LET THE CHILDREN COME

ur pastor preached today on Luke 18:22 about letting the little children come to Him. The pastor said that many children weren't the good kids we often picture, but were orphans who begged and stole from crowds that gathered for different events.

I'd never thought about it like that.

Here was Jesus, looking down at these little outcasts, and saying that unless you become like them you can't enter into the kingdom of God. And how did they enter? Sinful! They were aware of their sin, and their need to be set free.

Now here we have the Goths, punks, and all kinds of different kinds of Christians. He got so into it I half expected him to start talking about how we needed to accept the Goths into the church. After the service I went up and talked to him and shared with him something that was on my heart. Then I said that I believed that when the churches open up their doors to the Goths that's when the Holy Spirit will fall down on His people.

Right now many in the churches are pushing people away. In doing so they are pushing the moving of God in their own lives away.

We also need to be careful. I've already seen evidence of some Goths that have set themselves against the church and have become the very authorities that they oppose. They want to be accepted for who they are and yet are unwilling to accept others for who they are.

I remember a woman one time that was upset with the cliques in the church and we used to get together and fellowship together. The Lord spoke to her heart because she had formed a clique. She had cut all the others out and let only those in who didn't belong to a clique, making, of course, yet another clique.

This holds true with Goths.

They are seekers of truth (or at least start out that way). They are individuals that God has made with unique characteristics and talents. That is great. Yet they must not become exclusionists as others have done. There is very little difference between an elder in a 3-piece suit who pushes people away from Christ and a young man in black that does the same thing.

- David Brollier