You're Son is Reading What?

My friend Lorie is a Christian singer/songwriter and has been since she was a child. She's now a grown woman with children of her own.

She was recently booked to sing at a church and she brought her kids with her. Her son sat quietly in the front pew while she did her sound check and prepared for the concert.

Now, I happen to have several friends who are singers and musicians, and many of them travel with their young children. Some of the kids are performers-in-training and they immerse themselves in the minutia - from the set-up, to running the sound board, to joining mom or dad on the stage, to tearing down and packing up equipment.

All Lorie's son wanted to do was read. And so, he buried himself in the latest "Harry Potter" novel. Big mistake, huge - at least in the eyes of the church finger-waggers.

Lorie was told she'd never be welcome back to perform for that particular congregation because she had an obvious character flaw - she let her son read "Harry Potter".

Oh, for heaven's sake. No really...for heaven's sake, let this kind of judgmental criticism go. Lorie's passion is to use her talent to tell God's story. When you squash her, you squash an opportunity for someone else to hear God's voice.

Get off the pew!