About eight years ago, when our family was still looking for a Church to attend, we visited the Thornhill Baptist Church in Hudson, Michigan. Thornhill is a Southern Baptist Church.

Our first visit was on a Sunday night. The Church was having an open discussion about the church, its future, and how best to reach their community.

The pastor said the following:

Let ask our visitors. They are fresh meat. What’s your opinion?

After getting over the shock of being called fresh meat, I gave my typical pastor answer (they didn’t know I was a pastor). Sound Bible preaching. Evangelism, etc, etc, etc,

The pastor then turned to my oldest sons, then aged about 23 and 21,dismissed what I  said, and asked them what they thought. They repeated some of the things I had said. He laughed  and the asked them what they “really “ thought. What kind of things did they like to do? What kind of things did they think were fun?

In other words my son’s were lying or simply repeating what their father said. In this pastor’s mind, when it came to teens and young adults, it was all about making church “fun” and ”entertaining.”

The conversation moved on to music. Several members (most of them were 55 and older) were against using contemporary music in the church worship services. One old man suggested the Church give the young people a steady diet of southern gospel music  After all, he liked southern gospel music, why wouldn’t they? 

Needless to say, we crossed this church off our list of potential churches to attend. It didn’t take long to turn the fresh meat into burnt steaks