#3 – Is having fun in church so bad?

#3 – Is having fun in church so bad?

In continuing my series about things we know to be true but we forget about when we teach kids, we come to a topic that is controversial. I have heard it said many times that the church is not a social club. Most of the time, this is referring to the adults and the fact that the churches need to push their congregations harder and challenge them in their walk with the Lord. It has also been used to question the activities of Youth or Children’s Ministries. These particular ministries tend to have activities for the sake of having activities. They like to have fun and people think they are forgetting the purpose of the church: make disciples. While this may be true of some ministries, there is a reason for this type of programming.

I think it would be helpful if we used a different word instead of “fun”. When people use the word “fun” in relation to the church, they normally use it with a negative tone. The Gospel is serious and the issues of Heaven and Hell are as well. We need to focus on these items and “fun” is not appropriate. “Fun” also can become an end in itself. Thus, people say there is no redeeming value in these “fun” activities.

That is why I like to use the word “engaging” instead of “fun”. The word “engaging” is more of an umbrella word that includes fun but also includes teaching and conversations. This word also indicates that the fun is not the end result. In order to be able to speak in people’s lives, one needs to be able to have a connection. These engaging events are ways to make these connections. As an example, we had one child that was having problems in our Awana program. He would not respond to me at all and was being disruptive to the class. Once I got him talking about professional wrestling, he opened up about what was going on and we could work through some struggles he had. Ministry is done through relationships. Thus, our activities need to be engaging to create those relationships.

In addition, all people tend to be more enthused to learn about topics that are more enjoyable to them. Because of this, we tend to have themes that are kids-friendly. We are doing an animal theme now and we have done a series on candy. Both of these are engaging topics for kids and they are able to have hooks in their minds to the teachings we are trying to relay to them. I still have someone that comes up to me to talk about the idea that mints hide bad breath like we try to hide our sin. The way to get rid of bad breath is to brush our teeth and the way to get rid of our sin is to confess it to God. That was taught back in early December.

Engaging topics and engaging activities help the kids connect with the lesson more and help them remember the main point better. Yes, having fun at church is a good thing but there is a purpose for the fun: to engage the kids with the leaders and with the lessons.