Hi Lionel,

Thanks for this - I still remember how silly I felt when I first became aware of how I was trying to make the Bible interesting with comedy (for its own sake), as if God wasn’t interesting already!

I have a thought or two that I’m wading towards (floundering more like) and wondering if you’ve reflected on them or not? Or could now for us?

It has to do with the (frequent) comment that people make: that they are Christians in spite of their Christian upbringing (my parents forced me to go to church and I hated it because it was so boring - the liturgy was boring, the sermons boring, the songs ... etc).

What I’m wondering was whether it was really that bad for everyone?

It’s impossible in many ways to argue against someone’s experience, and I’m sure it was true for some and maybe many (especially if the picture of boring Christianity you helpfully painted was true for them!).

But is it the case for everyone? Is their description of their childhood for some actually more revealing of their present thinking? A type of historicism or aetiology - whereby the past is (re-)interpreted to explain a desire for the present (to effect or prevent change in church). Which in turn we convince ourselves of about our past (invent our histories with selective evidence ... could testimonies work here too? )

I guess what I’m fumbling towards is this: have you any thoughts to help us think through how to respond to the implications or moral imperatives people use this argument for: ‘my childhood experience of church was boring therefore ...’. Especially when these arguments are grounded in ‘infallible’ personal experience.

I’m thinking particular of two things:

First church practice (songs especially!): I’ve been in conversations with people over the years who insist that ‘hymns are boring and we can’t sing them’ only to find, further in the conversation, that they love Rock of Ages, and Crown him with many Crowns, or hymn singing was one of the things they loved about school chapel. ie, the narrative we have to speak of publicly with other Christians (because it’s trendy) is different from individual reality.

I guess I’m wondering what thoughts you have on why we do this? And where to go?

Second, Christian parenting. Especially with this, I see ‘I was bored in church as a child’ used as justification for a complete hands off approach to their teenage children, and a justification for blaming the minister if the children fall away (didn’t cater for their personality).

Do you have any thoughts on how to help parents repent of both implications? More of the same of what you wrote, I guess, but can you help me figure out what I’m asking and offer some wisdom?

I guess to illustrate, I’m struck by my own life, of how lowly I think of myself, and how easy I find it to see a host of examples in my life history that echo and (re-inforce) such a perspective - of shames, failures, lonelinesses etc. But what I’ve been trying to do is do a bit of archaeology: dig into my past and find the good experiences, the happy and joyous things and then let them re-inforce a more balanced perspective of who God has made me to be.

I’m wondering if we need to do the same pastoral work with people with the boredom in church as a child history: to get them to dig deeper, and realise that they actually liked the hymns, or really respected the quiet earnestness of their minister etc.

Long winded ... thanks for helping ... any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks, Lionel (and Scott for your reflections) - thought-provoking.

I remember someone saying once (maybe Graeme Goldsworthy? he probably wasn’t the first ... oh well, Hebrew 2:6a…)

Anyway, I was once struck by the comment that many people - both preachers and their audience - assume that it’s the preacher’s responsibility to keep the listeners interested. Of course, there’s a place for seeking to make our sermons more rather than less engaging, etc. etc. But his point was that, in fact, it is principally the listener’s responsibility to come to the hearing and preaching of the Word (little plug there, Scott) with a right attitude, and to work hard at listening and engaging with God.

That is, if I’m bored in a sermon, and the preacher is faithfully expounding the Word, it’s not (primarily) that he’s boring. It’s that I’m lazy or indifferent.

“It were always raining in Denley Moor ...”
The opening of The Testing of Eric Olthwaite, the story of the world’s most boring person, which is a fun non-boring Ripping Yarns video.

Eric was so boring that when he came back home one day, he discovered that the rest of the family had moved out: they couldn’t take any more.

I think we do need to be interesting when we speak. Our Lord Jesus told interesting stories and expressed his message in a variety of ways.

When I was a child, some folk felt there was only one way to express the gospel, only one way to tell us how to respond and there was only one prescribed way to respond to the message.

It was nowhere nearly as interesting as the way the Bible presents its message in 66 quite different books by about 40 quite different authors.

But I agree with your sentiments Lionel, noticing that you have crafted what you are saying here in an interesting way.