Concerts

Last night I went to see The New Pornographers at The Pageant in St. Louis. It was a pretty cool concert except that Neko Case wasn't with them. The sad part is that she was supposed to be there but got hurt at a concert last week and so now is off the tour. Musically the band is awesome, but I have to admit that I was a little disappointed in their stage presence, or lack of stage presence. I almost got a little bored at one point during their show. I almost enjoyed the opener better. By the way, Okkervil River is very good and puts on a great show.

The big news, however, is that I was given Wilco tickets for my birthday weekend!! That's right, the third of three sold out shows in St. Louis.

BE JEALOUS...BE VERY JEALOUS!

What draws us to church?

We had Living Sacrifice this weekend at Foursquare and the church building is just unbelievable. There is a lobby with big flat screen monitors, a coffee shop, a youth room with a stage and guitar hero, a huge sanctuary/gym that has a sound system that will rival anything a major concert tour can offer, and enough cameras to film the next Die Hard movie...I hope anyway, John McClain is awesome! Oh wait! I forgot...THE ADULT SIZED PLAY PLACE WITH BALL PIT! WHAT THE CRAP!?!?!?!?

I don't have a problem with any of those things individually, especially the adult sized play place (instead of getting kicked out of McDonald's I'll just go over to Foursquare). My issue is this...at what point are we going to church because it is "cool" or "entertaining" instead of Jesus and community? Are we going to church to learn and grow or to get a white mocha latte?

I want to be clear that I'm not crapping on the people that attend this church. I know quite a few and they are amazing people. I'm just not sure how this stuff looks to others. What are we telling those that we are trying to witness to? At what point do these things become a distraction?

This was a little bit of a rant and I have quite a few other things to say on the issue. I held back quite a bit. Maybe I'm just jealous that I can't go to my church on Sunday and play in the ball pit...