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Church is Boring, Part 1
by Norman and Ann Bales
All About Families

If you've ever lived inside the same four walls with teenagers, you've probably heard one or more of them complain, "church is boring." They can give you a litany of reasons. "I don't get anything out of the sermon." "The music is stale." "It doesn't affect the way I live." You can add to the list.

How do you deal with the problem? You can say, "As long as you live in this house, you're going to attend and like it." Well, you may get them to attend (for now), but we doubt that you'll get them to like it. You can wring your hands in despair and hope they'll grow out of it some day. Maybe they will; maybe they won't. Or you can be like a father we once knew. He said, "I'm afraid to do anything for fear of doing the wrong thing." He ended up doing the wrong thing, which was nothing.

We don't have all the answers but we would recommend that parents confront the problem with a proactive strategy. You need a game plan, but like a football coach you may have to revise your strategy as you go along.

Actually teenagers who say, "church is boring" do their parents a favor. They have opened the topic for conversation. There are many passive young people who feel the same way but they would never mention it to their parents, which greatly increases the level of difficulty.

Assuming there are no deep-seated relationship problems such as drugs, broken relationships with parents, child abuse, or other forms of anti-social behavior, the problem may very well be fixable.

Adolescence is a time when young people begin to ask questions about everything, including their relationship with God. We actually want our young people to establish a faith of their own, but we have to recognize that the road to personal faith can be rocky.

Next week, we'll offer some practical suggestions.