Life or death?

October 8, 2007 at 5:57 pm | Posted in Christianity | Leave a comment
Tags: abortion, America, ateasetees, Bible, black, Christian, church, compromise, death, emo, evangelism, faith, God, gospel, grace, hell, holy, hope, Israel, Jesus, judgment, law, life, love, marriage, mercy, money, murder, pastor, peace, prayer, repent, salvation, scripture, shadow, sin, skulls, ten commandments, truth

I went to a Christian concert almost a week ago, and I noticed something that disturbed me to say the least. I realize that I might just be getting old, but I will not readily admit that yet…

At the concert, there were four bands that played. I will admit that the first three held nothing for me and that I really didn’t pay attention to them very much. But their music just seemed to be a lot of screaming and thrashing and loud music that had no real value. I don’t recall them ever mentioning God or Jesus, and as I looked at them I noticed something that I saw reflected in the majority of the youth that were at this concert.

Most of them wore black or shades of gray and many of the shirts were liberally decorated with skulls.

Maybe I need to just face the facts that I’m not as young as I think that I am (although I was one of the few adults in our group jumping and dancing), but is this new “fad” of dark colors with skulls really representative of Jesus? Is the black eyeliner and fingernail polish and the “emo” type attitude an accurate representation of the One who said “I have come to give you life and life more abundantly” (John 10:10).

We serve a God who raised people from the dead for crying out loud! When Jesus walked the earth, He completely superceded the laws of nature on many occasions, the most prevalent being when He rose from the grave on the third day! This whole kind of subculture (?) in the body of Christ does nothing to show the truth of who Jesus is in your life or who He can be in someone else’s.

I know some of you are probably thinking, “we just dress and act that way so that we can ‘reach out’ to those who really need Jesus and wouldn’t be reached in any other way”. If that’s true, then why wasn’t Jesus lifted up? If you wear stuff like that, how many people do you witness to? And what about the part where God says that we are to be separate from the world? Where He says that we are to be like Jesus is in the world. How can you be salt and light when you’re clothed in darkness and shadow? I know some of the kids that dress this way and underneath the façade of this shadow beats a heart that desires to truly serve the Lord. But to do that, we as a church are going to have to do things differently than the world. We are going to have to stand up and speak out against the darkness that threatens future generations and not become a part of it!!

The last group to perform that night was tobymac. I have seen them twice before and every time I’ve been impressed. I am impressed that a forty-something man can still move like he does show after show after show. I’m impressed that they are willing to give everything that they’ve got to the people that come to see them and that it’s not about money (It cost $10 to get in). I am most impressed though, about how Toby and the band put all of the focus on the Lord and how they are always talking about scripture and proclaiming the truth to those listening.

If we are to truly impact generations for the Lord, then we are going to have to do it His way. That doesn’t mean we can’t dance to a good beat or rock out to an awesome riff, but what it does mean is that we need to make sure that the focus of what we do is Jesus, and that when we do it, we are truthfully representing Him.