"Thus for me, if a ritual becomes boring, it simply means that it lacks life and should be changed so that God’s people can re-connect with their risen Lord who is anything but boring"For a split second, I thought why yes, that sounds exactly right! If God is not boring, then all things relating to God should not be boring, so this makes sense! Then I paused for a moment to consider the thought more carefully, and discovered something -- it is this attitude which is actually destroying local church, rather than building it up.
What's tricky about this premise is that the underlying assumption is actually completely correct. God is not a boring, small, timid or simple God. He is Big, and Powerful, and complex beyond our wildest imagination. God is, in all senses of the word, awesome and wonderful.
The problem comes when we shift that boredom from the Character of God, to our own emotions and moods regarding God. God is never boring, but we as humans are often bored with God. It is a problem, a genuine display of how broken and fundamentally backwards we are as humans. When we attribute our own boredom to the rituals associated with God, and claim that it is the rituals which have failed and not us, we are in essence placing ourselves above the divine ordination of God, and above our own sin. Not only is this a dangerous denial of our own essence and God's divine providence, but it is this very attitude which I think has led to so many problems within the church.
We are designed to need God, not the other way around. God has absolutely no need of us, not even of our worship and praise. We are not giving God anything He doesn't already have when we do these things. Those rituals are given for our benefit, not God's. Perhaps boredom then ought to be interpreted as a warning sign that something is not right in our hearts, that we are struggling with a deeper sin issue than we perhaps realize. When we become bored in church, it is perhaps a warning sign that the church is failing. But more likely, it is a sign that your heart is failing. Most likely, the church is still the same church it was when you first joined, it is still healthy and preaching the word and living in genuine and sanctifying community (if, of course, that is actually what it was before). It is you that have changed, not everyone else.
Obviously, there are some rituals which are not Biblical, and are entirely man-made. Regarding these rituals, it is perhaps fair to say that a few of those which are "boring" are not useful, even if they were in the past. But even that is dangerous. The mindset framed in the above quote is what leads people to look for churches under the "what I like" premise. This is when people look for churches based on what they are comfortable with, what "suits them", what they agree with, what churches just "aren't for me". But God is for you! All churches are flawed - they are composed of humans. But this does not mean that there are not good things. Yes, some churches are healthy, some are surviving, and some are dead. But not all healthy churches look the same! Church ought to challenge you, to ask you to grow together and walk together, it should be uncomfortable sometimes. Similarly, if I get bored doing my quiet time in the mornings, I know that rather than abandoning that practice, I must begin to pray through that ritual, to seek truth and desire - because I know that despite my boredom, the truth is that God commands us to be in his Word constantly. Boredom is not something that ought to succumbed to, but rather something that must be overwritten with Truth.
(Here's the link to the q&a page with Viola, if you're interested) http://www.paganchristianity.org/answers.php
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