“It’s a sin to bore young people with the gospel.”
I heard that phrase quite a few times in my training as a student pastor. There is much to this which I would heartily affirm. If you have the ability to say something compelling and winsomely most of the time it’s better to do such a thing than to say it in a drab and non-compelling way. Also, it’s helpful for us to show and display the joy of the Lord. One of the most helpful evangelistic tools we have is a display of our love for one another. Such a thing can be displayed by a hospital bed, but it can also be shown over a riveting game of Grog. (Which is perhaps THE absolute best game to ever play at a youth lock-in).
While I appreciate much of that statement, there is also a way in which it might be the source of where we’ve went off the rails in some student ministry. And it might be one of the reasons why we’ve had some gaps in our transitioning kids from student ministry to “big church”.
Here is my point. While the gospel is never boring, living out the Christian life most certainly is incredibly boring. I don’t mean that every aspect of walking with Jesus is dull and unexciting. But I do mean that a faithful walk with Christ is actually quite monotonous, repetitive, uneventful, and even tedious—all of which are synonyms of boring. Again, I’m not saying I’m bored with Jesus. The gospel is enough to stir up deep awe and excitement within my soul. And, yes, at times my drabness in discipline is a result of personal sin. But the Christian life isn’t a constant mountain top. And that’s my point.
There is a way in which we’ve centered student ministry (and even every component of church from birth to death) around this principle of making sure that people are really excited and they have these dynamic experiences when they are in our building. When we teach we want every moment to be light bulbs. We want kids to go home floating on cloud nine and all jazzed up about our worship songs, our sermons, or the talk we had after youth group. And at times this happens. But for the most part discipleship is made of the boring stuff.
In Perspectives on Family Ministry, Jay Strother makes a phenomenal point about the role events plays in our student ministries. They have a place. But Strother makes an excellent point which relates to what I’m saying here about boredom and everyday Christianity:
In some cases events serve as catalysts to introduce new students to a ministry or to call current students to renew their commitments. The role of events should, however, be limited and carefully coordinated within the entire scope of ministry. Otherwise students become spiritually codependent on emotional moments that occur apart from the day-by-day disciplines of life. In the process students fail to develop a truly biblical framework that calls for a lifestyle of worship (Romans 12:1-2). Instead, they become ‘worship junkies’ looking for that next ‘camp spiritual high’. Yet the experiences having the greatest lifelong impressions on children and students are not high-intensity events. According to findings cited by Richard Ross, the deepest impressions on students lives occur in far more mundane contexts, such as serving alongside parents in ministry or mission settings. (Perpsectives, 131-132)
I’m not trying to say we should intentionally bore kids. We should speak with as much ethos and pathos as our given text allows. We should love fiercely. And we should have plenty of fun and enjoy the life that God has given us. But we also shouldn’t train our kids to think following Jesus, at least this side of glory, is going to be anything other than a mundane experience which is mixed with a few mind-blowing and exciting things along the way. So it’s helpful for us to train kids in this way.
Besides, in our entertainment-saturated world kids aren’t as hungry for fun as they are legit love. I know it goes against everything you’ve been taught but good ol’ consistent, mundane, boring ol’ love is going to go a million times further than a fire truck baptistry. (At least if you measure with eternal scales).
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