"I want really good teaching in the church I go to because I want to know more about God."
Students have expressed this sentiment to me over many years in lots of locations. It’s great that these students are actively looking for a church. It’s also excellent that they are looking for a place that will help their faith rather than stifle it. However, there something else within the statement that I want to challenge - the word “about”.
Knowing God is more important that knowing about God. It’s about deepening a relationship with a person rather than increasing knowledge about a person.
The difficulty is that students live in a knowledge paradigm. Their whole world is geared towards learning more about a subject and being able to prove it. Sitting in lectures and listening to an expert download information to them is a regular experience. Therefore, it is natural to want church to be the same.
But Jesus didn’t seem to teach like this. He told stories about people, he gave frustratingly few answers and pointed people to his Father. He wanted his disciples to broaden their understanding more than amass knowledge. He left people hungry for more. In the book of Hebrews, the writer says that teaching on the word of God is like food and we are like athletes (2 Tim 2:5). If we don’t get out there and do life in relationship with God and other people then we don’t burn the spiritual calories we have taken in and we become spiritually obese Christians. Like chicks in a nest sitting and waiting for the next meal to fatten us up.
I know about David Beckham, but I don’t know him. I know lots of facts about him and they hint at what kind of a man he is - but I don’t know him. It’s the same with faith. You can know lots about God and not know him. But we are all invited into that great and mysterious relationship. We can know God. What an invitation!
Perhaps you want to ask the question: is my church helping me deepen my relationship with God? If not, why not? Because if your church is just pouring information about God into your head, perhaps it isn’t the place for you.
