Bonus Mosh Pt. 2

So last night I attended a concert in Columbus and it was one of the wildest, most fun times I have experienced in a while. But at the same time, it's one of the first things in a long time to make me want to blog because it made me think so much. You may think to yourself, "So this is going to be a blog about how the lyrics spoke to him and God was at the concert and spoke to him blah blah blah." I hope that you did not already stop reading thinking this would be one of those posts. It is not. God was certainly there. I'm not making fun of that fact cause he is everywhere, but it was not a "spiritual" experience by any means. But yeah. Anyway, I will now finally get on to what I'm going to say. I apologize for the long preface.

The concert I attended had the bands Anberlin and Taking Back Sunday. Anberlin is, as you may know, a band of Christian individuals, while Taking Back Sunday(or TBS) is not. If you know me at all, you know that I love music of all kinds and I care not one bit if they are Christians or not. So yeah. I love both bands. Anberlin preceeded TBS and they were great but when TBS came out the crowd went wild. They were obviously here to enjoy some great music from a band we all loved. As soon as they broke out into song the moshing began. It was violent, painful, scary, and it was spectacular. It was beautiful and It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

It's one thing to listen to a band on your ipod. It's another thing to blast that band on your stereo. It's another thing to see videos of the band playing. It's yet another thing to see the band live. But let me tell you this. You will never experience that music in such a way than when you are in the middle of a mob of men and women all pushing, dancing, jumping, and flailing wildly; all of them are singing the lyrics to the sky, floor, each other, the stage, and the list goes on. There is a unique bond formed between all the people when such an event occurs. It is absolute bedlam created for great pleasure.

I could see so many people united to hear this band play. We were total strangers. But this didn't mean anything. There was an instant love there. An instant bond created by love for the music. When someone would fall in the mosh pit everyone would stop to help pick them back up again. Everyone would work together to lift one person up and drift them across the sea of people. There was pushing and shoving and it was strangely painful, but enjoyable at the same time. So much about this experience brought me to think about my Christian life hours after the concert. It made me think about the church and about the body of Christ.

I thought to myself and expressed it to my friend Ben, "You will never see that much unconditional love in a church." I couldn't help thinking about how it was so easy to love these people and feel bonded to them and how hard I find it to bond with "Church folk" Then I realized after thinking about it why it was so much easier. Well the biggest thing was probably all of us figured none of us could see each other again. So if that is the only reason than it's obvious. But then I thought that it couldn't be it. So then I realized that I also didn't feel like I had anything to prove to these people. I didn't feel like I had to fit in or make them like me. I wasn't worried about their judgement at all. I wasn't judging them. They weren't judging me. We were just there, total strangers, enjoying music we loved and were passionate about.

WHY? Why can the church not behave this way? They should. They were taught to live this way by Jesus. No judgement. No condemnation. We are to turn our backs on no one. But rather, respect everyone and show love to every individual. We have a cause to rally under. A passion and a love that we can stand behind is Christ. I am only one person. I can choose to not judge and to love, but when it really starts to make a difference is when we all start to love unconditionally and keep our thoughts before we know a person at bay. We can and we should do everything we can to break down barriers we have built and to treat every person like it's the last time we will see them. We need to love them today in this hour. If we don't, the amount of damage you can do is not measurable because you will never know what would have become og someone if you had not neglected them.

Hope I didn't bother anyone with this longer read. Thank you if you read it all. So yeah. To sum things us, yt is our calling as Christians to live a life like we did at that concert. Community. Love. Faith. We need to establish these ideas NOW and start to reverse the horrible state our church is in today. The judging must stop. The love must pour out. Love is everything,