What Christians can learn from a high school musical
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Older adults contending with the challenges of raising children, making a living, and participating in their local communities might appreciate these concessions. Younger adults, however, will invariably channel their aptitudes and abundant enthusiasm to singing in a musical, playing in the marching band, or competing in a sport.
Moreover, they will even cultivate a quasi-religious zeal in these endeavors. I only half-joke with my students when I tell them they are caught up in a cult. In a certain sense, they are.
These extracurricular programs often determine their community and give them a raison d’être. To adults, these shows and games might be wholesome pastimes that help build character; for the students, they offer the kind of fulfillment and meaning that should be coming from their Christian faith.
None of this is to argue against the existence of such programs — I hope to attend more musicals with my kids, after all — but for the restoration of these programs’ virtues in Christianity. In order to bring back the youth and reinvigorate today’s dwindling churches, pastors need to bring back the rigor required to realize the true, the good, and the beautiful.
Fortunately for Christians, they have a rich tradition of art and scholarship from which to draw and apply such rigor. They only need to overcome their own misgivings and exert themselves as far as they can, doing more both inside and outside worship. Once they experience the joy and satisfaction that come out of it, they will finally understand why such traditions exist in the first place and just how wonderful is our God.
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