Day 192: Things I am Conservative About...Including Christmas
Okay, so I thought I would blog about things I am surprisingly conservative about. It has come to my attention that some people think I am a pretty liberal Christian. Perhaps in the some ways I am but I would prefer to throw that under that label of grace. As my friends get to know me more and more they tell me, "you are conservative in ways I never would have imagined." So here is my list and I will probably never preach these...this is where I stand on some things. Sorry if offend you with this...or make you laugh. 1. Proms...homecomings...and others. Even when I began youth pastoring back in the day I have always taken the stance that school dances and things like this are just a bad idea. Nothing like getting a bunch of kids with raging hormones dancing together and perhaps experience things they shouldn't until later in life.
2. Giving up church for Christmas...Now I realize we are the church and everything but, I think we have it backwards if we skip church in order to stay up on the Christmas festivities. Now...I understand traveling and all of that stuff. If you are away you are away...enjoy the time. It just makes a statement when we skip the reason for the real meaning of Christmas in order to stay up on the commercial end of things. Seems a bit backwards.
3. Redone Hymns....it is a gripe of mine when these modern Christian artists add a few words to an old hymn and all of a sudden all the churches are singing them. Amazing Grace? Leave it alone! Do I care if a church...my church does songs like this? Nope. Just my thoughts on it this is probably the only place you will hear me talk about it. What I love? The old hymns done in a musically majestic way.Oh...and I do love the old timey southern gospel hymns.
4. The last one leads to this one...Redone Christmas classics. When I hear a redone version of a classic Christmas tune...FAIL.
5. Church...a lifestyle decision not weekly decision. Okay...to go back to the whole thing that we are the church, not the building we meet in. But, there is something to be said about meeting with others each Sunday and finding some refuge amongst a community. What gets me though are the ones that are on again off again. Church should be a lifestyle...you know, make it a thing that every week we go to church. Not to say it is bad to take a Sunday off or vacation...NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT in my book. I am just saying the here a few months...gone a few months...what is that? Especially if you are raising kids.
I am sure there are a few other things but these are the ones that stand out in my mind. So I am old fashioned in some ways....now to find that heavy metal Christmas video clip to show before our Christmas Eve service.
gee Bob, you're going to have them coming at ya from both ends!! LOL!
ReplyDeleteThe prom thing... I heard a HORRIBLE story about what happens at Prom at SPASH while dancing...and how last year (I beleive) there were a number of teenage births 9 months AFTER Prom. OOPS!
I think what I like most about you is that you have your convictions, (and I'm sorry, but EVERY ONE does)... you're not afraid to talk about them, but you really don't judge individuals who have other values or treat them as second class citizens. That is a good heart that loves people. I'd like to be that way too!
Greetings from Wordwise Hymns. I was especially interested in your criticism of the practice of tinkering with the old hymns. I've heard many attempts to "modernize" what doesn't need it at all. The results are hardly ever an improvement on the original. I agree. Leave well enough alone! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Robert. Very kind of you to respond!
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