I found that most of the social events in the church are quite mundane. Take an example, the dance party I went tonight is one of the worst party I have seen. It is as chessy as a highschool prom, and worse the people ain’t fun. This observation get me to rethink about my theory that church is mainly a social gathering place. How can such a place always have bad social gatherings?
My solution is to refine my theory. Church is still a gathering place, but mostly gather people with interest in that particular religion. Just like ski club gather people like skiing, only that more people like going to church. Church is good in running religious events, such as sunday services, prayer meetings, spiritual programs. Usually those events are well responsed to the participatens come voluntary out of interest. However, people go to the other social events in the church not because they are interest in that event per se, they go merely to show their support to the church. Moreover, the church is not specialized in running those events. This can explain why church social events are usually sub par. It is just because they are not good at it. The principle of division of labour applies to any organization, including the church.
Now, what about those who go to church not for religious purpose? My theory still holds, but need some tuning. Just like you go to the French lesson just to meet that cute girl rather than learning French. You can still go to church to hang out your with girlfriend. Although you may not have high interest in church, at least you can’t reject or even hate going church. Force yourself joining to an interest group you hate just won’t work. Imagine, how can you win over that cute girl in French class if you have absolutely no interest in French? The only problem is, after you have archive certain minium requirement in the French class and the girl became your girlfriend, you don’t have the obligation to strive in learning French any more. In Church, some how people expect you to make it the life long highest priority hobby. Why can’t church just like one of those old hobbies one can enjoy from time to times with no commitment?