Ever feel really out of place? Just feel like you don’t fit in at all? Hanging out with some high schoolers has given me that feeling recently. I went to a concert the other night, one of these local, underground punk things. It only cost $3 to get in. I was wearing the same thing I wore to church that morning–which isn’t as bad as it sounds–my Mother did frown at me when we walked out the door. My faded jeans, year and a half old sneakers, and a nice sweater that made it church-acceptable. Of course that’s not exactly standard dress at a punk show.

I stood there near the back of the crowd, just looking around. Baggy jeans, wallet chains, piercings everywhere imaginable, a few tattoos, either punk rock or ancient thrift shop T-shirts, purple hair, skater shoes, and the like. Nothing I haven’t seen before, but of the entire crowd, I was the lone minority. Makes you think a little bit. I couldn’t help but wonder how many conservative church leading Christians would frown and scoff at this room full of “Christian punks.”

We tell the world that Jesus is for everyone, slave or free, Jew or Gentile, etc. But do we really accept everyone into the house of God? Or do we demand that certain people tuck in their shirts and comb their hair?