By John Pierce
My Friday proofreading will be through blurry, blurry eyes. I really, really didn’t want to go to Atlanta tonight. (Oh, I guess that would be last night now.)
But daughter Abigail really, really did. She had won VIP and Meet & Greet tickets for the All Time Low concert at the Tabernacle. Her older sister had late night plans already with Harry Potter — hence my continuing state of awake.
So I took Abigail to Atlanta — along with a handy pair of neon earplugs.
It was my first time inside the Tabernacle since it became a concert venue — first known as the House of Blues during the 1996 Olympics. Its long, earlier life was as Tabernacle Baptist Church — once a very prominent Atlanta congregation that gave birth to one of the city’s major hospitals.
Since I don’t do moshing, Abigail and I took seats on the front row in the balcony with an excellent view of the stage. Looking around, I marveled at how much of the beautiful church architecture remained: stained glass, organ pipes and more.
Abigail suggested I walk around before the concert and check out the building some more while she saved our seats.
I responded: “OK, as long as you are safe — and secure from all alarms.”
“What?” she asked with a strange look.
“Oh, nothing,” I said. “It’s just a song — one that was probably sung in this building for many, many years.”
Director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and former executive editor and publisher at Good Faith Media.
