Meth Destroys. Jesus Saves.

There are some pro-Jesus signs dotting the highways of New England (right guys?), but they pale in comparison to the gems we have here in the South. I found "Meth Destroys. Jesus Saves." on a billboard outside of Tuscaloosa, AL over the weekend.

I bring this up to segue into the other exciting thing we have down home - church. Why my granddad couldn't have chosen another career beside minister, I have no idea. This means that every time I visit the great state of Alabama, we head to church.

My mom and I went to "The Bridge", the Methodist version of a Contemporary Christian rock service. We sang a cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" with some different lyrics. The best was a chorus of "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, yes Lord." with hand motions. They brought the kids up on stage where they concentrated furiously on keeping their thumbs in the right position.

What struck me is the entirely different tone that the contemporary service has from the more traditional one. It was much more about letting Jesus into your heart and being saved than about faith and good works. This stood in sharp contrast to the sermon about helping the poor in our communities. (I really liked that part of the sermon. I told my mom that they could have thrown out all of the God stuff and just run with that.)

Just because you have a guitar and snappy hand motions doesn't mean that you have to dumb down the service. It seemed like the songs got away from all of the great themes of the traditional Methodist hymns. At least there wasn't a lot of handwaving and shouting Amen. They did manage to foist a coffee mug emblazoned with "The Bridge" on me. You're supposed to take it to work to open up dialogue about Christ. Any takers?