Pastor Achieves Acrostic Perfection, Breaks Record for Most Complicated Sermon Acrostic

Grand Rapids, Ohio

Dr. Cog Nitive, Associate Pastor of Counseling for the First Christian Church, in preaching "Who Wants to Be a Success" delivered Sunday what is likely the most detailed, long reaching and perfectly orchestrated sermon acrostic ever for a non-denominational church (we acknowledge that Presbyterian Churches would have us beat at the Sermon Acrostic by a long shot). Today's sermon breaks the previous acrostic sermon record both in complexity and meaning.

The sermon utilized the seldom seen "acrostic within an acrostic", a technique that is often avoided because of the complexity required to keep adding subpoints that start with the right letter. The acrostic formula from today's sermon is deciphered by Swirlypine's linquistic staff, and is shown below in simplified form:

BEASUCCESS = Be A Success

1st sub-acrostic word: BE
B = Beliefs
E= Expectations

2nd sub-acrostic word: A
A = Action

3rd Sub-acrostic word: SUCCESS:
S = Setting your goals
U = Using your time
C = Cognitive strategies
C = Comprehension skills
E = Evaluating performance
S = Seeking support
S = Summarizing learning

In a brilliant and unexpected move, Dr. Nitive attempted the rare acrostic within the acrostic. During the explanation of the first level acrostic, Dr. Nitive introduced the "Draw your hand and write these five points in the fingers" acrostic. I wrote the following words on my fingers:
Thumb - Hear God's Word
Index finger - Read God's word
Middle finger - Study God's word
Ring finger - Meditate on God's word
Pinky finger - Apply God's word.

Here's what my hand looked like:

Now if you are trying to figure out the word spelled out by the hand acrostic, you might be scratching your head to figure out what "HRSMA" means. Well, here's where it get's to the subtextual level: The acrostic pattern here switches to the formula known as "repetitive phraseology", in which the phrase "________ God's word" is used repetitively for cogninitive reinforcement.

He also used as an example, the digestive system of a sheep that looks like this. From this, we learned that a sheep utilizes a "Smart Goal Setting System" because its stomach has 7 chambers that break down the grass. This is just like meditating on God's word.

THE MAIN POINT - At the begining of the sermon, Dr. Nitive asked us to write out our definition of success. I wrote 'to live a life that glorifies God by being obedient to Him.' At the end of the sermon, I learned that the definition of success is actually alot more complicated than that, and involves extensive cognitive repatterning. Dr. Nitive's definition of success is that 'Successful people summarize and ________ what they have ____ and make daily ___________. Unfortunately, I was writing so fast to finish the sheeps stomach illustration at this point, that I was unable to fill in the blanks for the definition of success.

Dr. Nitive drew more than a few raised eyebrows when discussing how often you read God's word, he stated "Its not enough to just get a quickie in the morning." After elbowing my wife, I later learned that he was refering to a quick read through of "Our Daily Bread" or something else like that.

Dr. Nitive later explained about "Comprehension Monitoring" in which you realize that the most dangerous animal in the world is not the Great White Shark (kills 100 people a year) but the mosquito, which kills 1,000,000 people a year. But I kept thinking its not the mosquito that kills people, its the virus it carries, so isn't it the virus that is the most dangerous animal? But that kind of ruins the illustration, though, doesn't it?

Dr. Nitive employed many breakthrough cognitive techniques, including the "How many F's do you see" game, the "Three Chairs Illustration," the "This picture of a duck can change into a horse" illustration, and the inaugural introduction of the phrase "When God Guides, God Provides" (it rhymes!).

Dr. Nitive also broke ranks with the previous paradigm of "Be a Human Being, not a Human Doing" by encouraging us to "Evaluate our Performance", and then by explaining to us that the true meaning of success is to have heavenly insight to know God's will. So I guess my definition of success (obedience to God, glorifying God) was wrong.

Perhaps the most stunning moment of this treatise, was the point at which Dr. Nitive told us to take out our wallets and drop them on the floor. He was illustrating the point "are you holding onto your wallet, or is your wallet holding onto you". I couldn't find my wallet this morning before church, and so I started blaming it on my wife, and then we were late to church. But it didn't matter because I have my giving set up through Quicken Bill Pay. Then I had to ask myself, "Am I holding onto Quicken Bill Pay, or is Quicken Bill Pay holding onto me?" Deep.


In summary, it is this style of cognitive, behavior modificaiton teaching that we need more of on Sunday moringings. I mean, after all, how many of those boring cookie cutter sermons about the Glory of God or the way to Glorify God, or how God's Grace is Imparted to Us, or Why Sin Hurts God, or How We Receive Continual Grace Through Jesus Sacrifical Substitution (all with hermenutiucal exegisis instead of seeker sensitive marketing-speak, can we be expected to sit through? If we just try hard enough to change our behavior, we will be successful in God's eyes. That's the real point, here, I think. But trying isn't good enough, because we all have hang ups. So it helps to have systems in place that keep you pointed in the right direction. So we all need lots of systems. Thats the real point, I am trying to say, cognitive systems, with acrostics to help us remember. I think if I try to implement all the systems from today's sermon this week, it will take me about 6 hours a day. That should be sufficient.