I'm fortunate to belong to a faith community that embodies much of what it means to live a meaningful Christian journey in a community of grace. Hence, congregating with my other friends for a corporate gathering on a Sunday morning isn't such a butt-dragging affair. But picture the following scenario...

It's a Sunday morning. Again. The family members reluctantly tear themselves out of their beds for the weekly ritual that they call the "church service." It's such a chore to entertain the performance of a ritual that might have lost its meaning. And yet, one feels almost wrong for even admitting that going to "church" has become little more than a purposeless religious trudge. Which funny bloke actually stipulated that "church" had to happen on a Sunday anyway?

So to "church" we go. The singing. The sermon. The intercession. The impersonally superficial fellowship. The people adorned with beautiful attires that represent their need for superficial pleasantries and impressionistic facades.

Let's face it; the average thinking Christian doesn't feel that he needs to get excited over a series of singing accompanied by a band of overpriced instruments producing over-rated music. He doesn't need to listen to a monotonous sermon preached by a pastor who's trying to do his "Anthony Robbins" stunt. The least he needs is a weekly lecture on what to do with his life that he already knows he should do. He also doesn't need to exchange handshakes with twenty other people whom he doesn't care about for the rest of the week. If he does it, it's simply a gesture to appease his religious conscience. After all, most people (within and without the church) can't move beyond the need to perform.

"How negative", you may say. I know more than a few of my pastor-friends (including myself) who have stood at the pulpit often enough to know that what I'm describing are sentiments unspoken by many well-meaning Christians who're trying to do the best they can with the lives that they have. They feel this in varying degrees in various contexts, but are unable to express these sentiments for fear of grieving God. They love God very sincerely, you see.

In the recent past decades, a new way of doing church emerged. It was deemed a "relevant" and "engaging" way which sought to repackage the way church is done. Unfortunately, beneath this package lies an unchanged core. It therefore pandered to the creation of superficial anticipation through excitable music and inspirational talks, often dispensed with exaggerated thundering volumes to reflect the atmosphere of "anointing" that assures them that "God was here."

Even so, if we're honest with ourselves, I suspect that we will find ourselves acknowledging our need for something deeper. Such superficial experiences can bring us only so far. Our church services, no matter how excitable they may be superficially, are dry and wanting. Even when the atmosphere seems exciting, it's often more than not engineered by human hands. It's almost as if we can tell exactly how the Holy Spirit is going to work today, because he does exactly the same thing all the time, every week, at every service, to the same people.

The faith of our Fathers is one that is rich with a sense of authentic anticipation because it preserves its sense of the mysteries of God. It is one that engages the human senses in a way that excites one from within, beyond the superficially engineered sensationality created by human devices.

I have no model answer, and it's likely going to take a while before we - God's people - come up with something concrete. But we need to begin recovering that "other" reality again. Now.