"But what do we do with people? We forget the process. We're usually worrying about how to clean them up before they're even caught! We want people to stop smoking, stop doing drugs, stop wearing clothes we don't like, dye their hair back from purple to brown, take the metal out of their faces, and generally clean up their act before—or shortly after—they've had an encounter with Jesus. We want a clean tidy church, clean tidy disciples, and clean tidy friends. "

This is a great quote that I found from Melody Green's blog...she was the wife of the late Keith Green...he was a great charismatic Christian singer in the 70's.

I just found him today in doing some research on the CBN website.

Anyway, back to her blog. It's so true. I was just talking to a co-worker about this. She said, to me just yesterday..."Hey, Ashley, I'm going to bring a can of beer and come to your church sometime." You know what I said? "You go right ahead, ________, our pastor will let you come in with it, but he also might ask you to lay it on the altar." We both laughed. She's had some bad experiences in the past, going to churches and having believers look down upon her. So, she's bitter towards the church. Do I blame her? Certainly not! I grew up going to a Baptist Church (one of the many churches I attended) where it was the same in the Youth Group as it was in the schools.

I was made fun of, I was a redhead, I watched my youth group leaders kids and babysat for them, while they went out partying, and found beer in their fridge right after they got done telling us the dangers of such things!

I never turned away though, not until much, much, later.

What are we doing? In our churches? Loving only those with a smooth coat and appearence? Or loving ALL of those who enter! The ones who look bad, smell bad, make us feel bad...EVERYONE should be able to come to the throne!

Let GOD judge them...be their judge, let HIM be the one to ask them to lay down their sin...and until then...invite them to come!

:)