I took my kids to a rock concert on Easter. Okay, it wasn’t really a rock concert, but it sure was reminiscent of the time I saw the Steve Miller band live in Green Bay.
You know what it was? Church.
Several thousand people were on their feet, hands in the air, singing at the top of their lungs.
We’re staying at my sister’s house in Charlotte and I had heard about this place called Elevation Church. I suppose it would qualify as a mega-church, but there are actually about 14 smaller campuses that make up the organization.
Pastor Steven Furtick broadcasts live from one of the locations each week and it’s simulcast to the others.
I gotta admit, I thought it might bother me not to see the pastor face-to-face, but it didn’t. Jordan was sitting next to me and she later admitted that because she’s still shorter than all the adults, she usually has to watch the action from a screen anyway.
I don’t intend for this to be a review of Elevation. Believers are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Every church has a different feel, because there are so many different types of people. Some like to get up on their feet and dance while others prefer to worship with their knees on the ground. It’s all good.
That said, we normally attend a church that is less rock concert-ish, so you should have seen my kids’ faces when the band started up and all of these huge colorful beach balls got thrown into the audience. They kept looking at me like, “Is this okay, Mom? Would God be cool with this?”
The sermon message was called “A Tomb With a View” and it was all about perspective. My take-home message was this: before we pray for our circumstances to change, maybe we should pray that God helps our perspective to change.
That’s big in our family. As I swayed to the music with my littlest one in my arms, I caught Saul’s misty eyes. He remembers so well when I would cry to him, wondering if I would ever be strong enough after the mastectomy to carry my 5 year old. It was fitting that I would be able to hold Ben while praising Jesus for carrying us through the battle. It was certainly a perspective we didn’t have a year ago.
When I think about it that way, it does seem fitting to celebrate on my feet, hands in the air, singing my heart out. God deserves a rock concert.
