True Story: A young man came to us Sunday at Joe’s, just after the morning church service. He’s one of those people you can’t miss. Large, imposing stature, black hair, black clothes, colorful tattoos and multiple piercings down the middle of his face. He reported to us that he had gone to a nearby church that morning and was met at the door by the pastor, who told him, “We don’t accept tattoos and piercings at this church.”
He was, of course, taken back and responded to the pastor, “Well in the Bible, Jesus was pretty much, ‘Come as you are.’ The pastor said, “Yes, but here we have our traditional values and ways we do church.”
The young man pointed to some teenagers standing nearby and said, “Well, those folks have piercings.” The pastor responded, “Yes, well, they’re in our youth group. You’re an adult. You ought to know better.”
The the pastor then told him, “If you want to go to church, you should go over to Joe’s Addiction. They accept prostitutes, junkies, tattoos and piercings. They’ll take anyone.”