Alcohol

I can make anybody pretty
I can make you believe any lie
I can make you pick a fight
With somebody twice your size
I been known to cause a few break ups
I been known to cause a few births
I can make you new friends
Or get you fired from Work

Chorus
And since the day I left Milwaukee
Lynch burg and Bordeaux France
Been making the bars lots of big money
And helping white people dance
I got you in trouble in high school
But college, now that was a ball
You had some of the best times
You'll never remember with me
Alcohol, Alcohol

I got blamed at your wedding reception
For your best man's embarrassing speech
And also for those
Naked pictures of you at the beach
I've influenced kings and world leaders
I helped Hemingway write like he did
And I'll bet you a drink or two that I can make you
Put that lampshade on your head

A "funny" song by brad paisley but true, alcohol has a strong affect on people, and is all around us. Its the source of debate "Jesus drank wine!" some say when others consider it abomination and sin. Many of you know that i myself have dabbled with alcohol. Many of you know i have bar tended many times at the Eis house. Some of you know just how deep i sunk into the "bar scene" for a period of my life. I am not proud of my past but find it hard to regret and am very lucky (or more likely looked after) that i didn't have any direct consequences and or tragedy during this time. But why did i do it? why do so many fall into the trap?

There a quite a few answers that flood to mind: peer pressure, curiosity, just plain rebellion? Certainly there are many people that do it for those reasons but that's not what I'm writing about tonight. These are the reasons we hear about but this isn't the reason i did it. I did it mainly for community. acceptance. relationship. Some of the very reasons one might look to the church.

The fuel for this blog came from a quote i read in a book it quoted Bruce Larson when he said, “The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterpart there is for the fellowship Christ wants to give His church. Its an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape instead of reality, but it is a permissive accepting and inclusive fellowship. Its unshockable. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers."

Peer pressure, curiosity, or rebellion, didn’t drive me to drink. What got me to drink was that fact that there is community in these places, just like the friends I hung out with in high school: instead of working for friendship with the popular kids that needed a reason to be your friend, or even being friends with the Christian kids at my church who needed you to live up to some sort of standard that they obviously lived and looked down at you for not being able to, I hung out with the drugies and losers because if you didn’t judge them they didn’t judge you. They accepted you because they knew they were not perfect and didn’t care If you were not either. There wasn’t a bar to jump over or a list of requirements, it was just plain unconditional acceptance and community. Why is it that the bar scene and the druggy culture can be so much more inviting than the church? Can we change that, and allow others, “outsiders”, to feel accepted and welcome them into community with us?

When i visited home last i was disappointed, and depressed it seemed that the great relationships and community that developed over the summer had fallen away and shattered. Some have become unaccepting of others, this has always been a problem with our group. probably with other groups but i would say especially with our group! I would like to think I'm a pretty accepting person, I'd like to think i don't hold myself higher than anyone else, i hope this is true. But even if its not i would ask if you really think that someone would rather come to or feel more excepted by your church, then a bar or somewhere similar? is it any surprise that kids are out drinking instead of coming to youth? what can you change to make people feel more accepted and welcome and even make those that are already around you more comfortable with you? what can you change to foster better community in your group?