Bathrooms and Guitars: The Freedom to be Relevant!

The Free Church of Scotland voted this week (narrowly) to allow music in their services for the first time in 160 years! This was actually a huge controversy. Many within the the church actually believe that its sinful to use musical instruments in church services.

You know if I were the devil that's exactly what I would want Christians to believe! I'd want to convince them that using musical instruments was evil so I could assure that their services would never attract anyone to Christ! Meanwhile, I'd get to use music to influence people the way I wanted to influence them. While I was at it I'd try and convince them that the more dressed up they are the holier they are. Put everyone in suits and ties so they're really uncomfortable and too busy comparing themselves with what everyone else is wearing to really focus on Christ. I'd make sure sermons were long and boring too and never dealt with anything relevant in people's day-to-day lives.

Years ago, not long after I became a Christian, I began to use my musical talents in church. I was so excited I would go to work and talk about it with my friends. One 'religious' guy over heard me one day and pulled me aside and presumed to 'straighten me out.' He told me we shouldn't be using guitars and drums in church because they didn't use those instruments in the early church and he wanted his church to be like the church in the book of Acts! I was a very young Christian and didn't have a lot of tact, so I asked him "Do you have bathrooms in your church?" He assured me they did and I told him he better pull those toilets out and go pee behind a tree because they didn't have indoor plumbing in the book of Acts! He never tried to straighten me out again.

I hope the Free Church of Scotland (and all Christian churches) will truly be free, once and for all, from all the ridiculous religious ideas Satan uses to try and keep us from being effective in our mission to reach the lost and the unchurched!