Is your faith creative and curious?
In my first year of teaching I encountered a high school freshman named Jerry.
Jerry sat in the back. He slept if possible; otherwise he worked hard at being disinterested. When forced to actually participate he’d offer wrong answers to even the simplest question. Jerry’s young teacher sadly wrote him off as a dumb kid.
A few weeks after school started I walked into a local bowling alley to watch some friends in their league competition. A few lanes away, there was Jerry. He was the official scorekeeper.
Scoring a bowling game isn’t trivial—requires lots of quick mental arithmetic according to complicated rules. I wondered what idiot hired Jerry for a job he clearly couldn’t do.
I walked over to watch, secretly anticipating some morbid entertainment as this “dumb kid” messed up the scores. Two lanes, two teams alternating and switching lanes after each turn, ten guys, noisy machinery, crashing pins, boisterous drinking—this was disaster waiting to happen.
He was perfect. Calm and alert, Jerry scored all three games for each team without a single error while he joked and conversed with the players. I watched in shock. Where was the kid who didn’t know the answer to “2 + 2”?
I waited until he finished, then offered to buy him a coke so I could ask him about his performance.
His answer was simple. “This isn’t math class. This matters.”
The next day Jerry showed up as unengaged as ever. I had no clue what to do, and he eventually stopped coming at all. I never saw him again.
A newbie teacher learned that school too often wrings the life and meaning from interesting subjects. We turn education into facts and memorizing and right answers and proper procedures. Kids who are born curious and creative are forced to sit in rows and avoid making mistakes.
And in church …
I’m wondering whether we do something similar in church.
Do we foster and encourage curiosity, or do we crush it? Are people afraid to ask the wrong questions? Is church so much about facts and right answers that people forget the mystery and wonder of infinite God? I fear that’s exactly the case.
How many folks leave church feeling like the dumb kid, afraid to reveal their uncertainties or lack of knowledge? How many people stop showing up because church knowledge doesn’t seem to connect to real life? I think the answer is “a lot.”
I don’t attend adult Sunday school because the teachers are mostly experts. They know the answers, their perspective is correct, disagreement is marginally tolerated and quickly dismissed. My guess is that Jesus would stop showing up after a few sessions.
In most churches I’ve attended there’s not much real creativity. The lines of what’s acceptable may be unspoken, but they’re pretty clear. Curiosity is okay, as long as you’re curious about the right stuff and you express it properly.
There’s some stuff you just don’t say, some opinions you just can’t express, some beliefs you just can’t question.
I think it’s great to memorize Scripture. It’s wonderful to play the right songs on the organ or guitar or whatever. It’s good to listen and take copious notes and reflect on the preacher’s sermon. Those all make you fit in at church.
My guess is that Jerry wouldn’t do most of those things. Is there anything for him at church?
Does your church do anything for people like Jerry? Does it matter?
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