"Fun" Church

I recently ran across a social media post about a local church that was starting a new year push for attendance with a promotion using various fictional characters such as Buzz Lightyear, Bo Peep, and others. One of the comments in the post had this to say. "We make church fun because we want to introduce everyone to Jesus because of what He has done in our lives."

While churches certainly can do whatever they think best without any interference from me, I have to wonder if the goal of having church is to make it fun. Maybe I'm old school, but it seems to me that church that is fun may well be church that is shallow in substance and reality.

I'm thinking, and this is only my humble opinion (IMHO on social media), that church should be a place where, among other things, humble, sinful, and contrite human beings, trembling, approach the footstool and throne of a holy and unfathomable God, thanking Him for the righteousness imputed to them through the holy sacrifice of the very Begotten Son of this same God.

I'm not cognizant of any way that church can be fun and also be what I've just described. There's no fun in admitting my brokenness to God and to other humans. There's no fun in knowing that Jesus Christ took my unrighteousness to the Cross and gave me His righteousness in the place of my unrighteousness. There's no fun in approaching the footstool of a righteous God in naked reverence and righteous fear with nothing to offer except the blood of Jesus.

Church also is a place of acceptance, safety, celebration, fellowship, renewal, thanksgiving, praise, and spiritual growth. It is, or should be all of this and even more. But to describe all of this as being fun is, in my mind, reducing all of the greatness of God's revealed mystery into something that entertains and takes our minds off of the reality of our brokenness and depravity for a short time.

Can there be times and periods of fun in church life? Of course. Fellowship, activities together, and even classes can have times of fun and enjoyment. But we must always have as the underpinning of our faith the reality of the God of the universe so desiring relationship and fellowship with his creation that he offered himself in righteous sacrifice in order to make that happen.

To do any less is, in my mind, to cheapen church and “trample underfoot the Son of God.” May God help us all.