Ramblings on Boredom in the Pews

There are a couple of reasons people tend to be bored in church. They are not positive. Remember, these reasons are not a comprehensive list. I'm just a guy, and these are just my observations, flawed though they may be.

One reason could be that the pastor has no real gift for teaching. There are plenty of guys out there who have an ache, as I do, to reach the lost for Christ. The problem is, the majority of them, myself included are not pastor material. I understand that God can easily change that, and that He qualifies those whom He calls to be pastors. That's the problem though. Plenty of guys with an itch do not wait for it to be scratched by the Lord. In other words, they force the issue and get behind the pulpit without a true calling from God. What ends up happening even if they sincerely want to serve Him is that over time it becomes clear to them that they have no business being up in front of everyone each week. That soon becomes clear to the congregation too. Having a true calling from God is of paramount importance for one to be a church pastor. People get bored by mechanical messages from someone who might even be motivated, but who does not have the gift of teaching.

I belonged to a church when I first became a believer. The pastor did (and I am trying to be kind here) a horrible job of preaching. His wife wrote all of his sermons. She was a nice lady, but she often wrote sermons that had little to do with Jesus, and one Easter Sunday, He went unmentioned by her husband. He and she later divorced and he left the ministry and became a salesman. Believe me, most people in the congregation were pretty bored with him. I left. Most of them stayed.

Another reason is that the listener may not be saved. I have watched people in church who were invited by somebody else, and who looked like they could not wait to get out of there. If one is listening to someone who is teaching well, but one is bored to tears, there has to be something seriously wrong. When someone repents of their former life which was without Him, and entrusts their eternity to Him, Jesus is so precious to that person. Whatever they can learn about Him is just golden to them. They are happy to be able to go to worship and to studies, and if they develop an "I've heard this all before" type of attitude, that is another indication that something is wrong.

Either way, into whichever category a person falls, believer or not, both have a "love" problem. The non-Christian, if they are not the least bit interested in Jesus because they don't love Him will simply have no interest in the word. The believer who is bored while listening to godly teaching needs to ask Jesus to change their heart, and should spend some real time in private with Him. The difference is, the believer will know something is wrong and they will want to have God change their heart. That is not always the case with an unbeliever. It all depends on the state of the heart.

And I can really understand why younger believers would not want to be in an what they might describe as an "old-fashioned" church. I was in a church with a massive pipe organ when I grew up. It was really huge and the pipes were housed in a climate-controlled room, and the whole thing had to be calibrated by experts. It was pretty cool. It still wasn't my thing. I appreciate a lot of older hymns. They are loaded with good theology and packed with meaning. I respect them. They just didn't help me praise God from my heart. I still like to sing one every now and then, but for me they are just out of sync musically with the way I like to praise God. That is personal.

There are any number of things that might put a potential believer off. I don't think the answer is snappy productions or a banging sound system. What people are won by is what they are won to. I think the answer is to stand up for the Word and teach it lovingly and honestly each week in a place where Jesus is praised. People will either be put off by that because they love their sin more, or they will hunger after it because they see the truth of the Word and want to be changed by God.