GIRLS ARE NOT FUNNY

Jesus is not Your Boyfriend Part II: A Book Report on Capitivating

Chicago, IL

I’ve been doing some research on the top selling young women’s Christian books to see what information is being pumped into our brains. Obviously I was suspicious.

I read Capitivating when I was eighteen years old, while living in one of the best towns England has to offer while attending Bible College. I walked away from that book officially in love with my high school sweetheart who was back in California getting his degree in business at one of California’s best schools. I don’t blame the book, but surely it had a profound effect. And in retrospect, I’ve always wondered – how did a book spur me to fall in love?

I had to find out. So some nearly six years later I pulled out my copy (which has somehow made it across the country with me because of a heartfelt inscription a dear friend wrote inside the cover) from my grandfather’s WWII trunk that charmingly holds my only belongings.

Stasi and John Eldredge do a great job at some things in this book:

1. Articulating the relationship between men and women. The way we compliment and the way we wound one another. 

2. You can tell that the two have spent much time with both sexes, counseling people through understanding their stories but primarily their wounds and the need for healing over these wounds. People like this are very helpful.

3. They also give romantic dreamers, like myself something to read, something to relate to.

4. They can find God in anything – nature, a mediocre movie. And according to the word – “Word” in John 1:1 which in Greek is “logos” that can better be defined as “communicating,” so I too, believe you can find God in anything.

For instance, the other day I was sitting on my roof, reading a book, writing thoughts, on the northeast side of Chicago just being so hip, so unique, you know, and a butterfly came by and landed on my foot. It sat there for a couple minutes and I thought – little butterfly, what are you doing sitting on my foot when you could be doing much better things like hanging out with other butterflies or sniffing beautiful flowers? And then I thought – God? Are you trying to tell me I’m this little butterfly? Should I be doing better things with my life? Am I just sitting on a foot?

See I can go there. I get it.

But, it’s quotes like these in the book that make me ponder the book’s original effect on me as well as its message:

Let’s go back for a moment to the movies that you love. Think of one of the most romantic scenes you can remember, scenes that made you sigh. Jack with Rose on the bow of the Titanic, his arms around her waist, their first kiss… Now, put yourself in the scene as the Beauty, and Jesus as the Lover.

No! I don’t want to make out with Jesus. Jesus is not my boyfriend.

But what really gets me worked up, what makes me question this book and others like it, is less of what it’s saying and more of what it is missing.

What little eighteen year old Jessica needed that Fall semester in York, England was less of me, less sneaky lines like this “he is making me more me,” sandwiched between two biblically acceptable sentences, less follow your heart business (Jeremiah 17:9-10) , less making out with Jesus on the bow of a ship, less how to’s on “captivating” men (which makes me feel more insufficient than empowered and wishing it be appropriate to throw the book across the room) and simply just more of Jesus, more of the Gospel.

Don’t get me wrong. Books like this will always point you to Jesus; I just wish they’d start with Jesus. And to start with Jesus means sacrificing ourselves as the main character.

Girls need the Gospel, not another how to on coping with our emotions and dreams. That’s helpful but that’s secondary.

Rook Beport: The Alchemist

Orlando, FL

In the last few years I have been prominently discipled by two women. From the first, I took away this, “Jessica, I know God is going to use you, well. But you are going to squander it if you do not start showing some integrity in your character. Be a woman of your word, faithful with whatever is given to you, and for crying out loud – show up for things on time.” So as I was doing just that, the second entered my life and had this to say, “You’re under the impression that you’re great. You are not great, in fact you’re mean and you suck. You have absolutely no concept of how to treat people properly, but don’t worry, you’ll get better.”

I did get better. I think. I hope.

Based on these ideologies that have stuck so well to me, it’s no wonder that I was drawn to the beginning of Part Two in Paulo Coelho’s book The Alchemist. Overall the book is very enticing – putting a tale behind and relating to its reader’s most desired outcomes, journeys, dreams and visions. And more specifically, they key players in those situations. After the boy spends a year with the merchant, the merchant can’t help but confess,

You have been a real blessing to me. Today, I understand something I didn’t see before: every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don’t want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I’m going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don’t want to do so.

And just like the drive leading the boy affected the merchant, so did brushing up against those two women affected me. I was content with the life I had built, the fun I was having and the friends that I had made – but from the vantage point of a couple women ten years my senior – I was epically missing out.

Furthermore, this book came at such at impeccable timing. I am on the cusp of departing from my first stop here in Florida and the pressure to stay is getting real and thick. I have ministry, community, church and friends in ways that I never thought a mere three months could ever offer. The relationships are deeply rich and the opportunities promising. But something very stern in me states – keep going.

As the boy has moved onto a different land and is now traveling, namely with the alchemist, they have this exchange,

“My heart is a traitor,” the boy said to the alchemist, when they had paused to rest the horses. “It doesn’t want me to go on.”

“That makes sense,” The alchemist answered. “Naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.”

It would be silly to assume I won’t lose by leaving. Hopefully though, it will not be relationships that are lost, but rather the loss will only account for moments in time – which everyone will lose, because time moves and moments vaporize into memories. So by leaving, I am giving up memories with people in which I am profoundly fond. This is a price I am willing to pay to follow my dream.

I pray you are willing as well.

A Rook Beport: Stuff Christians Like

Orlando, FL

Stuff Christians Like, John Acuff’s blog turned book, easily inspired by stuffwhitepeoplelike.com is one of the more entertaining and relevant reads you can get your hands on. Usually I have some story about how a book relates to me in some situational, humorous way. But there is really no competing with this book and quite frankly, it relates to all of us, as Christians.

Some of my favorite articles include:

RANKING HONEYMOON SEX SLIGHTLY HIGHER THAN THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST

Christians all over the world like the idea of Jesus coming back again, but only if they’ve lost their virginity first.

Chances are, you’ll be one those rare people who doesn’t need to grow and nurture a marital sexual relationship over sixty years or so. (Ugh… I just used the words “sexual relationship” and “sixty years” in the same sentence.) You’ll instantly and spontaneously know how to do whatever it is that your husband or wife is all about. You’ll know all the right buttons to push and you’ll laugh, oh you’ll laugh at all those people who couldn’t figure out the whole thing on the night of their wedding, one of the most physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting days ever.

BEING COMPLETELY TERRIFIED TO PRAY FOR PATIENCE AND HUMILITY

Even as you read that, you probably chuckled to yourself and thought, “Oh boy, those are two things you don’t want God to give you.” And you’re right. Collectively we’ve made those the most dangerous things in the world to ask for. I think we’re afraid that when we pray for patience and humility, God’s going to answer that request with a beard and a barrel. The beard symbolizes how long you’ll have to wait for something you really want… The barrel represents what you’re going to be wearing when God instantly makes you homeless as a way to increase your humility.

THE METROSEXUAL WORSHIP LEADER

The more interactive article that lets you add up points as to how metrosexual your worship leader, is by far the show stopper in this book. Your metrosexual worship leader grabs 2 points if he twitters and updates his blog while leading worship, refers to California as “the left coast,” named his kid after a color, number, or city. Grabs 4 points if he wears designer lady jeans on stage, and grabs 10 points if he performs at the Catalyst Conference.

So if you’re truly a metrosexual worship leader of the highest degree, by the time this comes out, you will have moved on to what’s next, which will probably be homemade clothing. You’ll be knitting your own oddly shaped jeans and chunky socks on stage in between songs. And I’ll be in the crowd finally wearing a white belt and saying, “Come on! Now I have to learn how to knit to stay cool? You guys are killing me.”

And he couldn’t me more right.

Jon Acuff, I’m sorry dude, I know this book was published a couple years ago, but even then metrosexuality was already on its way out, if not completely dead (unless you star in the Jersey Shore). And the things that you mentioned, that make you not metrosexual, like owning a black and red flannel shirt, wearing suspenders, and having a handlebar mustache, are precisely what make worship leaders cool today. Not only did you miss it completely, Jon, but you somehow predicted the future, in a backwards sort of way.

Some other great articles, where the title speaks for itself:

JUDGING FUNDAMENTALISTS FOR BEING JUDGMENTAL

FEELING SAD FOR CHURCHES THAT AREN’T MEGA

HATING ON MEGA CHURCHES

OCCASIONALLY SWEARING

SUBTLY FINDING OUT IF YOU DRINK BEER TOO

MISSIONARY DATING: WHEN GOD CALLS YOU TO CONVERT THE SEXY AND UNCHURCHED

LEAVING ROOM FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT WHEN YOU DANCE

FEARING GOD WILL SEND YOU TO AFRICA IF YOU GIVE HIM YOUR ENTIRE LIFE

Rook Beport: Why We Love the Church

Orlando, FL

I used to have an ish with this mega church in Southern California. From the shallow preaching to the equivalent of a jumbotron at a baseball game that would capture unsuspecting church goers right in the middle of the teaching – I hated it. From people ditching service early during the alter call so that they could miss all the traffic to ministries spheres as outlandish as “Quilting” and “Dog Lovers” – I hated it. From the camera guy crawling on stage getting close ups of the worship band to millions and millions of dollars being put into the building – I hated it. I criticized that church like it was my job.

It took a few years, but the Holy Spirit changed me. The first step was MS’s father became its Executive Pastor, the next step was that it became Impact’s new base church, and well the last step was good ol’ truth. So attitudes like hating the people that leave church early and literally get in the way of people trying to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior, turned into, okay I’ll just pray for those selfish people, which finally turned into, okay I’m just going to stop judging them altogether because sometimes you’ve just got to leave church early. And other attitudes involving hating the camera angles I am getting of the band because that guy is seriously on his back, turned into, I’m just glad that guy has a job and that all these peoples tithes are contributing to that. I say these peoples because Lord knows I wasn’t tithing to that money grubbing place – I was too busy self-righteously “tithing” to the tuitions of 194 students.

So when I could no longer rely on 194 as a church anymore, I had to woman-up, face reality and ask myself – do I go to Mega Church? My community, my friends, my ministry – it was all there. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to real bad. I no longer hated it – in fact, the good outweighed the bad, tremendously. I just still didn’t want to go. And that’s when I started reading Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck.  

What DeYoung and Kluck, a couple of Reformed dudes from the Midwest, do well is remind us that church is not only biblical but goes hand in hand with relationship with God. Basically, if you don’t love the church, you don’t love God, wholly and rightly. This is truth, this I love. And the way you love church is being it, in the most traditional and boring of senses. These two gentlemen also do a great job at debunking the leading ideologies and men who seem to be the perpetuating force behind the degeneration of the church as well as the people flocking behind them. “Church-leavers” and “church-bashers” are constantly referenced, dissected, psyhco-analyzed and exhorted throughout the entirety of this book.

Ironically though, DeYoung and Kluck don’t get away with, but do make room for making fun of and complaining about the things they don’t like about church, particularly and generally, all the while convincing you that unless the Gospel is being compromised, stop complaining yourself, and get better at church.

So I guess this is my final advice: Find a good local church, get involved, become a member, stay there for the long haul. Put away thoughts of revolution for a while and join the plodding visionaries. Go to church this Sunday and worship there in spirit and truth, be patient with your leaders, rejoice when the gospel is faithfully proclaimed, bear with those who hurt you, and give people the benefit of the doubt. While you are there, sing like you mean it, say hi to the teenager no one notices, welcome the blue hairs and the nose-ringed, volunteer for the nursery once in a while. And yes, bring your fried chicken to the potluck like everyone else, invite a friend to church, take a new couple out for coffee, give to the Christmas offering, be thankful someone vacuumed the carpet, enjoy the Sundays that click for you, pray extra hard on the Sundays that don’t, and do not despise “the day of small things.” (Zechariah 4:10)

Though the urgency to get churched didn’t come but any earlier than a few months before I left for Florida, I still, enthusiastically, with much conviction, went to Mega Church, every Sunday. I even tithed. I finally realized the problem was not church – just simply a problem with commitment – a commitment to love the body, precisely how the Bible tells me to. And now I belong to a church that needs my love, support and consistency just as much. I’m probably more out of place than ever before. I don’t know if I have entered a worship gathering or a fashion show. Literally, everyone is twenty-something, hip, uber creative and constantly hyping up what they’re passionate about. I struggle with this because at face value, I see this as self-serving. But no! That’s not true – the Spirit is working, the Gospel is going forth and I can either choose to be committed to this body, or be deliberately disobedient. I choose obedience, gladly.