Are the services at your church boring? Is it yes, no or sometimes? Are the sermons? In our church kids over 12 are in the service and so listen to the sermon along with everyone else. I’m the main preacher and so my kids are forced to listen to me quite often. On our way home in the car I open with a very simple diagnostic question: ‘Was it a droner?’ In other words, did I drone on and on and on leaving the listener with a deep desire for the whole ordeal to finally, please Lord, be over. If it was not a droner then we can see what, if anything, resonated with them. If it was? Well, let’s all go home and watch some TV.

Sometimes church and sermons can be a bit boring. In a recent post Stephen Kneale argues the only honest course of action is to admit that this is indeed true.

I accept reality: sometimes my sermons are a bit boring. Inevitably, some of yours will be too. We’ve all sat under some at some point. I also acknowledge that the regular, routine, week in/week out stuff we do in church can sometimes feel a bit pedestrian and, well, a bit boring sometimes. It isn’t always super-exciting.

In fact, pretending otherwise is counter-productive. If we insist things that are not exciting or especially interesting actually are, we can’t really expect anybody to trust our judgement.

So far, so reasonable. No preacher will get better if they always think their sermons are always riveting when they are not or just fine when they should have been ten minutes shorter. Honest assessment is essential if anything or anyone is to grow and improve.

Next Stephen in getting to the ‘nub of the issue’ makes a move, one that I’ve probably made myself, and one he’s not alone in making:

You got a bit bored. So what? To put it another way: are you primarily here to be entertained?

Stephen then makes the reasonable point that lots of things we need to do are not especially entertaining: school, shopping for groceries, aspects of work and so on. We don’t do those for entertainment so why should we think about church in that way?

Stephen concludes by saying,

The only reason to become downhearted or consider coming to church a waste of time when it’s boring is if you were only there to be entertained. If, as most of us recognise, that is not what church is primarily there for, and not why you’re coming, if and when it is a bit more boring, the only real response is: so what? That’s not why we’re here.

Is it the only reason though?

Let’s take a moment to examine the equation which seems to be in operation here:

Boredom = lack of entertainment or put another way I am bored = I want to be entertained

But is that always the case? For example it is both entirely possible and reasonable to want something to be interesting or engaging without necessarily wanting it to be entertaining. Now we could play some word games here because the root of entertainment was precisely in something being interesting or engaging but let’s take the contemporary use of entertainment as having to do with amusement. So if boredom means I want Sunday services to be more like TV light entertainment then we have issues.

The minds of many in the western world are heavily shaped by entertainment and amusement. It is not so much that people go to church and expect entertainment but that people are so shaped by this as to expect it from everything, everywhere, all the time. That is a problem but it’s a different one to the one Stephen outlines.

However, if by boredom I mean that the presentation & performance of something I am invested in, care about, and regularly participate in was actually given to me as bland, dull, and boring then that might be something else. It is necessary to admit that something is boring if it is indeed so as Stephen readily points out. But that the congregant finds it boring does not necessarily mean that what they were wanting was entertainment.

Many things we routinely do require us to to be fully engaged with the task despite it being routine. Driving the car is not always exciting but it very much helps if the driver is fully engaged. Playing with children is not always exciting but it’s better if I’m not on my phone while I’m doing it.

The greatest commandment is amongst other things a commandment to full engagement in the act of worship. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Bring your whole being to bear on the task at hand. Pay attention now & lean in.

If someone then says, ‘Church or the sermon was boring’ it is worth probing a little bit deeper than just assuming that what was lacking was the entertainment factor. Did the complainant give their best effort to join in fully with the bits they can join in with, to listen as attentively as they know how?

But perhaps it was because the speaker was not giving their best effort? Now everyone has an off day but those are easy to spot precisely because it is not the normal, not the routine. The preacher seemed tired, less focused, or prepared than normal – it happens and most regular attenders will spot that for what it is – an off day. We can all make allowances for this.

It is possible that familiarity breeds if not exactly contempt then boredom but repeated or routine actions such as taking communion, reading the Bible, praying, going to church, singing familiar songs, need not be and I suspect most would argue are not, boring simply because they are done repeatedly.

I could legitimately be downhearted by church being boring precisely because I am committed to going and wanting more than entertainment. And with the best will in the world what was given me was very boring indeed. Because I am committed to the truths that worship & sermons are supposed to be about, I care deeply that they are not offered to me, nor anyone else, in a manner which can be described as boring. That doesn’t mean they need to be accompanied by a light show or fireworks but at the very least preacher or presenter please don’t sound like you are bored by what you are doing!