Church Used to be FUN! I don’t know about your church past. I grew up attending church and, for the most part, it was fun. Being forced to attend “big church” with my parents was a drag, but most everything else was pretty great. Let’s make church fun again.
When I became an adult and decided to volunteer in our local church, my wife and I jumped into high school ministry. We enjoyed our youth group times, so it seemed like a perfect place to volunteer.
And it was. On many levels.
As a kid, I attended a church experience for kids or students at 9:00 a.m., followed by the boredom of the adult service at 11:00 a.m. When I began volunteering in student ministry, the juxtaposition of these two experiences was much more pronounced. We had a great time in student ministry. It was entertaining and engaging. We explored theology and learned about following Jesus and had fun doing it.
My wife and I would leave that volunteer experience every Sunday for the adult service. It only took half a hymn to suck the enthusiasm out of our souls.
My 22-year-old self pondered this weekly experience. “Perhaps adults don’t like to have fun at church?”
Or maybe pastors have forgotten that fun and church aren’t enemies.
Let’s make church fun again.
If you answered yes, I’m guessing you have received your fair share of criticism. Mind you, not from the unchurched, nonbelievers in your community, but from Christians and other churches. For some reason, many Christians and church leaders have bought into the belief that religion must be boring. That church can’t be fun. I guess we’ve associated dull with reverent. Hyper-serious to “spiritual.” Enjoyment has become a line in the religious sand. If you have fun in a religious service, it’s not really religious, and God can’t be pleased, right?
I partially understand. As Christians, we take God seriously. We take His church seriously. Most things we take seriously come with a certain level of seriousness (nobody wrote that down, I’m guessing). It makes sense.
But boring is not biblical. It’s not a matter of truth. It’s just how we’ve positioned ourselves as the church. It’s how we’ve positioned religion.
Here’s my question: Can a church be entertaining without becoming entertainment?
There is a difference. Entertainment serves one point: Enjoyment. But entertaining is different. Entertaining is enjoyment with purpose. Joy with a strategy.
