New Wine in New Wine Skins

I was a member the a panel of judges on the first ever Christian queen pageant held last night at a place on St. Kitts caller Seventeen Degrees. It was a marvelous event. I saw young people engaged in the sort of activity the church would have frowned bitterly upon just a short number of years ago. I saw young people displaying high quality ability, gaining broadened experiences and having a whole lot of fun while being referred to as "Christian young ladies" by the MC of the events, and I did not feel any earthquake; I did not hear any angry rumblings coming out of the heavens; I witnessed no consuming fire blasting from the firmaments, and no wrath against unrighteousness came tumbling down. A bit of rain did drizzle; other than that nothing emanated from either the clouds or beyond them.
 Except for a few glitches among pieces of the high-tech instruments comprising the church band made up mostly of very young men, the queen show was a spectacular activity ably managed by a former Miss St. Kitts who is now a member of the church. There were moments when I was not very certain whether I was watching the performance of the local Grand Masters or Antigua's Burning Flames, for there was absolutely no difference in the rhythm of the music nor the antics of the performers- except that the lyrics told of Jesus and the praises that he either was receiving or should receive-. Everything else,  jam- band style, was very present, down to the rag-waving and body-bouncing. Frankly, I was very pleased. In my mind I imagined the holier-than-thou saints waiting impatiently for the wrath of God to descend. Couldn't help visualizing them, my mind works like that. I know there are people like this in churches longing for the wrath of God to tumble down on such people and events, for such people are surely "NOT Christians", and they are absolutely certain about this because God himself has told them so. Gosh! They cannot wait for judgment day to happen. There is one such character in my novel, A TEMPTING TO CONFESS, a woman named Sister Scoffield, and there are still some Sister Scoffields in some dying or already dead churches up to this very day; "saints of God" who would not be caught dead among such church people as those I was amongst last night, April 25, 2014, and they would not be caught there lest Jesus categorizes them amongst the left-sided "goats" of Matthew 25:33, and turn them away from his kingdom on his ever-soon-to-come Judgment day.
 What pleased me most was that I saw young women who were once known street walkers, and young men who were once known gang-bangers participating in that event last night; people who would never have been be accepted just as they are among dozens of churches still clutching their old "holy" (no pun intended) and rotting wine skins; churches that still "read out" people. Churches that still prevent young people who are deemed not sufficiently holy from touching a church microphone, or beating a church drum. People who still think that an out-of-wedlock and pregnant young woman among them must be isolated lest she "brings down" the church. Last night I could not help thinking of saying to such churches, "behold, thy wind skin leaketh."