Church is Boring

One of the top complaints you will hear about church is just that: "Church is boring." It is my suspicion that if you think that's so, you are missing something absolutely critical about church. I think you're missing the magnitude of the church.

We tend to think of "the church" as the building on the corner. "We have lots of churches where I live." That's not what's in mind when the Bible talks about the church. The term refers to the "called out ones" and the gathering thereof. There will be, in those gatherings, what Jesus referred to as "tares", weeds among the wheat (Matt 13:24-30), but the church is the gathering of the wheat, not the weeds. As such, it is much bigger than any building or group gathering, small or large.

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Heb 12:22-24)

The text is huge. And it isn't a reference to "someday" -- it is now. When we gather, we gather in a huge spiritual company. It includes "innumerable angels" and "the assembly of the firstborn" and "the spirits of the righteous made perfect." Sure, you knew God was there, but did you know it wasn't that meager gathering of those in the room? Did you know that it was so very big? It includes all the saints that are in attendance and so much more.

Brothers and sisters, when we gather to worship God, we do it in the presence of all this. That we could consider worshiping in the presence of God and Christ and the Spirit as boring is bad enough. That we could consider it boring to be in this place with this crowd is unconscionable. There are a few possible explanations: 1) "I didn't believe it." 2) "I don't care." 3) "I didn't know." The first is simply a denial of the plain Word of God. The problem here, then, is something a lot more than worship; it is a serious question of relationship. The second is a similar problem. If this is true and someone doesn't care, there is a genuine question that should be pursued regarding the reality of their relationship with Christ. The third is something that you can address right now. Right now -- now that you see it there in Scripture -- you can correct your ignorance and recognize the sheer magnitude of the "church" -- its size, its purpose, its glory. You can get a sense of "the communion of the saints," the union with saints everywhere and the angels and the entire Godhead all at once. If that is boring to you, then you're doing something wrong. If joining with all believers everywhere and everywhen to glorify God is boring to you, there is another problem ... and it's not the church.