Tattoos

Wow!!!  Front page article about The Bridge having a Tattoo Parlor in our building has turned into quite the media frenzy.  Few things about this - We did not open Serenity Tattoo for publicity, rather to change lives beginning with the artists, their clients and apprentices and spreading from there.  Many positive posts from all walks of life - love to see some "getting it."  Some negative posts that fall into 3 categories - 1 being Leviticus 19:28 which says not to cut yourselves or make permanent marks - 2 being Jesus clearing the temple in Matthew and 3 being the church is a place for worship not tattoos or other stuff.

The first one is really simple - Lev 19:27 also says to not cut the hair at your temples or trim your beards and that chapter contains many cultural/ceremonial prohibitions based on what the local idolaters were doing and trying to make sure the Israelites were distinguishing themselves from them.  Anyone that wants to say that one verse is a prohibition on tattoos must also condemn ear piercing, shaving, and many other currently acceptable practices.  Using that verse to condemn tattooing is pure ignorance of good bible study.

The second issue of the temple cleansing is a reference to Jesus running the money changers out.  Again poor bible study leads to this thought.  The money changing and market place going on was people telling the worshippers that they had to exchange their money for temple money at a markup and their animal sacrifices for better animals at a markup before they could worship.  This turned the temple into marketplace of thieves.  We are not telling people they must give money to worship - we actually tell first time attenders to not give.  Second issue on that is we have no temple, Jesus changed the covenant from the old temple covenant to a new covenant of the Holy Spirit and direct communion with God through Jesus' sacrifice.  The church is not a building or location it is the body of Christ comprised of his followers/disciples.

This also addresses the third issue of the building being a place of worship.  For far too long the church building has been considered sacred when Jesus made it clear by tearing the veil from top to bottom at His death on the cross there is no physical sanctuary for us to meet with God in.  We now come directly to the Father through the Son.  The building is just a building that God has entrusted to us to be stewards of.  The church has been very poor stewards of the property God gives it by leaving it empty and unused during the week.  The building should be used 24 hours a day to serve the community and bring glory to God (which occurs by loving people as well as worshipping God).

The only other real issue raised is linked to the temple cleansing thing and that is that we are in this for money.  All the staff and most of the bridgebuilders laugh at this!  Our per capita giving is a third of most dying churches due to the financial position of most of our attenders.  My low mileage car has 168,000 miles on it, the house I live in with 6 people is 900 sq ft., none of our staff get a regular salary, we barely pay our utilities bill each month and keep the heat low except during services, we paid half down on the building because an outside donor gave us the money to do that.  We live at the edge of financial brokenness because we trust God will provide and he always does.  Our only debt right now is on the building we just purchased and that will be paid off within 4 years.

Hope this clears some things up.  Love the attention this is getting because it is already drawing some unreached people in to check it out.  God will get the glory.