A Youthful Complaint⤒🔗

I am sure that the above quotation is not exactly a surprise to many of you, especially to readers who are raising teenagers. Sunday morning arrives and it is time to get the family ready for Sunday worship and here or there a disgruntled boy or girl can be heard to say, “Church is boring! Why do we have to go anyway? Why can we not be allowed to sleep in?” Or else a discussion is held afterwards among family or friends or during the week and the same complaint is uttered.

Often the complaint comes with additional commentary. You hear things like: “The minister preaches too long and his sermons are hard to understand. He should deal with more practical and down to earth matters. The songs are hard to sing and depressing. The organist plays way too slow. The prayers are long. Our services are far too formal and should be much more spontaneous.” Of course, this is only a sampling. Much more could and often is said. The result is that for many people worship is something you endure and not necessarily enjoy.

Assessing the Situation←⤒🔗

Now upon hearing this sort of talk the almost automatic reaction of most older people is one of dismissal. “You, young people, do not know what you are talking about. You do not have the right understanding of what worship is all about. You still have a lot to learn.” Instead of a listening ear, they get a lecture.

And that is unfortunate. Even if you may not agree with the youthful assessment rendered, you should at least take it seriously. You should even be so bold as to ask yourself, “Does my son or daughter have a point?” After all, it may just be that your offspring is expressing what you feel deep down in your own heart but are too afraid to admit, much less to utter.

Hence, the first need in this situation is to take a good hard look at your church’s worship. “Has it perhaps become stale, routine, ordinary, mundane – boring? Is the congregation coming more out of a sense of duty than anticipation? Do the minister and the organist give the impression that they are merely going through the motions? Is there something wrong with the song selection? Has our worship become stuffy and formalistic and predictable?”

I know, I know, these are not pleasant questions to ask or to weigh, but surely we must ask them from time to time. If the Reformed church must be ever reforming, surely this applies to its worship too. We must ensure that it is always God glorifying, biblically faithful and spiritually vibrant. Never be afraid to ask hard questions about worship. In addition, always apply the highest biblical standards to worship.

The Real Source←⤒🔗

Having said this, however, does not necessarily get to the heart of the matter. True, there may be problems with the way we worship, but the problem may just as much, if not more so even, lie with us and our attitude. An expression like “church is boring” can be coming out of a mouth and from a heart that is not really interested in God at all. A lack of spiritual hunger will make every worship service boring – no matter how rich or exciting the spiritual fare. The result is that those who make this complaint about worship would do well to first of all examine the condition of their own hearts.

In addition, they would also do well to examine the criteria for worship that they are using. It strikes me that these days the standard by which worship is being measured is not the Bible but the modern media. We have become so used to slick movie and television productions with lots of music, colour, fast action and dramatic scenes. Most everything that is beamed at us comes in simple, short, quick sound and sight bursts. Our attention spans have shrunk and it takes a lot to hold them or to get them to bear down on anything that requires thought and concentration.

Another factor that comes into play here has to do with ours being very much a self-absorbed society. Everything centres around us as individuals – “how does this make me feel? What is in it for me? How does this help me?” The consequence is that we approach most things in life, as well as worship, from out of the perspective of “what will this do for me?” By nature we are consumers and takers, not contributors and givers. It is hard for us to come together on a regular basis with the purpose of giving all of the praise, glory and honour to someone else, even if it is God.

And yet that is precisely what worship requires. It calls for a different focus. Look at the Psalms, which represent the heart of the church’s praise, and to whom are they all directed? Whom do they rejoice in? Whom do they praise? Whom do they call upon? Whom do they exalt? Why, God, of course!

Therefore, in assessing the character of our worship we need to look at what we do on the Lord’s day, but we also need to look at our own hearts, attitudes and directions.

Some Challenges←⤒🔗

More than look, however, we also need to take up some challenges and run with them. Indeed, challenges are in order here when it comes especially to three parties: parents, preachers and parishioners.

A Challenge for Parents←↰⤒🔗

For openers, when it comes to worship there is a challenge here for parents. What sort of challenge? A challenge to teach and to model. For starters, parents need to instruct their children already at an early age about the character and nature of worship. They are to teach them about the need to prepare their hearts for worship. They should explain the rationale for the elements of worship: praise, prayer, Scripture reading, sermon, offering and sacraments. They do well to insist that there be real involvement in the activities of worship: singing, listening, praying, offering and partaking.

Another good custom that many families have adopted is to have interaction about the worship service afterwards. Usually there is enough in a worship service whether it be as the result of the preaching and the prayers, or the Scripture reading, to form the basis for a good and edifying discussion.

One more aspect that is very important in this regard is modelling. If father and mother show that worship is a priority for them, that it is something that they look forward to and that strengthens them in their faith life, this will spill over to their children. As negative parents unfortunately teach their children negative habits, so positive parents can teach their children positive ones. Indeed, it has always struck me that our most committed and active members come out of homes wherein parents have stressed the centrality of worship in a joyful and faithful manner.

A Challenge to Preachers←↰⤒🔗

Still, if parents have a role when it comes to worship, this is even more so the case with preachers. After all, who leads the worship service in our churches? Not a worship team leader but a duly ordained office bearer. It is his duty to select the text, read the Bible, preach the sermon, lead in the prayers, administer the sacraments, and select the psalms and hymns. Some of that may be done with the input and involvement of others; nevertheless, the final call is his.

And that represents a weighty duty. Why, a good case can even be made that this represents an almost excessive duty. In an age in which preachers are no longer esteemed and people become more and more demanding, it is no light thing to lead in worship. This goes especially for the preaching. Our culture is no longer a word culture but it has become an image culture, and that makes the challenge of preaching even greater. As a result the temptation is there to make the sermons shorter, lighter, funnier and gimmicky.

Many succumb to the temptation and congregations complain that they are getting stones for bread.

So what is a preacher to do? Pray more, work harder, and stick close to the Bible. Although times change, the gospel does not change. Although expectations vary, the will of God remains constant. Although experimentation is in, preaching has to remain at the heart and centre of our worship. Only then it has to be clear preaching, relevant preaching, urgent preaching, divine-centered preaching. Pray that your minister may be up to the challenge.

A Challenge for Parishioners←↰⤒🔗

I believe that it was the great nineteenth century preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon who came to a church to preach and no sooner had he announced his text, that he noticed that some of those in attendance were getting ready to sleep. He stopped and addressed himself directly to these people, saying, “What you are doing is truly unfair. You are not even giving me a chance. If after I have preached for a while and you fall asleep, then it may well be my fault, but you people are preparing to sleep without so much as even giving me a hearing.”

The point of the story is that while the preacher has a calling when it comes to worship, the parishioner or worshipper has no less of a calling. Yet we often forget that! All the onus is usually on the preacher to do his best, and if he does not, then we have “roast pastor for lunch.”

But what about those who listen and receive the Word, do they have no duty at all? I would say that they do. They have a duty to get to bed on time on Saturday evening and to awaken on time on Sunday morning. They have a duty to pray for the worship services and those who lead them. They have a duty to prepare their hearts by asking the Spirit to fill them and to involve themselves fully when it is time to worship.

The Road Ahead←⤒🔗

As long as we are in this dispensation, there is no reason to expect that the accusation of worship being boring will go away. Constant attention to the quality of our worship and the ongoing efforts of parents, preachers and parishioners will, however, go a long way to making and maintaining our worship as “exciting,” if not in the eyes of men, then at least in the eyes of God and his true children.