Perhaps you have seen this trend:  More and more churches are charging admission to youth days.  I don’t know how old a practice this is, but I do know that it is becoming more common.  I thought having youth days during regularly scheduled worship times was bad, but this takes the proverbial cake.
Just notice a couple of examples:

Youth in Action ’97-$15
Youth Evangelism Seminar ’97 W.W.J.D.-$6
 Praise ’98 Listen to Our Hearts-$6
 Teen Quest ’98 Extreme Commitment-$10
Christeens ’98 What Our World Needs Now-$7
  (And these just represent what I didn’t throw away!)

     Guess when mom told us that nothing was free she meant it!  I realize that the Gospel is priceless, but that is not license to charge for people to hear it.  I can only rejoice that Mabelvale is not so financially scrapped that we could afford to have a youth day without charging admission!  Of course, we did not have to try to pay drama or singing groups, but that is another article!
    I guess my main question is this:  When are we going to start charging for Sunday morning?  When will we start dropping a bill off when we leave a tract at someone’s door?  When will we include our statement with those which doctors send their patients if we visited them in the hospital?  When will have a per baptism rate?  When will we sing, “There’s a Fountain $8?”
    Revelation 22:16 says, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”  Freely?  That Greek word means “for naught!”  Likewise in Romans 3:24; II Corinthians 11:6; Revelation 21:6!  I Corinthians 2:9 shows these things are given freely, i.e. in kindness.  How kind is it to say “I’ll teach you the Bible, but its gonna cost you!”  Likewise in Romans 8:32.  Now where were those verses where religion could be bought?  Simon tried something similar in Acts 8:18, but verse 20 says that, in short, what Simon wanted wasn’t for sell.  I contend that nothing from God is for sell, and that the selling of such makes the Lord a tad upset!