A new friend, Bill Christian, and I were discussing the healthy effect of laughter and how it can be an antidote to taking yourself too seriously. Since I am interested in how judicatories and congregations can support our church leadership, we began to brainstorm how a presbytery could nurture health through laughter.
He recalled a visit with an elderly parishioner who made the comment that the funniest things that happen at church you can’t laugh about. This triggered a short time of telling stories to each other about funny things that have happened to us in church. What we realized after a very short time was how enjoyable it was to share such stories.
This got us to thinking about how it could be done at a presbytery meeting. My suggestion as an experiment would be this. Have the people in the meeting cluster in small groups right in the meeting place of not more than four or five participants. Spend about 15-20 minutes recalling some of the funny experiences that each have experiencede in the church. Then pick out one to share with the entire group. This way everyone would get a chance to share but without taking an enormous amount of time, the whole group could experience some of the classic stories.
I’m sure there are more details to be worked out but I think an experience like this might help people transcend ideological divides and sense a new form of community.
