(Photo credit: Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious)
The Way My Child Receives the Kingdom pt. 2
Today was an interesting day which gave me an interesting follow up opportunity on my discussion with my son about his perception of what it would take for him to have the perfect church experience. (The Way My Child Receives the Kingdom pt. 1) Some of what transpired today and a new conversation on the issue have come together to shed more light on his vision of the perfect church.
When he and I had this conversation about a week ago he had some surprisingly well though out answers which led me to believe that he had thought about some aspects of this before. I also had some questions about his theories and answers that could also be answered through some experimentation on his part with a few different church models.
Lets back up and look at some of the circumstances surrounding this conversation as I believe these tidbits of fact are relevant.
My son is thirteen going on fourteen later this year. The mega-church my family attends has several different children’s and youth ministries that group age groups together. There is a junior high school ministry which is where he is usually put because of his age and grade on school. He did start going to that age group a year and a half early because he is simply a big kid and was kinda bored with the younger group.
In the junior high school group there is a set service with worship, announcements, a sermon which all of the participants are required to sit in. Then after the service the preteens/tweens are unleashed as a loud, screaming stampeded of energy to play various videogames, board games, billiards etc. or to lounge on couches and chairs to while gobbling their favorite snacks from the snack stand.
For a long time, my son loved this service then came the day when he simply decided that he didn’t want to go to that service, saying it was boring. He started insisting that he come with us to the main sanctuary for the regular service. He seemed to be a little bored at the main service, but tried his best to remain attentive. He has repeatedly stated that he prefers the main service to the youth service.
Then, in the discussion he and I had last week, I got a glimpse as to why he did’t enjoy that service any more. To sum it up before giving any detail, I would have to say that he flat-out outgrew the service both in regular maturity and in spiritual maturity. Their goal was to build a deeper desire for the things of God and he grew that desire and ended up noticing the limitations of or holes in the service that would not build his next level of growth. In seeing the holes in the junior high school ministry and not being old enough for the high school service he decided the youth ministry was just no longer for him.
Then when we had the whole “The Way My Child Receives the Kingdom pt. 1” conversation as well as a couple of conversations that followed, I caught a glimpse of some of the challenges he was having.
A key was that he was not a fan of the fact that a lot of what happened was things that people were forced to do (or at least felt forced to do) and was truly disingenuous and much of the interaction with God was manufactured and artificial. Well with the middle school kids they are forced to sit through all of the service components before having the fun part (which is what many of them were apparently looking forward to as the good part). In further discussion with him and thought I would have to say, that I might find I hard to seek the deeper presence of God if I were surrounded by people who didn’t want to be there, but that wanted all of this God stuff to be done so we can all go and have fun.
He had mentioned something I was curious about, but was still pondering and so I had not included it in the previous post. He had stated that his service would not have video games or other distractions of that sort as it takes the focus off of God and seems to make (at least the middle school kids) less likely to seek God.
Then a lot of the observations that
He made several observations that apply to the main service also that all seem to be shaped by his newfound understanding that artificial worship is not worship at all and is thus a waste of time. The only real benefit a person gets from attending a worship service if everything that is done there is artificially done is whatever benefit a person gets because he/she sacrificed and hour or two of their time to be where he or she thinks God would like him/her to be once a week.
Today, while we were on our way to church a couple of our relatives called him to inform him that they were going to be in the high school service and wanted him to come. He was excited to see them and wanted to go so I told hi he should. He didn’t know if he could get in, but he is a pretty big kid and easily looks old enough (he is still a year younger than their usual lower age limit).
One of the suspicions I had in our previous discussions was that he had “perfect world” theories (probably mixed with a wee bit of what he thought I wanted to hear) about what a church that was perfect in his view was, but had not considered if he would actually be as drawn to that as he was thinking he would be.
By the time the service was over today I cold hardly wait to ask the question again relative to the high school service. I was also curious what technique they use to get and keep Silicon Valley high school kids in church.
I asked about the service and the structure they used and my son happily answered.
He said they had two or three worship songs, one announcement and a sermon done by the youth pastor (who I went to bible college with and have a deep respect for). He said this so happily so I thought through what we had discussed previously and remembered that he had specifically wanted a shorter service, with few if any announcements and basically just the worship and the sermon.
I loved that the service structure was what he had basically wanted from God, but was puzzled by one thing: Isn’t this similar to the structure that the younger group had that was so artificial.
When I asked him if people were forced to participate etc. he answered with a very excited “No!” He stated that participation in the worship and sermon etc. was purely voluntary and if you did not want to participate you could just go and play video games etc.
This was interesting to me because it is probably that most of these teens that were there were forced to go to church by their parents, but once they arrived at the service they were given an option to ignore the “God thing” altogether. In my mind, high school teens when offered a choice between listening to a bunch of this “God stuff” and singing mushy Jesus songs would almost unanimously choose video games and “kickin-it” with their friends.
So I asked, “Did a lot of people choose not to participate?” He said an emphatic; “No! Almost everybody sat in the service.” I was intrigued by this. The fact is they were not forced at all seemed to have the opposite effect on the high school age kids. They seemed to be more involved because they didn’t really have to be.
I wondered if they took an offering. My son said they did, but it was different. Instead of the passing the bucket, which he said put inordinate pressure on people, during the service they matter-of-factly said that if anyone had an offering they wanted to make they should come up front and drop it in the bucket.
I immediately thought back to our previous conversation about the pressures of the bucket passing and though everyone going up front but me would be way more pressure then sitting in my seat and just passing the bucket past me. So I specifically asked my son if he felt pressured by the offering and he answered, “Not really.” So there was a level of pressure applied, but it was done in a way that didn’t force you to experience much guilt if you didn’t give, didn’t want to give or couldn’t give.
I asked him if people brought Bibles. He stated that a few people did but most people didn’t; “But, they projected the verses on screens for everyone and they used way shorter verses than in the main service.”
All and all he seemed very happy with this service which did at least somewhat satisfy much of what he thought a service should be like to be relevant to him.
So then I started to wonder about the things I have been pondering over the past couple of years like:
- Do people even remember what is taught when in a traditional service (my personal asking of people and discussions in the days following a service has demonstrated that they usually remember little tidbits but not the large majority of what is said)
- How deep of a personal experience with God each individual gets at a traditional service as opposed to smaller settings where you are kinda forced to connect with God and each other.
- Do people think about how they should change because of what they have learned and make plans/goals to make those changes (another area where my own discussions with various people indicates there is some level of this normally, but it is very limited)
So I asked the questions:
Do you remember what the message was? “He said yes and was able to regurgitate with some detail and even summarize the point of the message which was that “…even when there seems to be no hope God is there.”
Then I asked him: “Do you feel like you felt or experienced God in the service?”
He stopped with a puzzled look and then responded with a slightly less excited “No.” He did explain that a few people seemed to experience God, he just didn’t. I was intrigued with the tone of his response. He seemed slightly troubled by the idea that this might be the wrong answer, but the tone also suggested that since it was such a good service experiencing God personally might not be as important.
I suppose he did encounter God in the fact that he worshipped him and learned from his word, but there are two things that are worth more consideration and possibly concern.
- If he does not know if he encountered God or not how can a gathering where we seek God be considered a success. I do not say this as any attack on my son or his spirituality; I say this because it is a common mindset that I am constantly puzzled by. The question in my mind is: “If we are gathering in God’s name and we do not encounter him at that gathering, what exactly are we doing?”
- The similar idea that we do all of that stuff (sing, listen to the scripture etc.) and there is not further need to connect with God in that context. If that is the case the amount of “God” in that context is limited at best. The context is one of getting stuff about God without really getting God. I guess this mindset (which is one I encounter pretty regularly) is one that has dominated our information driven American culture where information is king. (The problem is that the people who had the most information about how God does things and about Jesus when Jesus actually came were the same people always fighting with Him and who ended up killing Him – Information about God is not the same as knowing God)
Then I asked him if there was something that he was going to do differently because of what he heard and experienced in the service. He thought for a minute and said: “No. not really.”
This is another norm that I am always troubled by: The idea that learning about what God wants is key and that doing anything about what is revealed to you is optional or something you just put off until it comes up as some major problem.
I see how in this context those conversations might just seem like a bunch of pressure or hyper-religious stuff, but these things are key. This is where I have to agree with my son that having some kind of smaller group setting either in conjunction with this kind of service or in place of such a service is the best context for some of the more personal connections with God and with other believers.
In this context a small group discussion over a bagel and an iced tea or soda might be the best place to personally connect with God and to personalize what has just transpired.
Thos groups would have to be with the people you are already comfortable with or at least the kind of people you can be comfortable with at that level. After all that seems to be how the larger services are broken up at the church (the age groups and the reason my son connected better with this group that the younger group).
For the purpose of this discussion we will describe these groups as affinity groups. The tighter the affinity group (and possibly the smaller up to a point) the more opportunity to get deeper into what the verse means to you, what you will do about it and to get deeper into relating to God.
All-in-all, I think my son’s observations have proven to be correct observations. The real test is the test of time. After weeks and weeks of this how does he feel? As he goes through hormonal, mindset and perception of coolness changes does he still find all of this as relevant?
The real questions at hand are: How does any of this apply to his age group as a whole and how does any of this apply to the church as a whole.
These do agree with some of the research that I discussed in my previous post (What is Happening To The Church), but there are some aspects that could not be covered in the large group setting that my son is in now. There would have to be a smaller context, possibly voluntary (that may exist and I simply don’t know about yet) where these tougher discussions and deeper connections would happen.
I hope these observations and discussions between my son and I are helpful to you and lead to further discussion in your context. I can say that they have deepened my curiosity about what God is doing next in the church and what I have been doing (or not doing) to facilitate that.
I have been pondering how I receive God and what he reveals in much the same way that my son does. How much of what he likes and dislikes is the same as what I like and dislike even though for vastly different reasons. I have spent a lot of time recently wondering if I would grow better in the environments he has described and if I would greatly deepen my personal relationship with God in such a context. I also wonder how much of what he is observing and thinking applies to much of our culture and possibly the whole world. How much learning to receive the kingdom in the way that my son does needs to be sought after by me and by others.
I think in all of this I have seen some awesome potential solutions to the challenges the church as a whole is suffering from and have seen some gaping holes that could be paralyzing the church as a whole (or at least the American church).
A key focus that I was given as a new Christian by one of my mentors when I had noticed some contradictions in what I thought should have been going on and what was actually taking place.
She stated that: “God doesn’t show you things that are wrong just so you can complain or gossip about it. God shows you something that is wrong because He intends for you to be a part of the solution.”
That needs to be what I and possibly everyone reading this needs to take away from these conversations. The question “What part am I supposed to play in solving the problems God reveals to me?”
One more thought to ponder is the focus given to me via fortune cookie the other day:
ENGAGE IN GROUP ACTIVITIES THAT FURTHER TRANSFORMATION!
Be blessed in group activities that further your transformation,
W. Lawrence Hess
