We had dinner with another family on the weekend, and I was fascinated with the two teenage girls’ take on church. They switched churches earlier this year and they were thrilled with their new environment. I asked some questions….

1. What do you like about the Sunday services?

• The sermons are awesome! I don’t have to try to zone out anymore to make it through.

2. Does that affect your relationship with God? Or just make church more enjoyable?

• It doesn’t affect my walk with God. It just makes church more fun. It used to be painfully boring.

3. What do you like about the Youth night?

• It’s the highlight of my week. At our old church it was just really boring. It’s way different and way better.

4. Does that affect your relationship with God? Or just make Youth more enjoyable?

• Youth actually helps my relationship with God, because I have Christian friends. My old Youth group was small and I had no close friends. And my youth leader got together with me personally. That never happened at my old church.

5. What does Youth night look like?

• We spend time in our regular groups, sharing how our weeks went. Then there’s worship, a sermon and a kid’s testimony, then back in our groups to discuss the sermon, then more worship, a song we can dance to, and snacks with more time to talk with people.

6. That sounds like Sunday church. How does that help your relationship with God?

• It’s being with Christian friends, having conversations that are spiritual, where everyone knows that’s what you’re there to talk about.

Reflections:

It seems the difference between “boring” and “awesome” is whether we have spiritual friendships or not.

Maybe the purpose of organized church events is to help us build spiritual friendships where discipleship actually happens.

Years ago I used to build friendships with people at work or wherever so I could get them to attend church events. Looks like I had it backwards.