Christians Suck at Explaining Things

Sunday morning, I was sitting in my pew (chair, really, not many have pews anymore) when a mom and her two older teenage kids made their way into church. The teens were fighting, vocally. They couldn't stand to be near each other. It was clear in their body language and facial expressions, and they weren't even trying to hide it. You could tell Mom was just checked out; she didn't even want to deal with it. She was going to let them deal with each other, and eventually the son decided he wasn't even going to sit in the same row as his sister and slumped down in a pew a few rows back. That would show her!

The body language didn't change for the whole service, until we got past the sermon and reached the communion portion. At our church we "pass the peace" prior to taking communion. It comes from Jesus' words in Matthew 5:23–24: "If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there... First be reconciled to your brother." Paired with Paul's call to "examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup" (1 Cor 11:28), it gives you the opportunity to be in right relationship with your Christian brother and your Savior before you come to the table.

So we stood, passed the peace, and in the 10 seconds I had, I asked the teenage son, "Do you know why we pass the peace?" He nodded and said, "To make peace with each other." Exactly. He had it right. So, application. "Then this is a really good chance for you to make peace with your sister before you take communion," I said. He nodded, but didn't say anything, and we parted ways. I've no idea if they ended up making up, but I'm sure they did: siblings usually do things like that.

I'm embarrassed by this story. It makes me look like an old church lady, and for me, a true introvert, it's surprising it even happened. I feel like I overstepped. But in some regards, I also feel like this is what's missing in many churches today. Not doctrinal correctness: many churches are doing the right things. But actual hands-on instruction that makes sense and is applicable to the moment. It's actually pivotal to how people experience church.

Let's look at just two super common practices in church that are widely misunderstood.

We know we take communion because Jesus told us to, but how do we functionally do that in a reverent manner?

Each church has a different tradition, but mine is fairly common in the evangelical church: We take a piece of bread, and then we approach a table with small cups of grape juice, and we grab one. For ease of access, my church has a trash can sitting next to the table, so 80% of people do what they figure they should: Stuff the bread in their mouth, take the shot, toss the cup in the trash, return to their seat.

It makes me extremely sad: there's almost no intent present.

The practical instructions for communion are found in Scripture. They're complete. They address exactly how we are to take communion: before, during and after. Here's each one, and what it looks like on Sunday morning.

Every single Sunday, we do the same thing and people still don't know functionally: take your juice and bread, go sit in your seat, talk to yourself. Pray with your family. Break out of the rote robotics and experience the joy in the meal that God has given you.

I've been a Christian for almost 30 years, and I've never heard a church tell us how we should worship (and rarely why we worship) prior to launching into their first Sunday song.

There are plenty of articles and memes asking why people aren't singing anymore in church. In Six Reasons Congregational Singing Is Waning, Thom Rainer points to things like a steady influx of new songs without sufficient time to learn them, songs pitched in a range beyond most people's ability, and music so loud you can't hear others in the congregation. But his first reason is the one that sticks with me: many church members don't prepare themselves for worship. It's common for people to point out that men especially don't seem to want to sing. But at a baseline, I think the reason people don't sing is because we don't actually ask them to sing.

We ask people to stand and they usually stand. We don't tell them why they should stand. We don't really ask them to sing, and we don't ever tell them why they should sing: we just launch into 20 minutes of emotional music and hope they follow along.

When I teach kids in Sunday school, I make sure to physically instruct them on how and why we do things. Left to themselves, they don't understand that we stand out of reverence; they'd rather sit on the floor because standing is hard and tiring. But when they understand they are standing because God is the most important person to worship, the most important person in their lives, they begin to actually internalize actions associated with doctrine, and amazingly, they follow through!

The theological practical divide

But to some extent, understanding the theology behind a doctrine is often not practical enough for people to understand how to perform the doctrine itself.

We used to do these things called catechisms in the church. They were just questions and answers about God that congregants were expected to know. And we need them. Ligonier's 2025 State of Theology survey found that 53% of American evangelicals agree that everyone sins a little but most people are good by nature (Scripture says the opposite: Rom 3:10–12), and 53% think the Holy Spirit is a force rather than a personal being (is this Star Wars?). Those aren't fringe doctrines. That's the gospel and the Trinity.

But the historic catechisms did something most modern ones don't: they gave instructions. The Westminster Larger Catechism spends five full questions (171–175) on how to prepare for communion, what to do while you're taking it, and what to do afterward. It tells believers to "carefully watch the elements and actions of the sacrament" and "meditate warmly on His death and suffering." That's not just doctrine. That's direction.