so i was recently at a large "xtian" venue over the memorial day weekend. the venue was a festival setting, bringing in a bunch of bands, solo-artists, "worship" leaders, and speakers to, on the face of it, provide an alternative to similar venues of the secualar side of things like the
vans warped tour, the
lallapalooza tour, or
ozzfest and the likes.
now that you have an idea of the setting, here's the observation. what's the true purpose of this venue? well, after attending it for the first time, it appeared to be centered heavily on "evangelism" and making a buck. i can, on some level, understand the evangelism part (one day i'll explain this in detail), but what i can't quite grab a hold of is the making a buck side of things. i want to say that i have no problem with charging people at the "door" for an event. it's what i saw on the inside that bring me to this place.
lemme drop a passage from scripture here from the book of mark:
15When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the merchants and their customers. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the stalls of those selling doves, 16and he stopped everyone from bringing in merchandise. 17He taught them, "The Scriptures declare, `My Temple will be called a place of prayer for all nations,' but you have turned it into a den of thieves."[a]
18When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him. But they were afraid of him because the people were so enthusiastic about Jesus' teaching. 19That evening Jesus and the disciples[b] left the city.
hmm... did i tell you that there was a huge building filled with merch, and after the talent finished their set people were directed to where they could spend some money mixed in with a line or two about where to find someone to talk to if they had questions about this jesus guy eveyone else seems to know. oh, but wait the where two small tents for prayer, phew!! then to add to this an admition from the stage, one of the talent decided to pull the curtain (i'm sure he got a talkin' to) on this $ subject. in the midst of his set, after he played his most popular songs, the ones that have made him and others some coin, with a truly sincere heart, tells us that the people that he works for are pushing him to get back into the studio to write another hit song, so they can sell it, market it, and send him on tour again. i love it!!! thank you for confessing.
who are these people that run the music labels? who are these people that dream up t-shirts that have a drawing of jesus doing a push-up with a cross on his back? marketing is marketing is marketing no matter if you are in the secular world or the xtain world. coin is the goal.
i think it's time we call these people out, or at least tell me i'm way off and that i need to recheck my perspective.
anyway, i actually did enjoy most of the acts i saw/heard at this event. these are my thoughts, thanks for reading.
