A Rant...

Okay, so there I was the other day sitting in my office working on my sermon for Sunday, when in walked a gentleman. After he introduced himself he immediately went on to start asking questions regarding our church. By the nature of his questions and of course his southern drawl I quickly concluded that this was a man from the southern U.S. who was part of a non-instrumental Church of Christ. For those of you who don't know, there is a "split" mostly in the states between the Christian churches and churches of Christ that is differentiated by the fact that the churches of Christ don't believe that "real" Christians should use musical instruments in their worship services. Their reasoning behind this is based on the notion that the New Testament makes no mention of using them to worship God (which in it of itself is wrong...but I don't want to chase that rabbit!). Now if they grew up in that environment and that's what you prefer, fine...fill yer boots! I can respect that as long as you respect my thoughts on the matter too. However it was clear that this chap did not. In fact he stated flat out that it was all right for me to worship with him at HIS church...but it wouldn't be okay for him to worship at mine. At that point I wanted to say, "Um...think about that dude," but I held back. I am never surprised by people anymore and their arrogant attitudes about being right and holding so tightly to the dumbest non-scriptural issues. But...I was saddened by the lack of desire for this man to associate himself with me simply because I held an opinion regarding a non-issue in the Bible a little different than he. I could call him a brother, but I don't think he would have referred to me as one. He even said that his churches needed to work harder in their evangelistic efforts "up here." Apparently we are not reaching anyone for Jesus because we play guitars... Sigh, oh well. I wonder what this brother in Christ thinks about Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 9:22: "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some."