Booty God Booty

Jon Acuff, blogger and writer of 'Stuff Christians Like' spoke at a Catalyst Lab. Acuff uses satire to help the church see themselves through a better lens. I wasn't sure if going to his lab would be helpful/insightful or not.

Surprisingly, the takeaway was a really helpful preaching/speaking tip...

BOOTY. GOD. BOOTY.

Acuff told the story about how he was listening to a hip hop radio station and there was a song about gettin' some booty...then they had a 5 minute "God Time" where they read a Bible verse and gave some Words of Life for the day. Then, there was another rap song about gettin' some booty. He felt awkward...Booty/God/Booty? Something wasn't quite right. Then he realized that his life was often times, "Booty. God. Booty." That his actions were often self centered, less than christian, then he'd have a God moment. Then he'd follow it up with for wretched heart syndrome. He was booty/God/booty.

He wrote about this on his blog and people resonated with it. Now where this is insightful is that every Christian Communicator has tried to address the inconsistencies and incongruencies of the Christian life with a life of sinfulness. Most of the times it falls on deaf ears because we don't help the story land. People grab hold of "our lives should be consistently reflecting Jesus" and they file it in their brain under the "Heard it already" Bin.

But when its articulated that our lives shouldn't be Booty. God. Booty. Our brains aren't able to file that away. Communicators need to articulate their message with high levels of stickyness or it will have no impact.

**Its important to note that I am not saying that we should go SHOCK AND AWE...but we should seek to surprise our people with vernacular that is not same old same old.

This is helpful for preachers, worship leaders who speak during segues between songs, layspeakers, and virtually any type of communicator. If you can't say it in a fresh, creative way that will stick...then is it really worth saying?