Tag: pastoral humor

Our Mission, should we choose to accept it

Hey, I have an Idea about mission

If we are the church in mission, maybe we should be sending out missionaries.

What if congregations sent “missionaries” out into the community representing the church…

We could take pairs of people and send them out to the neighborhood associations, the school plays, the art shows, the craft shows, the protests, anywhere that needs a volunteer. We could sent them out with t-shirts and have them experience the community as representatives of the church….

Luke 10: 1After this the Lord(D) appointed seventy-two[a] others(E) and sent them two by two(F) ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.(G) 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.(H)

http://www.agnusday.org/comics/185/luke-101-11-16-20-2007

Of course we would have to train these people, but just think, once a month we could have mission meetings and have people come back to report what they learned about the community in the last month.

Then we’d have to be out in the community!

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….