Pastor with a Sense of Humor

It seems to me every church wants a pastor with a sense of humor….What does that mean? Do they want someone who is able laugh at themselves? Someone who can tell good jokes? Is it about entertainment? Good-naturedness? What is it about the sense of humor that makes it a prerequisite for being a minister of God.

As for me, I’m a person who makes it a point to laugh a lot. In fact, I have been told, on occasion, that my laughter can be overkill at times.

Personally I know that my ability, commitment to laughter is historic. Wayyyy back in Junior High, I got so depressed that I wasn’t even talking anymore (one particular pair of boys had decided to tell me to shut up every time I spoke). It was when I realized that I was afraid to laugh that I, well actually I laughed at myself. I realized the ridiculousness of the situation. What is the point of living if one is afraid to laugh…so from that moment on I trained myself. I acknowledged that I liked laughing, and that I found things funny (Particularly I am fond of ironic/wry humor read Patricia C. Wrede’s Dragon series..it was my first encounter with the fun art)….anyway I decided I would laugh every time I found something funny– and I also acknowledged to myself at that moment that I find a lot of things funny; I crack myself up on a regular basis, I had just been too afraid to laugh out loud (this was when LOL was just starting to be a part of internet-speak).

So, now I laugh, I laugh a lot. And its gone on for about 15yrs now so that its fairly uncontrollable.

However, I will never undervalue laughter. And it makes me think that Jesus probably laughed a lot too–not maliciously, but probably wryly, ironically, and wholeheartedly. I don’t know if he giggled, snickered, guffawed or just plain laugh, but I’m sure he had the right kind of laughter.

After all God invented the sense of humor….

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times. View all posts by katyandtheword