You did WHAT!

This past week I had the wonderful privilege of going to Creation Fest Northeast in Shirleysburg, PA. It was an incredible blessing for my youth group and I. The interesting thing was the responses I got from people who knew I was going. For the most part the people who were vocal about our trip had positive responses, but it was the negative responses that concerned me.

Two comments that stood out to me were the following. The first was to a comment I made on Facebook. It said that Creation "Might be better if it wasn't just a big rock concert." The second comment was "Why would you go to such a Godless event?"

You all know my musical background so I will not bore you with rehashing my view. If you do not know it, you can read about it in my former blog post.

I think the issue comes down to definitions. People with opposing views on music define things differently. For this article I ask that we place those differences on the back burner. For right now please don't worry about whether something has a back beat or not. Let us focus on the event.

From June 29 through July 2, nearly 80,000 people mostly Christians gathered in mid Pennsylvania for a Christian music festival. This event was not Godless in the least as every artist/singer gave a testimony for Christ and reminded the Audience that the focus was NOT to be on the person BUT on the Savior. The preaching was absolutely phenomenal by both the singers and the special speakers. Over 6 people preached every day in between the music and just so you know the preachers were on stage longer than the musicians(1.5 hours for the preachers compared to an hour for the musicians). Each message was God focused and clearly presented the gospel of salvation. Despite there being people of diverse backgrounds preaching, not one doctrinal error was spoken. If anything the messages were clearer there than messages I had ever heard my entire life. I will cave and say that in fact this WAS a heathen event. Reformed sinners, still heathen, gathered together to offer the Creator of the universe praise and worship.

To address the other comment, I believe the biggest issue in definition occurs. If you define a rock concert as a thing where people get up on stage and sing loudly, with modern instruments, with lights and even some *GASP* pyrotechnics, then yes, Creation Festival was a rock concert. This rock concert was quite different than what I would define a rock concert as. Typically I imagine Woodstock to define a rock concert. We imagine the nudity, the orgies, and the drugs. At creation there were no drunken orgies, there was no drug consumption, and there was no immorality of any kind so it really depends on your definition. Unless you consider the music a sin, there WAS no sin encouraged/practiced at this event.

Creation 2011 was amazing. On the last night nearly 1000 people accepted Christ as their Savior. There was no pressure or hostile convictions. The Gospel was presented and the Holy Spirit moved. This event showed me that you don't have to put on a monastic lifestyle of self loathing. We are to put off our selves and focus on others and be willing to share the Gospel with the entire world. This calls us to be in the world but not of it. IF sin as defined by scripture is not present in something, the Christian should be allowed to participate. If the activity leads to worship, maybe we need to putting down our own pride and in fact encourage that activity.
We as Christians are destroying ourselves. We fight over the simplest of things. Rather, in order to be Radical in our living, we must cast off vain disputing and focus entirely on Christ.