Laughter is a gift from God. When we refuse to accept it, it makes Him want to take it back. Like the unicorns.
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Today’s short Saturday question is simple. What are you praying about?
What’s something kicking around in your head or heart right now?
I try to do this post once a season. Why? Because this site is read in 97% of the countries in the world and the readers of SCL have a steady stream of prayer needs and a huge willingness to pray for each other.
So what is something you’d love some prayer about today?
(It’s guest post Friday! When I wrote the book Quitter, my editor removed an entire chapter. I was crushed at first until he explained why. He said, “You’re just repeating yourself. The ideas in this chapter aren’t new and it reads like filler.” And he was right. So when Ken Edwards submitted this guest post, I knew I had to share because as a writer, I’m guilty of thinking this way sometimes. And, you’ve probably read a book exactly like the ones Ken is about to describe. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)
SNL-ing a Christian book. By Ken Edwards
The thing that’s always frustrated me about Saturday Night Live is that the show is about 40% too long. It’s usually funny from 11:30 until maybe 12:15 or 12:20, but then almost all of what happens from there up until 1 am isn’t even remotely funny. And I’ve wondered for the last 25 years, why don’t they just sign off at 12:30 and be done with it?
It would be really easy to do. Instead of 5-minute sketches, make them 3. The first 3 are usually funny, but then they just drag on for seemingly no reason. Why not get in there, hit the punch line, make your point, then bow out gracefully?
I wonder the same thing about most Christian books. It seems that they are all—well, at least the ones I’ve read—about 40% too long. In a 200-page Christian book, the author has pretty much exhaustively made his/her point by page 140.
We are mere days away from Valentine’s Day and I must share a brief confession.
Single adults, I have failed you.
Although I’ve written a handful of ideas about being single at church, I’ve never really done that topic justice.
So today, I created a list of all the different stereotypes and challenges singles have to navigate when they go to church. From the “get married right this second” friends to the “this guy has a pulse and so do you so maybe that’s enough in common to fall in love” friends, it’s all here.
And I can’t take credit for it. I read your comments about real things that have happened to you at church, got ideas from my single friends, and received a great email from a pastor named Jeff. I took it all and created a point-based scorecard.
Ready to play?
The Surviving Church as a Single Scorecard
1. Your church doesn’t have a singles ministry. = + 1 point
2. Your church has a singles ministry, but it’s combined with the college ministry, which creates opportunities for conversations like this:
Student: “My roommate bought a microwave for our dorm room. I love being a freshman!”
Single: “My 401K is underperforming.” = +2 points
3. Your church has a singles ministry, but it’s a triad that combines college, single adults and divorce recovery. = + 3 points
4. Your church has a singles ministry, but it’s the dreaded quad, combining college, single adults, divorce recovery and retired widowers who refuse to move to Florida. = +4 points
5. Someone pays you the world’s most backhanded compliment: “I just don’t understand how someone as great as you isn’t married yet.” = +1 point
When people talk to me about geography in Nashville, I do one of two things:
1. I nod my head and pretend I know what part of the city they are referring to.
2. I tell them, “I don’t know where that is. We just moved here.”
Neither one of those two responses is entirely true. Pretending I know is not true and saying we just moved here isn’t true. We’ve lived here for 18 months. So why don’t I know my way around town yet?
There are some Christian colleges that require you to take a school appointed chaperone with you if go out on a date with somebody.
I have so many questions about that practice:
When I was a kid, I was terrified of Mark 2:47. (If you didn’t grow up in the church, that kind of sounds like the name of a robot. In the movie Short Circuit, the robot was called “Johnny 5.” Maybe I’m just deathly afraid of robots with human names.)
Here’s what Mark 2:47 actually says:
“And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell.”
The thing I was most afraid of was the word “pluck.” That is such a casual word. I had this fear that one day I’d be watching a movie, like Doc Hollywood, and all the sudden some completely unnecessary nudity would occur. My parents, who did rent that movie for me when I was young because “Hey, it’s just Michael J. Fox!,” would turn and say, “Oh no, I bet you saw that with your eye, Jon. Hand me my plucking shears.”
(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from Stewart Conkle. He writes a blog called Hustle and Go. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)
Church Greeter Ninjas by Stewart Conkle
I was raised in a very big, very popular, traditional church in Atlanta. As a child, I remember going to BIG church for the first time. I was in awe. The auditorium was cavernous. It was ornately decorated. The lighting fixtures that hung from the ceiling were gold and shiny. The carpet was burnt orange, and the choir members wore baby blue robes that really made the two colors pop.
The greeters at this church were mostly elderly people. The women wore long dresses. Usually with flower prints. The men all wore three-piece suits and heavy cologne. (Possibly a musk of some sort, an Old Spice perhaps.) That’s how it used to be.
Churches have changed drastically over the years. The older, traditional churches are becoming more rare. The men and women who greet you at the door, dressed to the nines, are all but gone.
The greeters of today are like highly trained, very friendly covert ninjas. They dress to look like you and I. They prefer t-shirts and denim instead of fancy suits. They wear Chuck Taylors instead of penny loafers. In short, they blend in. Becoming one with the crowd because that’s what ninjas do.
They are always mindful of visitors because first impressions go a long way. There is a subtlety to what they do. They want to make you feel at home, but they don’t want to smother you. They want to give you the answers you seek, but they don’t want to overload you with info. Their senses are keen, and they have eyes like an eagle. They can see a first-time visitor when they pull into the parking lot. Here are three things that give first-timers away.
1. First-timers are bewildered.
Greeter ninjas can see it in our eyes. We first-timers are looking for something but not sure what. Our eyes dart around randomly. We aren’t sure where to go or what to do. This is where the greeter ninja has to act fast. Timing is crucial. Every second I’m lost as a first-time visitor equates to another reason why I won’t come back. It can be a traumatic time for first-timers, and the greeter has to be our rock.
2. First-timers often come in packs.
No one wants to visit an unfamiliar place alone. First-time visitors often recruit a support group. Family. Friends. Random people in the parking lot. For the greeter ninja, the pack is easy to spot. We clump up and move together like a school of fish. We all have the same mindset. Just like point number one, if one of us is bewildered, then we’re all bewildered. Again, it’s crucial that the greeter ninja acts fast when they see the pack in distress.
3. First-timers are rarely on time.
There are a myriad of reasons why I might be late the first time I visit your church. It’s sometimes on purpose. I’m not sure of how the church worships and that creates anxiety. Do they do the hands in the air thing, or do they sit and sing softly so that no one can hear their voice? Do they sing songs they know, or do they sing the new song that is ten minutes long, has 12 verses, and was written by the worship pastor? Those are all valid points. However, greeters rarely get the set list in advance. Sorry. You’re on your own there kid.
The biggest reason we first-timers are late is that we get lost in the labyrinth of cones and cars in the parking lot. If I’m not careful, I’ll circle the parking lot for eternity. This is where our parking lot greeter ninjas come in. Acting quickly, they giftedly guide and direct first-timers, one car load at a time.
We have all been first-time visitors. The greeter ninjas know how you feel. They know both the stress and the excitement of visiting a new church. Keep in mind that they, the greeters, are there for you. In the shadows. Ready to assist when the moment arrives.
Question:
Does your church have greeters?
(For more great stuff from Stewart, read his blog or follow him on Twitter!)
Yikes! “Sexy” in the title. Hellooooo increased blog traffic. What? That kind of thing stopped working in 2007? Oh. Good to know.
But traffic indulging title aside, it’s February, which means Valentine’s Day, which means it’s time for a few love flavored posts. Starting with today’s.
A friend* of mine once told me something that I thought was funny. I tend to pass on funny things directly to you. (No Ticketmaster “handling charge.” I send it your way immediately for free.) Here is what he told me:
“Jon (people in stories you tell always use your first name when talking to you), I used to not listen to Rihanna songs or Lady Gaga songs because I thought they were dirty. But then I got married and now I imagine that those songs are about two married people, much like myself and my wife. Am I weird?”
My first thought was maybe. But then I thought, maybe not. It’s hard for me to say because I’m older than some of y’all (I can feel the rain a comin’ in my knee) and tend to have songs from the 80s and 90s on my slow jam mix. Think Chris Isaak “Wicked Game” or Mazzy Star “Fade into you.”
But what about you? If you’re single, have you ever thought, “That song is too dirty to listen to right now, but in the context of marriage that is going on the mix tape?”
If you’re married, have you ever thought, “Hello formerly forbidden music, welcome to the Song of Solomon?”
Or is my friend just weird?
“Never offend someone who has a Rottweiler in their profile photo and is in charge of the unofficial Eazy-E fan club.”
That’s a lesson in Twitter etiquette I learned the wrong way. I’ll be teaching folks everything I know about Twitter at the Quitter Conference on February 10 & 11, but that’s a free nugget of wisdom for you.
In my defense, that terrifying gentleman with the threatening vocabulary misinterpreted what I had said about Eazy-E, the 1980s rapper.
Here’s what I tweeted from @jonacuff:
Every time I see Dr. Dre optimizing computers in that HP commercial, I think, “This is exactly what NWA was all about.”
I wasn’t making fun of Easy-E. I was making a social commentary on the unexpected career trajectory of Dr. Dre. There’s not a person alive who heard Dr. Dre in the 1980s and thought, “You know what this guy will be doing in the future? Optimizing computers for Hewlett Packard.”
Next thing I know, I’m involved in a tweet battle with a guy in Compton.
Lesson learned.
But in addition to picking up wisdom like that on Twitter, I discovered something else really interesting the other day. And it came to me in the form of a virus.
If people are honest in Hudson, Massachusetts, they’ll tell you that, in the eighth grade, I absolutely dominated our church’s dramatic interpretation of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.”
Words like “lyrical poetry” and “unstoppable rhythm” come to mind when I think about my ability to tell a story on stage with my dancing. Bottom line: When it comes to church skits, I had the moves like Jagger. I work out.
Pop culture jambalaya!
But just the other day, it hit me, “I haven’t seen a church skit in years!” And they’ve not just gone missing from my church. I visited 20 different churches in 2011 and saw neither hide nor hair of a church skit. No couple before the sermon that is having marriage problems to set the scene. No youth group car crash “I wish we’d all been ready for Jesus” skit. Nary a ribbon was twirled nor a gloved hand was mimed.
Did I miss the memo?
Did we vote skits out of the building?
Did video kill the skit star?
Does your church do skits during service?