ever say Amen instead of Yes? Do you have any rules to add?

(To read more from Ken, check out his RamblingBarba blog.)

That’s some good fun, my friend, because we want to tell you that.  We want to be up front that we’re not living in sin, that we’re not cohabitating, and we’ll do anything to work that into the flow of the discussion. But we don’t want to say “living in sin” because it kind of makes us sound like we’re weirdo Christians, so we’ll go to great creative lengths to tell you that we have two separate residences:

“We’re really excited to be getting married.  It’ll be nice not to pay two mortgages when we tie the knot.”

“I cooked dinner for my fiancé last night at my place. But I was out of salt, so he drove to his place, in a car, because the distance is significant.”

“She has a cat, and I’ve never lived with a cat, so when we get married and she moves in with the cat, that will be a change.”

“My fiancé’s apartment flooded.  So she stayed at my place, while I slept on the couch, in the living room of the apartment I share with a roommate.  Who was there the whole time and actually kept a sleepless vigil in the hall.”

“I’m engaged to a girl who lives across town. Lives clear across town without any sort of tunnels or skywalks that connect our two houses. Completely separate.”

I personally never got caught up in the fancy ways to say “We’re not living in sin.”  I was living in a trailer home in a retirement community when I was engaged, and there was very little chance the community would have stood for any of that shacking up nonsense.

Sure, while living there, I mentally aged about forty years in a matter of weeks, sitting in a rocking chair with a quilt over my knees and a foot massager I requested for Christmas because they were all the rage in my new, old neighborhood. I may have suddenly fallen in love with Everybody Loves Raymond and chuckled at that rascal’s antics like an old man. But, other than that, everything worked out.

My wife didn’t become old.  She lived across town with the Morrisons. In their house. Which was different from a trailer park. Where I slept. Alone.  By myself.

Have you ever made sure people didn’t think you were “living in sin” with a fiance?

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

You reach out. In a time of need or hurt or maybe even hope.

And you get pushed away.

You get chased away.

You get shoved away.

And you wait and you help and you stand in the storms of life with someone, and you feel like you are throwing a ball against a wall. You can’t tell if any of it matters. If your words or your actions matter at all. You think about giving up. You feel called to be salt and light, we know that’s printed in red, but sometimes in the space between hours and arguments, it’s hard to feel that way.

You keep loving. You keep hoping to see a change, not because it’s all about change, but because that would at least be a crack of light under the door.

But the light never comes. The door is never opened, even a little, and then they disappear. Not dramatically, maybe. They don’t float away on a hot air balloon or in a fast car. The ebb and flow of life just drifts them away. You feel you’ve wasted your time or maybe their time or everybody’s time.

They were so eager to blow things up. So eager to sink their own ship with bad, easy-to-spot decisions. The bridge was out ahead. You saw that a mile away, but they ignored you and kept driving. So unwilling to stop the car until it had hurtled deep into the valley of regret.

You forget about them. Or, mostly, you forget. A year gets stacked on another year and stacked on another year, until that person becomes one more person you reached out to who didn’t reach back. One more person you helped who ignored your help.

That’s the hard part about loving someone. Sometimes we don’t get to hear the whole song. We get to be a verse or a single lyric in someone’s journey, but the song doesn’t resolve. We watch relationships fade into the horizon, not really knowing if we’ve made a difference.

But sometimes, in moments that are so comical you can’t help but laugh, God plays the last note right in front of you.

That’s what happened to me three weeks ago.

I was a mess in college. There’s no need to dress it up with stories or adjectives. I was a mess. And in the midst of that, a guy named Dave Waller reached out to me. With no agenda, and at no benefit to him, he was kind to me. Time and time again as a student minister, he reached out to me at Samford University. And then I disappeared back to Boston and never saw him again.

That was 14 years ago.

Three weeks ago, I spoke at the Orange Conference. When I walked off stage, someone said, “There’s a guy at the edge of the crowd that wants to say ‘hi’ to you.” I walked into the dark of the room, passed the soundboard, and against the security barrier…

…there stood Dave Waller.

He laughed. We hugged. (I did a much better job with that hug than I did with my on-stage Reggie hug.) We caught up for a few minutes and exchanged phone numbers.

That night, Dave texted me. Here is what he said:

“Hey Jon. It’s Dave Waller. I’m so proud of you. All I think about was the last time we went to lunch, and you were so hurt. And frustrated with life. To see you now is awesome.”

I don’t know who the Jon Acuffs are in your life right now.

I don’t know who you are reaching out to that is just a jerk right now.

I don’t know who seems oblivious to your kindness right now.

I don’t know how you are helping someone who seems blind to your help right now.

But I do know what I’d say to you right now:

Don’t stop.

Don’t give up on people who have given up on themselves.

Don’t quit just because it seems hopeless.

Fourteen years ago, Dave Waller didn’t. In the last lunch we ever had, I walked in a mess and left a mess. Dave had better things to do. Things that would have shown more immediate results or progress or improvement. He could have given up, because it’s not easy. Sometimes we don’t get to hear the whole song.

But sometimes we do and, in dark arenas in unexpected moments spanning a decade, God reminds us why you and I have got to keep singing.

But, it turns out, giving away free stuff is fun.

So I promise to do a better job of that in 2012.

A few weeks ago, we gave away 5 copies of a book about introverts in the church. Today, we’ve got a free pass to the WinShape Camps for Girls at Young Harris.

If you didn’t know, WinShape is an amazing set of camps owned by Chick-fil-A. Truett Cathy founded it in 1985 and it’s an unbelievable experience for kids.

Trudy, Truett’s daughter, asked if I’d like to give away a free trip to one of the readers of SCL. I said yes immediately. So if you’ve got a daughter who has completed 1st grade through 7th grade and would love to go to camp in Young Harris, Georgia, here’s your chance to win.

Simply say what your favorite Chick-fil-A meal is in the comments below. I’ll pick a winner at random at the end the of day on Wednesday, May 23. (If you want to sign up for any of the camps, you can save $50 by entering JONACUFF2012 at checkout)

Here’s to a summer of giving away free stuff.

Let’s start with camp!

And I’m almost positive that what I’m going to talk about today is not covered anywhere in the text. I say “almost” because it might have been hidden in a bag of “begets,” e.g. “Obadiah beget Hebekiah beget …” If it was, I might have missed it.

But I’m pretty sure the Bible doesn’t directly address how we should show grace to a friend who talks during the song you asked them to listen to.

Has this ever happened to you?

You hear a song that you think is amazing. It’s almost like they wrote the song specifically for you. The lyrics tumble out like a mason jar of marbles down the stairs. Birds clap their tiny wings in appreciation when they hear it wafting out of your open car windows. This is a song to end all songs.

So you, being the generous sort, decide to share it with a friend. You’re a giver. That’s what you do. While at a stoplight or running an errand with a friend across town, you turn the song on for them. But you don’t just turn it on, you give a short monologue about what the song means to you first. You explain the nuances, the hidden instruments that are going to spring forth like an unexpected bit of cilantro or caper in a pasta dish.

You paint such a beautiful picture of the audio rollercoaster your friend is about to go on that you almost feel like someone should write a song about your description of the song.

Then you press play.

And they listen for about 4.2 seconds and say, “That was great. So anyway, I’ve been eating more burritos lately…”

Wait, what? The lyrics haven’t even started yet. We are miles away from the chorus. The verse that you just know your friend is going to love is being ignored while they play Angry Birds.

You stop the song, give them a brief minute to finish their burrito thought, and then start all over. Maybe, this time, they will give the musical magic a runway to land on. Maybe, this time, they won’t walk all over the moment they could be experiencing.

But they do. Again and again you try to get them to not just “hear” the song, but really “listen.” You want that song to go from their head to their heart and then hopefully their own iPhone.

It’s not, though. Try as you might, they are refusing to experience the audio landscape that is Sigur Ros or Explosions in the Sky or any other band you are in love with at the moment.

We must show grace in that moment. Surely we must, but how? What would Jesus do? What, when confronted with the inability of Peter to stay still for 30 seconds and hear a song, would Jesus do?

We might never know. Maybe someone who is familiar with the Hebrew and Greek can enlighten us.

Until then, struggle on audiophile.

Keep pressing play.

Question:
Has this ever happened to you?

My brother Will and his wife Tiffany adopted a baby boy!

They live in Nashville too and it was amazing to rush over to their house and experience the joy of that moment. Prior to that, I honestly didn’t know much about adoption. I didn’t realize how fast and slow the whole process can be.

For months they prayed and waited and filled out paperwork and did interviews and prepared their house. And then on a weekday night like any other they got a call. “This is the call you’ve been waiting for. Can you please come to the hospital? We’d love to introduce you to your baby.”

In the span of a 30 second phone call, my brother was a father. My sister-in-law was a mother. And a stranger in another city was a incredibly loved, incredibly cherished member of the Acuff family.

I don’t know if you’ve ever considered adoption, but a resource that I know has been extremely helpful to my friend Ken Coleman and countless others in their adoption process is the Adoption Journey Project. The Adoption Journey Project is a tag team, or more formerly pronounced “collective” of organizations who want to break down the barriers to adoption. (Bethany Christian Services, Lifesong fo Orphans and Lifeline Children’s Services are the organizations who teamed up.)

The goal is to create honest conversations about the adoption process, offer tons of easily accessible information about domestic and international adoption and perhaps coolest of all, connect people who have adopted already with those who are thinking about adopting. (The “Talk with a family in your area” feature is awesome!)

If you want to check out the free resouces they have for couples visit www.adoptionjourney.org. If you’re a pastor, there’s a free pastor kit with Orphan Sunday Resources. And if you’re on the Twitter, so are they! @adoptjourney.

Big shout out to my new nephew! Welcome to the Acuff family. Your uncle Jon will teach you how to breakdance and blog. Or start a breakdance blog. Whatever you’d prefer.

Big thank you to Adoption Journey! The work you guys do is critical!

WWJD – What Would Jesus Design

Over recent years, many new technology companies, websites and apps have sprung up. When these become successful, you start getting copycats piggybacking on the success of these other companies.

Seeing as Ecclesiastes says there’s nothing new under the sun, I’m taking that as a green light for us to sanctify them. I’ve therefore taken 20 websites, online services, games and apps and come up with RSS feed versions – Redeemed Secular Sites that feed the soul.

First are the originals and then the WWJD (What Would Jesus Design) versions:

Pinterest – Users (aka women) collect photos and link to products they like.
Hymnterest – Create collections of your favorite hymns, turning them into virtual hymnals to share with everyone else.

iCloud – Apple’s cloud storage service.
myCloud – Use your treasures on Earth to reserve your own cloud–complete with harp–ready for when you’re in heaven.

Paypal – Make payments online.
Papal – Send tithes to the Vatican.

Esurance – Take out a car insurance policy online.
Esau-rance – Buy protection against family members interfering with your father’s last will & testament.

Zillow – Real estate info throughout the U.S.
Cityonahill-ow – Use this site to find a Christian community with great views.

Hipmunk – Book flights and hotels online.
Hipmonk – Who’s cooler: Friar Tuck or St. Benedict? You decide!

Evernote – A note-taking and list-making service available anywhere you have an internet connection.
Heavenote – Make a list of things to ask God when the day comes. You know, burning questions like “God, you remember that day in 1993 when I was walking along and saw someone, on the other side of the road, who looked like Steven Tyler? Was that actually him?”

WordPress – Blogging and publishing platform.
Wordguess – A blog where you quote from Scripture and your readers have to work out which biblical character said it.

E*TRADE – Invest and trade stocks online.
E*PRAYED – Trade directly with God: “Lord, I’ll stop doing ……… if you’ll help me with ……….”

Huffington Post – Online news outlet with content created by unpaid bloggers.
Acuffington Post – On this site, the unpaid bloggers will write solely about Stuff Christians Like.

Wikipedia – An online encyclopedia [citation needed].
Wickedpedia – Find out more information on the seven deadly sins.

Go Daddy – A site selling cheap domain names and web hosting.
Go Abba – A site selling cheap Christian domain names - intentionaltransfiguration.com, sidehugfellowshipping.com, transubstantiatingtravelingmercies.com, etc.

Hootsuite – Schedule your tweets and status updates.
Fruitsuite – Schedule when you’re going to display love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control each day.

Youth Workin’ It – The most amazing site about youth work and youth ministry. Really. You should go check it out.
Ruth Workin’ It – A Facebook game where you can practice your skills picking up leftover grain.

Netflix – Stream movies & TV shows over the internet.
Cast-your-netflix – Unlimited virtual fishing in a stream(ing).

Angry Birds – A game where you launch birds at wobbly structures to get rid of pigs. (Sounds less fun when explained that way and explains why I’m not in marketing).
Angry Words – A game where you practice taming your tongue.

Walmart – The online store that has even more stuff than a regular Walmart.
Fallmart – Only sells forbidden fruit.

Amazon – The online store that has even more stuff than the online Walmart.
Lambazon – An online store with a fantastic selection of sacrificial animals.

Youtube - Watch millions of video clips online.
Pewtube - Watch millions of church services online.

IMDb - Internet Movie Database, a site that lists every actor and all the TV shows and movies they’ve been in.
FCDb - Famous Christians Database, a site replacing your “Is ……………. a Christian” searches on Google.

Question:
What other alternative Christian sites can you think of?

If you’d like to read more from Stephen, check out his blog.

1.  You should always support them.

2.  You should never complain around them.

The first one is pretty obvious: They need our money and our prayers to go serve wherever it is God has called them.  The second one is a little more subtle but equally true.

Because even if your missionary friend is quiet and never judgmental, I have to suspect that when you say, “My hot water heater broke, and I had to take a cold shower this morning,” he’s secretly thinking, “Water? I remember water.  It’s that wet stuff that comes out of pipes sometimes, right?  I saw a picture of it in the book we have in the desert schoolhouse I teach in, and it reminded me that I had not yet taken a shower this month.  But perhaps I will walk into the city next week and see if one of our host families will empty a plastic bottle of gray-colored water on my head.  That would be nice, I think.

What was that you were saying about your hot water heater?  You had to call a plumber after you looked up his number on the internet while eating a sandwich in your house that didn’t have snakes regularly coming in through the holes in the wall?  No please, go on, I am riveted by this tale of survival and hardship you are spinning, much like the black widow spiders I routinely sweep off my dirt floor or ‘bed’ if you will.  Please do go on.”

What complaints do you have that most missionaries would be glad to put up with?

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

Maybe even two dollars, which is the little kid equivalent of 19 million dollars.

At least that’s what my dad would do in this situation.

When I was a boy, he would pay me and my brothers a dollar if he used us in a sermon illustration. Though I’m not a pastor, and this isn’t a sermon, I’m about to show you the gospel in four pictures, and they’re not mine.

They’re my daughter’s.

She’s in kindergarten at a public school in our neighborhood. A few days ago, during her “free choice time” when she can play with blocks or color, she decided to do something a little different.

She decided to write her first book. The title is simple:

“Jesus” by McRae.

Has a ring to it, don’t you think? What would follow in the pages she wrote was an incredibly succinct and beautiful view of faith. Here is the story:

Page 1
Someday Jesus died for our sins.

Page 2
Jesus always told stories. Jesus never lied. Jesus love everyone.

Page 3
Jesus and God are still alive.

Sometimes I wonder why Jesus said things like this in Mark 10:15:

“I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Then I read books like the one McRae wrote. Kids get the gospel. They get the need for a savior. They understand forgiveness. They know God and Jesus are still alive.

And they’re not afraid to draw Jesus with a great big smile.

Wow, where do I even begin? It’s been so long since we last talked. Fifteen years at least. I used to go see you in college on the Sundays I would go to church. There you were, faithful and true. No jumping around during the week for you. Like an old friend, you were always waiting for me in the same spot each week. At church, spooning right up against the service.

I could double dip.

I could knock out both at once. Church and Sunday School were the perfect team, like chocolate and peanut butter, frog and toad, Kim Kardashian and a professional athlete/Kanye.

Ahh, see that last joke was unnecessary. That was more The Soup and less the SCL. I probably wouldn’t have even made it if you were still around. But you’ve been gone for a while now.

We collectively decided you were old-fashioned. We felt like you were too restrictive, too old-school, the bad kind of old-school, not the good kind, like the neon colors that have zombie-crawled their way back from the 80s and are dominating the planet right now.

These days, we don’t want you, Sunday School.

We want to do life together.

To go through some seasons.

To form a community of communities that fellowship.

So we traded you in for small groups and home groups and connect groups and journey groups. We moved you to Tuesday night or every third Wednesday night or the fourth Thursday night divided by 14 with no remainder carried over. Now when I go see you, I have to find a babysitter. And a couch from IKEA and a plate of Costco one bite brownies for everyone that comes over.

And I love small groups. I think they’re awesome. In addition to forming some great friendships, if it doesn’t work out, you can trade in your group for a new one. That was hard with you Sunday School. If things didn’t work out, I didn’t have a whole lot of options. I couldn’t dump you, knowing that every Sunday morning I’d see you waiting for me right outside of church. But with a small group, I’m free to move around.

Let’s say the leader of my next group inexplicably owns a komodo dragon. And I don’t like komodo dragons. I’m more of a gila monster man. My daddy was a gila monster man. His daddy was a gila monster man. That’s just how I was raised. Well, I can just change groups.

But even though I like small groups, the more I think about it, the more I realize I miss you. I miss having the double feature of Sunday School and Church. I know it still exists. It’s still available at a ton of different churches. But, for 15 years, I haven’t seen you at the churches I attend.

Maybe we’ll run into each other at a potluck. We’ll shake hands, maybe talk about the old days. But then someone from my small group will come up, and I’ll have to leave you standing by a sad casserole, Sunday School.

It’s not you, it’s me.

Jon

Question:
Does your church have adult Sunday School?