Two Jews walked into a church...

Two ticket to Christian rock concert, $88.10.

Parking, $12.

Seeing 7,000 people giving the Hitler salute, priceless!


Who knew I would actually PAY to attend a church service for the first time?

I didn’t know quite what to expect when my brother and I arrived at the Continental Airlines Arena on Sunday night for a Christian music concert starring Chris Tomlin, Mark Redman and Louie Giglio.

We arrived at around 6:30 for a 7:30 p.m. show, and parked right up front in a handicapped spot – and you people think I’M shady? My brother’s the one with the decal.

We went in to pick up our tickets at Will Call and the first thing that struck us was the massive number of Asians in attendance. Aren’t these people supposed to be Buddhists or something?

Anyway, we got our tickets and went back to the car to hang out, listen to some tunes, smoke a little herb and get ready for what we both knew would be a very interesting evening.

We finally made our way inside and over to our seats in Section 124. As we settled in and looked around it became increasingly clear that this wasn’t going to be a normal rock show, something that should have struck me immediately when they let me keep the cap to the bottle of water I purchased, as well as the fact the security guard that frisked me upon my entering the arena simply gave me a quick pat down and never grabbed my crotch, something I look forward to when I normally enter a venue.

It was a pretty young crowd. There were a lot of teenagers, young teenagers even, and lots of families. When the father, mother, son and daughter sat in the row in front of us, and the little girl, who couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 years old had her doll in tow, well, somehow I knew I wouldn’t be yelling out “show us your tits!” toward the first decent-looking chick I saw once the lights went down.

Once the show began, if only for a couple of moments, it all seemed like a normal concert. Everyone got on their feet as the band hit the stage, the music sounded great, the band was really rocking. Soon we realized the headliner, Chris Tomlin, was on stage and we thought it was a bit odd that the opening acts didn’t go on first. Then, as he started singing, the lyrics to the song appeared on the screen behind him, which also wasn’t something we were used to

My brother and I looked at each other and shrugged, and went back to enjoying the festivities, singing along with the rest of crowd.

Slowly, many of the people around us starting lifting their arms toward the stage in a Hitler salute, something, that soon dawned on me, I had seen in those infomercials. I guess this is how Christians worship.

Alright. Cool. We hadn’t wandered into a Nazi Youth meeting.

Everything was going great. While it didn’t inspire me to accept Jesus Christ into my life, nor did it make me want to re-embrace religion of any kind, I was definitely able to see how people are moved by the experience. Hell, I got into it and was singing along, too. Passionate music is passionate music, even if they are singing about something I don’t believe in.

We were having a great time. We knew a lot of the songs and were able to sing along, even when Mark Redman, the “opening act,” took over for Chris Tomlin and played his tunes with the same band, it was all good.

But we still hadn’t heard from Louie Giglio. That was soon remedied.

As Tomlin, who had come back, finished up a tune (Redman sang lead for about one-third of the evening) a gray-haired man without a guitar arrived on stage holding a book.

Yes, as it turned out, it was THAT book, and somehow I knew the evening was about to take a non-musical turn.

As it turns out, Louie Giglio wasn't another singer, but some sort of preacher. He proceeded to preach for the next half hour or so, giving forth what was, for my purposes, a free science lesson, covering astronomy, biology and even molecular biology. (Hey, did you know, Laminin, the molecule that holds our cells together, is shaped like a cross, as is the center of the Whirlpool Galaxy, if you look through the Hubble Telescope? Oh, and apparently, Earth is a golf ball).

After the sermon, complete with inspirational background music and a Power Point presentation, there was an intermission – this was two hours into the show.

As Mini-Me and I headed out for a cigarette we noticed a few very strange things:

* There was no beer on sale, or alcoholic beverages of any kind. So much for replenishing our buzz.

* There was about 7,000 people in attendance and two gates open for smoking breaks (the arena was set up theater style, with half the building curtained off). During intermission, a total of 19 people joined us in lighting up outside Gate D. Does that mean, if you combine the two gates, only 38 out of 7,000 people were cigarette smokers? A total of .005% of the crowd. No wonder Christianity has endured; no lung cancer!

* There were no dames in slutty clothes wandering around. Just wholesome people, Christians, and nobody was getting loud, getting into fights and there was no cursing, at all. I even found myself watching my language!

* Even out on the concession lines, as the band started back up before we had a chance to return to our seats, people were singing along.

* Nobody bared their breasts during “How Great is Our God.”


As we got back in for, what would prove to be, the final hour of the show, the intensity had picked itself up a notch. The preacher was gone and the band was sounding better than ever. I even found myself throwing up a Hitler salute or two when they played a couple of the songs I really liked, including a kickass version of Amazing Grace.

Even the 50-something-year-old yahoo sitting in front of us, who my brother was sure was an a convicted sex offender, was getting more fired up. I’m telling you, this cat had to be from Manville. He even had a friend with him, who might have been his muscle, a large man who never said a word or moved very much throughout the show. He kinda reminded me of Frezza’s friend, Homes.

This guy was great. When Chris Tomlin was telling the crowd how he wrote this and this song at this and this place, this yahoo in front of us would bust out with something like “It’s God’s song! He put it in you!” Or, if Jesus’ name was mentioned, he would cry out, “Amen! Hallowed be is name!” this guy had a comment for everything, and it was awesome. He even got my brother to throw out a patronizing “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” a few times, which I wasn’t too thrilled about.

In all seriousness, while I might be one step from being a full-blown atheist, I do respect religion. Not the people who run it, but the people who truly benefit from it, even if I might believe it’s a load of hooey. Some people need that kind of structure in their lives and I applaud their faith and discipline, and I am happy for them that they’ve found something that gets them through their days and gives their lives meaning.

One thing, however, that was disappointing is that I didn’t see anyone “speaking in tongues,” something I was told to be on the lookout for by my friend, Mike, who is a devote Christian, even if he does enjoy MILF porn.

Apparently, some people get so fired up by the religious experience, that they slip into a sort of trance and start speaking some kind of gibberish as they “feel the love of the lord take over their body.”

I had my video phone on ready waiting for that shit, but alas, there was none of it.

Stench.

All in all I really had a great time. The music was great, the people were disturbingly polite, and it was a very interesting experience.

One other regret, though. This shindig lasted for three hours and we never ran into Jesus. I was kind of hoping to meet a fellow Jew at a Christian Worship show.

But I did run into one Bob Makin, the Courier News’ fine music editor, so it wasn’t a total loss.

My brother and I have already begun looking into the next show in the area, maybe we’ll see someone speaking in tongues there, or maybe, if we’re truly blessed, we’ll meet Jesus.

Fingers crossed!

God bless you all.