It was a terrible situation. I hadn't seen it coming and now it was too late. I could feel my pulse quicken and the adrenaline start flooding my system. I had been caught off guard and hadn't seen the situation developing, but here I was sat in front of the telly with my family and forced to make an earth-shattering confession. 'Is there anything else on? I don't really like Songs of Praise.'
Let me put in a disclaimer at this point. The following does not amount to a rant against Songs of Praise, fine piece of television as I am sure that it is. I have nothing against Thora Hird, or any of the band of young upstarts attempting to fill her shoes (I'd even go so far as to say - tentatively - that Diane Louise Jordan seems to be quite good, even if she has selfishly hogged an extra name thereby condemning an innocent street urchin to the heartbreak of a mononomular existence).
Guess the year
This isn't even a question of the style of music on Songs of Praise: I've always been more bothered about the words of hymns and songs rather than the musical style (although I have whiled away the odd dull service by playing 'guess the year that songs were published'. When in doubt, think when that style of music was popular outside of church circles, add ten years and you won't be too far wrong). There is probably a column to be written about unnecessary musical barriers for young people in church, but this isn't it.
The problem with Songs of Praise isn't the songs, and it isn't the praise. But it's a programme where I am an observer. Church is not a spectator sport, and the role of spectator is the only one that Songs of Praise offers us. All we can do is watch other people singing songs in praise of our God. I concede that some people take pleasure out of singing along with the television but I am not one of those (and anyone in the same room as me would be unlikely to take much pleasure out of it either: the joy of congregational singing is that you can always sing up to drown out the tonally challenged). Worship is something for us to live and to do, not for us to watch.
All this set me to thinking about how our young people experience church. As I have said before in these pages, the biggest single thing we can do to help out young people break out of the ghetto of the youth fellowship and become involved in the wider church is to help them build relationships with older individual church members. Relationships are key, but there is another factor that needs to be considered.
Compukids
This is the generation who have grown up watching TV and playing computer games. More than ever before they are a generation of consumers. They have been conditioned to view things as things to be viewed, as entertainment for them to take or leave. Church isn't like that. Where they are used to sitting back to enjoy the show, we need to help them to expect and to want to participate in something that will change them. The essence of watching television is detachment, seeing something happening out there to someone else. The essence of church is participatory, something that we do together. The one is undemanding, the other threatening and life-changing. If we don't help our young people to understand the difference, we shouldn't be surprised if they find church unsatisfying and unappealing.
Withdrawal symptoms
The media life of our young people means that they are used to something that withdraws them from others (if you disagree, try telling someone in detail about the last time you played a particular computer game. It won't be long before their eyes glaze over, unless of course they have either walked off or started hitting you repeatedly in an attempt to stave off utter boredom). Where they are used to the security of individualism, we offer the vulnerability of community. Sharing time and space with other people is costly and difficult, and young people may need more help to do it than most. Maybe that's why getting young people into church is such a struggle most of the time. But we must keep on struggling, because it's what they need if they are to grow as Christians. Church is going to change to meet the challenge of the 21st century (the 21st century - oh, how us columnists have been looking forward to typing phrases like that) but let's make sure that church remains church and doesn't just become a big sing-song-whoopee bless-up that offers people exactly what they want without requiring anything from them and without holding out the possibility of God actually challenging or changing anything.
