They Yearn for Mystery.

There's less doubt now than there used to be. Even Christianity Today admits the trend. Americans today are yearning for more mystery in their worship.

Boomers, who have enshrined their particular brand of 1980s worship, will, of course, dismiss this column as just-another-worship-fad. They're now tired of fads since their own preferences have prevailed. Like all revolutionaries, Boomers became conservatives once they got in control.

But, the trend is undeniable. People are hungry for the mystery side of religion. I suspect it is no fad at all, but signs of a mystery-deficient diet on worship. Humans get hungry for what they've been missing in their diet.

So, why do they yearn for mystery?

1. Our God-as-buddy theology.
Each generation seems to raise one aspect of God so high it blocks out His other characteristics. Our generation has made God into a fishing buddy. To us, God is primarily a friend who loves us no matter what. He's a buddy who accompanies us everywhere, always affirming and encouraging so that we can succeed. He's as close as the mention of His name. Emanuel. Right here with us. The all-Abba god. All this, of course, is true, but it is only half of the truth. There is a distant side of God as well. And it is this distant side which inspires awe, reverence and fear. A God of 100% immanence is no God at all, but merely a sociological totem carved in our own image. Today's evangelicals are full of the humanized buddy-god. What they hunger for is what they've not consumed in years -- Transcendence.

2. Practical application.
We're so good at use-this-tomorrow preaching and teaching that we've made religion so practical you don't even have to be a Christian to practice Christianity. It is so practical, sensible, logical. We've become like our CE Curriculum -- so oriented to application that we forget what it is we're applying. Such studies are helpful but offer no mystery.

3. Classroom preaching.
We've gotten so good at teaching the Bible that we've turned sermons into dynamic classroom lectures and worshipers into note-taking student