The preoccupation of my mind the past few years has had two central themes: How do I educate my children and how do I properly worship God?

Recently I discovered an interesting convergence of those two themes provoked by reading an essay by Mortimer Adler called “Invitation to the Pain of Learning” and by attending dissimilar worship services back to back one Sunday morning.

In Adler’s essay, which was published in 1941, he laments the state of education at the time which was seemingly more committed to a child’s pleasure than to a child’s habits of learning. His opening paragraph outlines his concern:

“One of the reasons why the education given by our schools is so frothy and vapid is that the American people generally-the parent even more than the teacher-wish childhood to be unspoiled by pain. Childhood must be a period of delight, of gay indulgence in impulses. It must be given every avenue for unimpeded expression, which of course is pleasant; and it must not be made to suffer the impositions of discipline or the exactions of duty, which of course are painful. Childhood must be filled with as much play and as little work as possible. What cannot be accomplished educationally through elaborate schemes devised to make learning an exciting game must, of necessity, be forgone. Heaven forbid that learning should ever take on the character of a serious occupation-just as serious as earning money, and perhaps, much more laborious and painful.”

His rebuke is scathing and is still relevant today. His rebuke continues – “The trouble also lies in the fact that agencies of adult education baby the public even more than the schools coddle the children. They have turned the whole nation-so far as education is concerned-into a kindergarten. It must all be fun. It must all be entertaining. Adult learning must be made as effortless as possible-painless, devoid of oppressive burdens and of irksome tasks.”

Adler goes on to describe one of the motivations for this educational method. “We try to make adult education as exciting as a football game, as relaxing as a motion picture, and as easy on the mind as a quiz program. Otherwise, we will not be able to draw the big crowds, and the important thing is to draw large numbers of people into this educational game, even if after we get them there we leave them untransformed.”

Adler prescribes a rejection of this mentality if education is to be reformed. He says,

“Not only must we honestly announce that pain and work are the irremovable and irreducible accompaniments of genuine learning, not only must we leave entertainment to the entertainers and make education a task and not a game, but we must have no fears about what is “over the public’s head.” Whoever passes by what is over his head condemns his head to its present low altitude; for nothing can elevate a mind except what is over its head; and that elevation is not accomplished by capillary attraction, but only by the hard work of climbing up the ropes, with sore hands and aching muscles. The school system which caters to the median child, or worse, to the lower half of the class; the lecturer before adults-and they are legion-who talks down to his audience; the radio or television program which tries to hit the lowest common denominator of popular receptivity-all these defeat the prime purpose of education by taking people as they are and leaving them just there.”

The gems from Adler’s essay go on and on so I encourage you to read it for yourself however I must move on…

With these thoughts about education “elevating my mind” I had the opportunity to attend two worship services back to back this past Sunday morning.

The first service at 9:30 am followed more the contemporary style of worship. It was a very pleasant service. The music was soothing. The songs were delightful. The mood was reverent and peaceful. It was an easy service. And I left untransformed. The second service I attended was in the liturgical style. It too had the same elements of reverence and peace. However, the songs were difficult. The scripture readings were long. The responsive readings and the confession of sin were complicated with difficult words and archaic styles. I struggled to stay focused. It was a plain hard service. In one sense, as Adler might put it, it was painful.

But I was transformed… a little at least…and it left me wanting more. It reminded me of the time back in college when, with a few other buddies, I ran the steps at the football stadium. Anyone who’s been to Lane stadium at Va. Tech knows how high the steps are on the student side. We started at one end and ran up the steps all the way to the top then back down the next aisle over until we had gone completely across the stadium. The last aisle was an upward run. When I reached the top of the stadium in that final aisle I was totally exhausted. I had absolutely no energy left. I had given everything I had to complete it and it was nothing but sheer pain to accomplish. But standing at the top of Lane stadium after completing that feat was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. I was enraptured at the accomplishment. The euphoria coursing through my body can hardly be described. The gain was certainly worth the pain.

I wonder if in our worship services we’ve remained in a state of immaturity fearing the work of worship (by the way the word liturgy comes from a Classical greek word which means “work”) I wonder if we’ve considered that our pop cultural mandate to make everything entertaining and pleasant and easy has kept us from realizing real transformation that only hard work and labor can accomplish. I wonder if our laziness and excessive need for amusement has kept us in a perpetual state of adolescence in our approach to worship while ultimately missing a real transformative experience of our Creator.

Perhaps we need to be reminded of our invitation to participate in the fellowship of His sufferings, to take up our cross and follow Him, to buffet our bodies and make them our slaves, to fight the good fight of faith, to endure hardship as good soldiers, to run with endurance the race before us – perhaps we also need an invitation to enter into the pain of worship…