Jon Acuff :: Cultivate 09

• I want to clear away the clutter of Christianity so people can see the beauty of Christ.
• “I’ll pray for you” can become a version of “I’ll call you.”
• Booty God Booty… love it.
• We hit walls when we try to tell God’s Story.
• We don’t talk about the Devil much.
• If hell has a branding deparment, kudos for them for working their way out of our conversations.
• Oftentimes we associate words like hell, Satan, etc with old school fundamentalists that we want nothing to be like.
• We need to bring the Devil back into the conversation; he hates when we bring God into the conversation.

The devil tries to destroy our story.

• He’s not all-powerful, so he has to take short cuts.
• One of his short cuts is attacking things that matter.
• He  attacks our areas of giftedeness… he tries to destroy them.

The devil tries to get us to discount our story.

• The Devil wants us to think that other people have a real story; we don’t.
• [ Sort of like the people with 'dynamic' testimonies. ]

What do we do when we discount or destroy our stories?

1 – We need to give it to God.

• We need to engage with God about what the real story is.
• We can get drunk on our own sense of awesomeness.
• Fame is gross thing to pray for… it’s a drug that destroys ministers and ministries.
• Get inspired, encouraged and excited by other people’s stories… but don’t tell them.
• Tell your story.

2 – It usually means we’ve forgotten why we tell them.

• The second group of people God addressed in Exodus [after the priests] were the artists, designers and craftsman.
• Exodus 36:2
• Everytime we share our story, we are helping to rebuild God’s temple.
• We can’t sit in the desert with our giftings, we need to build God’s temple through the sharing of our stories.

How do you give everything you have and get lost in it?

• Our goal is to not CREATE a story, but to REVEAL a story.
• We need to get quiet
• Anytime we try to pour our what we’ve got to pour out, we’ll run out fast.

Satire is humor with purpose. Oftentimes, we put humor over hurtful sarcasm.

• Satire is a mirror we can use to stand beside and truly see ourselves.
• We overflow what’s inside.

We don’t use our best creativity to celebrate the Creator of creativity.

We need to be more deliberate about the messages we create and be mindful of where we are sending them out to.

We need to be quiet enough to engage with God … we need to be something before we become something.

Tell your story to the  people you have.

In a private sector, people are watching you.

Too often we write about theories instead of reality — we get too far off and too disconnected.

Too often we write about problems we think people have instead of the problems people have.

You have to leave enough room for people to tell their story in yours.

Leave room for others.

Everybody has a rock… judgement, hypocrisy, etc… that they want to throw at us the moment we talk about Christianity; we usually talk around it… we need to talk about it and hold their rock for them… give them something new to hang on to.

I keep asking God geography questions and He always answers with where He wants us to go in His presence.

There’s things we should not joke about.

You stay in line with God’s will for your story… daily, hourly, moment by moment. You can’t read it and go away from it.