Books And Their Covers

Just about everyone has heard the saying, 'You can't judge a book by it's cover.", and it might possibly be the one I've heard the most. This weekend we attended the 150th anniversary celebration of a church on the north side of town, and had a rather good time. There were about 4-5 ministers who had served there in the past that were invited to speak and give a short walk down memory lane, and then Bishop of the United Brethren Denomination was the main speaker. I really enjoyed the bishop's message, which mostly focused on the how the church can have a better future than it has had a past. He spoke about how we as a church body will determine the future of the church by how we choose to respond to God's calling. If I can recall them correctly, he gave some statistical numbers of how the United States is quickly becoming the 3rd largest mission field in the world due to the fact that only about 17% of the country claims to practice a religion. Christianity, catholic, Buddhist, etc. It makes me very sad to think, that we as a country are quickly failing to live out or to live up to those biblical and moral principals upon which this country was founded. Now you may be asking how does all that fit the title of this blog? Well the rest of the days' story goes like this.

After the morning service, we enjoyed a carry-in dinner complete with a Hog roast and many many desserts. Now mind you, the tent is full of people who for the most part are in their 50's to 70's and are enjoying good food and good conversation, trying to catch up on the past and enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon. Well there was also live music planned. The first band that stepped on stage just happened to be an alternative / heavy metal Christian band from town. One member was dressed with black fingernail polish, a belt chain, large and multiple ear piercings, and a shirt that read "Porn Sucks" As you can probably guess it didn't go over so well. The minute they started to play about 75%-85% of the tent made a mass exodus that moved faster than the Israelites. Now coming from one who likes music, it didn't sound bad, actually it sounded really good (musically). The lyrics (the ones I could hear over the screaming guitars and ear splitting drums) were good, however not the right time, place, or genre for that matter. It's hard to imagine a mosh pit full of baby boomers. Talk about knee and hip replacements. My point is this, as the afternoon went on, I sensed a opinion forming about the band and it's members. I could sense the disapproval of many about the music and style of presentation. Now I'm not speaking for any of them here, because nothing was actually said to me directly about the character of the band members, but you could sense the disapproval. Now outside of it being the wrong style of music for the age group (and volume) there was nothing wrong with it. So it makes me wonder, how often we do this "book cover judging" on a day to day basis. I'd like to think that Jesus would have sat there and listened to the music with a joyful heart because he knew the heart of the artist. It also makes me wonder if this selective acceptance is part of the reason of the decline in our denomination and in Christianity all together. I think that in general, we only accept those who are like us, those that pose no threat to us, and those who make us feel comfortable. God have mercy on us all if that is how HE works. Now, I pose the question, will those who attended that days activities die due to the loud music they were subjected to? No, not unless they were deafened and can't hear the train coming down the tracks. However, if we keep up this selective acceptance, and we pick and choose who we think God loves, how many will die because we didn't love like Christ loves us?