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May 2012

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by Jon Acuff

Editor's Note: Reprinted with permission from
Jon Acuff's blog "Stuff Christians Like."

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I LEANED OVER TO MY WIFE DURING THE MIDDLE OF CHURCH AND SAID, "THAT TRANSITION INTO THE SERMON WASN'T VERY SMOOTH." WHAT?

I'm no New Testament scholar, but I can't imagine Peter ever leaning over and telling one of the other disciples, "I've got to be honest with you, the acoustics of this particular hill Jesus is speaking from are lousy. And I don't know how we're going to feed everyone here. The production values of this event are horrible. Amateur hour."

But sometimes, that's how I treat my church's production staff. From the sound guys to the pastor to those magical people who make stuff disappear from stage during prayers, I have incredibly unforgiving standards when it comes to church. To repay that horrible attitude, to make right on my cynical/judgy/whackness heart, I thought I would give every church employee a gift they can use whenever something goes wrong at church. I call it the, "Steve Jobs did too."

[Recently], Apple unveiled the new iPhone. It was a splendid performance from Jobs, a presenter with skills that inspired the book, "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs." In addition to launching the sexiest products, he also has one of the most creative, talented teams at his disposal. People in countries all over the world were expecting the same excellence Jobs usually delivers.

And then something went wrong.

While doing an A vs. B test pairing the old iPhone vs. the new iPhone, Jobs tried to open the home page for the New York Times. Only the new iPhone wouldn't load it. It hung up, it stalled and the old iPhone, the "before" if this was a weight loss
commercial, performed better.

Jobs paused and then said, "Our networks in here are always unpredictable." Then he asked the crowd, "You know you could help me out, if you're on WiFi, if you could just get off ... well we're having a little problem here." The editors of the wildly popular site Engadget were in the crowd and instantly blogged, "Oh boy, the iPhone is NOT loading." Jobs then asked for suggestions and someone in the crowd yelled, "Verizon!" (If you're an AT&T customer and you already kind of have a standard apology you've practiced saying to people [because] your phone drops so many calls, that Verizon bit was hilarious.)

All in all, it was a tough situation on an otherwise flawless presentation.

And he's Steve Jobs. And they're Apple. And they had tens of thousands of people watching them. And they messed up.

Your church, my church, every church on the planet is going to mess up too. They're going to have a mic that sounds like firecrackers sometimes. They're going to put the wrong words up for a song. They're going to set off the smoke alarm because of a fog machine. It's going to happen. And when it does, if you're an attendee like me, I hope you'll show them grace and not personally hold them responsible for your ability to connect with God. And if you're a church employee, I hope you'll pull out this story and immediately look that mistake you made in the face and reply, "Steve Jobs did too." When someone tells you the guitar was too loud and you messed up, reply, "Steve Jobs did too." When someone tells you the guitar was too quiet and you messed up, reply, "Steve Jobs did too." When the "pastor brings a canoe in as a wild sermon illustration" goes horribly wrong and an Elder tells you that you messed up, reply, "Steve Jobs did too."

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JONATHAN ACUFF is founder and author of the popular and hilarious blog “Stuff Christians Like” (SCL) at www.stuffchristianslike.net. His book with the same name is published by Zondervan and available at www.amazon.com. Acuff is a preacher’s kid/copywriter who lives in Atlanta with his wife and two kids.