Should church be fun?

I think the answer is yes, but for very different reasons than you might consider at first.

I’m not advocating that we cater to people. We shouldn’t dumb down the sermon or (necessarily) scrap hymns from our repertoire. And we certainly shouldn’t treat our worship services as if they were circus events.

I’m not saying sermons can’t contain humor, or that churches must continue singing the old hymns. I’m not even saying that worship can’t resemble rock concerts. The context of each specific church will need to have a large say in these things.

But we live in a culture of entertainment. We typically do things and go places that we expect will entertain us. And we often apply this mindset to the church as well. We expect church services to be for our entertainment. But if that’s our view of church, we’re focusing on the wrong things.

As long as we focus on the style of music, or the personality of the preacher, or the friendliness of the people, we’re going to miss out on a much deeper joy. Our church gathering should be fun not because of all of the surface level activities meet our approval, but because we have an opportunity to worship our Savior and grow in our relationship with Him. Sure, we can and ought to be growing in that relationship throughout the week, but there’s something special about coming together to worship our Lord. And the more we grow in that relationship, the more we will genuinely enjoy gathering with believers to worship Him.

So I think church should be fun. It should also be challenging. And convicting. And even, at times, sorrowful. In attempting to remove the entertainment mindset from the church, we should not give the impression that church ought to be dry and dull. Rather, it ought to be an awesomely emotive time to be renewed by the Spirit so that we’re better equipped to serve God throughout our lives.

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