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In this culture, is God exciting enough?

We're so dependent on things being exciting. Even as I listen to people giving announcements in church—especially for the youth—everything has got to be really exciting to grab their attention. There's a danger in our worship services when we try to become entertaining.

It's of course good to use illustrations, variety, visual aids, and so on, but one can go over the top so that it just becomes another theatrical production to give people a good feeling, which they then may mistake for an experience of God. But really it's just generated by the sort of entertainment.

God occasionally does amazing, wonderful, and miraculous things. But most of the time, it is the ordinary things of life that he works through. I think our dependence on this sort of hyperstimulation and busyness makes it very hard for us to be content with the small things, with the quieter moments.

How does this hurt a Christian's personal relationship with God?

Overstimulation has led to a culture that has difficulties with delayed gratification. We want things now. We want instant spirituality and an instant relationship with God. Most of the giants of the faith talk about the slow, steady, day-by-day walk of obedience in faith without much drama and with the need for discipline.

The dependence on electronic entertainment doesn't help us to do the hard work of daily practice. If someone wants to play the piano, but they want to do it instantly and they don't have patience, they get too bored with daily exercises on the piano. Our spiritual life is a bit like that. I struggle with this too, to sit still in the presence of God and to read the Scriptures, to meditate, to pray. It's hard. I want to be up, busy, and active.

I was speaking to someone just yesterday who said that he cannot stand the ordinariness of life. He wants action. He wants all of God, or nothing. He wants God to come down and give him a big hug and make him feel wonderful, or, he doesn't want anything to do with God.

This culture also hurts your relationships with other people and with nature. The real world, the natural world, runs at a slower pace. Things are more gentle than the drama of the electronic entertainment.

I went to see the new James Bond film the other day, and it's a classic example of how excitement begets more excitement. The color, the sound, the action, all is up several notches from previous ones to keep people's attention. How long can you go on like this?

How can we battle this overstimulation, not only in our own lives, but also to the people we minister to?

It's about building relationships rather than having exciting events. It's in the context of relationships that we make the most significant movement and growth in life. Even though high drama events sometimes produce results, they often don't last very long.

That's the other thing that technology has done. It's given us lots of wonderful things, but it's helped to undermine community because we don't need to sit on the porch and we have all our entertainment inside on the screen. Entertainment also undermines community in the family because each person sits in front of their own screen. Or you all sit in front of the screen together but you don't talk to each other. So in every way, technology cuts us off from relationships and from reality.

Television suggests that life is high drama, love, and sex. Activities such as housework, fundraising, and teaching children to read are vastly under reported. Most pleasures are small pleasures—a hot shower, a sunset, a bowl of good soup, or a good book.

Todd Hertz is assistant online editor for Christianity Today.

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January (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47