In his entry Slow Train: Halloween SE project, Rene (rhetorically) asks "is it OK to have fun and do ministry?"
Me, I would almost go so far as to ask the opposite: is it OK to NOT have fun and do ministry? Some of the sad, tired, dull and ... things I have been to as part of Church life would have been better to have not happened. There has to be an element of celebration and joy in most ministry or what are we saying about God?
Even in situations where there does not seem to be much chance for hope I have still experienced good times, helping prepare breakfasts for the homeless at the Whitechapel Mission.
I do not believe or want to say that all ministry/all of life is fun. We can all think of times and places where we are rightly moved to very different emotions be they compassion, sadness, anger or shame. But key and cause of them all is love, the love that creates, saves and sustains us, love that lights up lives.
When the Church is serious about love then we will see it's activities are loving to God, themselves and others - fun is a much more appropriate description than many others.
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