Church is boring...

Excerpt from The Mega Church and the Mini Gospel - Sam Storms

One of the pastors (ant: from megarchurch) interviewed for the article is said to have started out "doing market research with non-churchgoers in the area - and got an earful. 'They said churches were full of hypocrites and were boring,' he recalls. So he designed [his church] to counter those preconceptions, with lively, multimedia-filled services in a setting that's something between a rock concert and a coffee shop (87).

I certainly hope this pastor was misunderstood, and if he was, my apologies will be quick in coming. In the meantime, I'll proceed on the assumption that Business Week cited him accurately. Forgive me for being so cynical, but I do not think "multimedia-filled services" in any setting are going to help much with the hypocrisy in today's churches. And if I know human nature at all, people will soon enough find elaborate services with high tech productions as tiresome and predictable as the traditional approach. Nor do I think such flash and sound will do much to sustain the human soul when tragedy or trial or bankruptcy or teenage rebellion or cancer strikes home.

So what's the solution? May I be so bold to suggest that "boredom" is best overcome by a passionate and biblically accurate portrayal of the supremacy of God and the prospect of unending intimacy in his presence. Boredom is shattered by the breathtaking splendor and heart-thumping glory of the revelation of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

And what of hypocrisy? Yes, there's hypocrisy in the Church and in the office, and on the athletic field, and in our schools, and on Wall Street and in Hollywood. People often are not what they profess. But dare I say that the solution is found, not in creating a religious facsimile of MTV, but in challenging the gospel with those who "profess" to be Christians but lack the internal reality and then Providing them with a thoroughly biblical portrait of the sweetness , joy, delight, and satisfaction that comes with the pursuit of true holiness. Hypocrisy derives its power from the lie that authentic heartfelt obedience and holiness are less satisfying than the pleasures of the world, flesh, and the devil. The solution to hypocrisy is trust in the promise that powerfully appealing counter only "in God's presence is fullness of joy" and only "at God's right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).