Church…Fun???  Our humor is one of the things that I love about my church.  For many who had lots of fun in their youth groups of the past, I wonder why do we have to give up having so much fun just because we moved up to “big church?”  My plan for Team Church is to keep having fun.  But, that doesn’t mean that we’re not serious about our mission “to reach out to people where they are, and lead them to full devotion in Jesus Christ.”

Reaching out to those around us means that we need to be approachable. These people that we’re reaching out to need to be inclined to us before we can connect.  That’s where a fun atmosphere can help bring people to a point where they can be lead to Jesus.

Mark Driscoll wrote in Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions, “Humor is incredibly helpful to the gospel.” And for the culture he is reaching in one of the least churched cities in America, he believes, “humor is a missiological tool that is necessary for successful evangelism in our culture.”

If you find that hard to swallow that humor is necessary, just give some thought to how you might measure up to the common Seattle resident described by Driscoll.

The average person listens to talk radio comedic banter on the way to work, downloads funny YouTube videos during break, listens to more drive-time radio banter on the commute home, watches a sitcom after dinner, possibly tunes in to a stand-up comic on Comedy Central, and watches someone like Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, or David Letterman before dozing off. To reach people, we need to speak their language, and their language obviously includes comedy.

I remember visiting a few churches when Alison and I got married.  A couple times a “visitation group” of men dressed in suits came calling at our apartment after we had visited their church.  Awkward!  They were nice enough, but they weren’t a lot like us.  I wasn’t inclined to go back to that church because we didn’t share much in common with them.

However, we did end up going to a church where the Sunday School was filled with young married couples that enjoyed going out to eat after church, playing ball, and video games.  In other words, we enjoyed doing some of the same fun things together.

I’m not going to say that lost people are sitting around thinking, “If only church were more fun, then I’d get saved.” They’re not. But those of us who are going are enjoying church more than ever. It’s not the only reason, but it’s one more reason to share my faith experience with others.