Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

A matter-of-fact religion no longer sells. Especially to the university student generation I work with. You know the sort of religious experience I'm talking about: religion without fire and fervor and mostly built on loyalty and duty. Plant a church offering emotion-less matter-of-fact religion and see who comes. You'll preach to empty seats.

What people want nowadays can be captured in a single buzzword: passion. Passion is one of the "indispensable Qualities" of a leader. And we want passion prominent in our religion too. Want that new job as pastor? Make sure you show passion in the interview. Want to be a great communicator? Learn to appear passionate. Want to be a popular college professor? Let them see your passion and your classes will have a waiting list. In today's world passion is highly prized. Indeed, being passionate may be more important than being true or right. People will follow a passionate leader with the wrong answer far quicker than the dry passion-less leader with the right answer.

Same for worship. We cherish passionate singing springing from a passionate relationship with Christ. Some evangelistic speakers have even tapped into this cultural phenomenon and have replaced their traditional invitation with a new approach: altar calls inviting people to come forward to be "filled with passion." Passion has become the 21^st century's "second work of grace." People attending services who don't feel passionate while singing wonder what they're missing. Matter-of-fact Christians wonder if they're even saved at all. "What wrong with me?" they wonder. "Why don't I feel the passion everyone else here has?"

Matter-of-fact faith is in bear market decline. Passion is having a dot.com performance. Face it, why do we go to church? We don't go to church primarily to do something, learn something, give something, or express something. We go to church to feel something. Growing churches who've done solid exegesis of the culture have implemented services designed to generate feelings. Churches built around older models of faith and fact are not at the growing edge of today's Christian movement. 21^st century religion is about feeling something: God's presence, the "brush of angel's wings," God's personal touch.

This is why they come to church expecting enthusiasm, excitement, exhilaration, and stimulation. It's the leader's job description. Speakers have to sweat. We must exude energy, laugh, cry, leap about, produce a sensation. Worship leaders design their "sets" to progress like an opera, drawing out latent emotion, bringing joy, sadness, celebration, even tears. The audience gets caught up in it all. "Can you feel it?' their worship leader asks. And they do. Passion comes! They somehow "catch it." They walked into church dull, dreary, and lackluster -- almost numb. Now they feel different. They got a "double dose of passion today."

It's not totally unlike attending Scream 3. Why is the culture -- especially the young -- so attracted to horror films? Because they create feelings. The ticket price isn't for the movie -- it's for the feelings. Even fear sells. People today are so emotionally jaded it takes radical manipulation to get them to feel anything at all. But feeling something -- anything -- tells us we are alive! If you get good at generating feelings, you've got job security today -- as a moviemaker or minister.

So, are you one of those matter-of-fact Christians who serves God dutifully, faithfully showing up for every service (even though you seldom raise your hands closed-eyed scrunching up your face while singing)? Do you pay your tithe as a habit and regular obligation? Maybe you even have some systematic practice of caring for the poor and outcasts? Sorry, these aren't good enough today. You need a second work of grace: Passion.

The gospel is no longer a matter of fact... it's a matter of feel.

Or, is it?

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu

By Keith Drury, February, 2000. You are free to transmit, duplicate or distribute this article for non-profit use without permission.