When someone says or thinks that church is boring, what is it exactly that they are bored by? Here are three times a church gathering actually is boring—to us and, I want to suggest, to God as well.
Smiling through small talk can be boring.
In a commercial, a young woman walks up to the counter and tells the older woman behind the counter, “Hello! I’d like to order french fries, a burger, and a milkshake.”
The woman behind the counter looks at her very strangely and says, “This is a library.”
The young woman looks around at the shelves of books and the people reading at tables. Then she turns back to the librarian, smiles knowingly, and whispers, “I’d like to order French fries, a burger, and a milkshake.”
She missed the point.
Smiling through small talk misses the point of church. Church was never meant to be a place to pretend that everything’s going “just fine, fine, thanks so much for asking!”
“Church was never meant to be a place to pretend that everything’s going ‘just fine, fine, thanks so much for asking!'”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” isn’t what Christians say. It’s what Pharisees say:
“When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’” (Mark 2:16-17, NIV)
Christian fellowship begins with us saying, “I really, really need Jesus.” Realness begets realness. Authenticity encourages authenticity. And what might have been a boring gathering of fake people becomes genuine community.
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2, NIV)
Church is meant to be a true and transformational fellowship of real people. Such a fellowship is often messy and requires effort, but it’s not boring.
Daydreaming can be boring.
“The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22, NIV)
Jesus told us that some people who hear the Word of God won’t let it change their lives. Why? Because they are distracted by two types of things they find more interesting: 1) anxiety (“the worries of this age”), and 2) ambition (“the seduction of wealth”).
“They are distracted by two types of things they find more interesting: 1) anxiety (‘the worries of this age’), and 2) ambition (‘the seduction of wealth’).”
For a lot of people, going to church is not much more than a time to mumble through the music and space through the sermon—while most of their mental energy is given to thinking about their own anxieties and ambitions. A church gathering can become a time to daydream, and that turns church into something boring.
Take the communion time. Heaven is pictured as a great feast (Revelation 19:9). After all, church has always been at its best around the dinner table. From the beginning, Christians “broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” (Acts 2:46, NIV). And the cornerstone to church gatherings was the feast that Jesus instituted the night before He was crucified, called “communion,” the “Eucharist,” the “Last Supper,” or the “Lord’s Supper.” Some people use the communion time at church to daydream. As if, like at daycare, there’s a time set aside for a tiny snack and quiet time.
But a church gathering is a feast, a celebration! A gathering of gratitude. A communion with God and with each other. According to I Corinthians 11:24-26, the communion meal is both memorial of the past (“This is my body . . . my blood . . . in remembrance of me”) and encouragement for the future (“For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes”).
And though communion is not a time to daydream blankly, it is nonetheless a time to dream—for it’s a foretaste of the feast that is heaven. If we find even this post-Eden version of the heavens and earth fascinating, we can bet that the new heaven and new earth will be exciting beyond our best hopes.
“Though communion is not a time to daydream blankly, it is nonetheless a time to dream—for it’s a foretaste of the feast that is heaven.”
Why is it that so many people find these foretastes of fellowship with God uninteresting? It’s not because fellowship with God is boring, but rather because it’s a relationship so true and transformational that we often prefer our safer, tamer anxieties and ambitions.
Pretending to pray is boring.
It’s hard to imagine anything more boring than this:
“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” (Isaiah 29:13, NIV)
This is trying to do relationship by reading through an instruction manual and parroting its quotes. But God wants so much more from us than just correct words and robotic actions. How do we know? Because He made us. He made humans. He risked all the potential fallout that comes with freedom so that He could have actual relationship.
In other words, God probably gets way more bored with some of our church services than we do.
So, the person up front says, “Let’s pray together.” So, on command, you bow your head and begin spacing. The worship leader says, “Let’s stand and sing.” So, on command, you stand and begin mouthing words while thinking thoughts like, “That’s a different drumbeat than usual,” “Where will we go for lunch?” and, “Why doesn’t the worship leader get rid of that beard—it’s distracting.” Eventually you yawn. So does God.
“Eventually you yawn. So does God.”
And yet, God really does want to hear from you. He actually wants relationship with you. He really, really loves you.
Day 1 found the infant church doing four things, the same four that define church to this day:
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42, NIV)
The gathered church has always been about doing things which are transformational, not boring: devoting themselves to living the truth and engaging God and each other in real relationship. When we experience church as it was meant to be (when we become it), we find church gatherings so true and transformational that our anxieties and ambitions become footnotes to the larger purpose to which church raises us.
