One of the core values at The Crossroads Community Church is fun. Alright, officially, it is, "Do everything with joy." We believe being a follower of Jesus Christ means having "unspeakable joy" and it should be expressed in everything we do. So we have a really good time with each other and in our relationship with God and in serving him and in our weekly worship.
So, I got to thinking about the value of communicating God's message with joy. There are lots of different styles of preaching. There's loud, red in the face, fire and brimstone preaching. There's somber, liturgical, appeals to the reason type of preaching. There's impassioned, vision-casting, challenge people to commit type of preaching. There's emotion filled, broken-hearted style preaching. There's all kinds of preaching, and there is certainly value to many of them.
But the one I'm really digging is fun in preaching. I guess I thought about it because of the message series we are involved in right now. Pillow Talk is about how to have the satisfying, fulfilling, amazing sex life that God wants you to have. And we are having lots of fun with it. We are dealing with a pretty sensitive subject, and touching on lots of sensitive issues in the midst of it, stuff like sexual dysfunction, sexual tension in a marriage, bad sex, what's appropriate when it comes to sex, sexual addiction, sexual sin, the burdens of a sexual past, getting through all of this stuff to a satisfying sex life in marriage. It's pretty heavy stuff.
But we are injecting a good deal of humor and fun and lightheartedness in the midst of the heavy stuff. Don't get me wrong, we are in no way making light of the beauty and the sacredness of sex or of the seriousness of sexual sin. We just soften some of the blows by balancing serious stuff with humor.
And what I am finding is that humor opens the door into people's hearts so that they let some of the more serious stuff in. For example, this week, I addressed the men in the audience. I talked to them about how, as men, we often bring a lot of pride to the issue of sex within our marriages. We feel like we are sexual gods and if there is something wrong with our sex lives, it must mean there is something wrong with our wives. We feel like men are just supposed to know about sex. As a result, many a wife goes around extremely dissatisfied, and maybe even resentful of her sexual relationship. Pretty heavy stuff. But we used humor to approach the subject, and as a result, the men went away delighted with the message.
The men took away two principles from the message: #1 I need to love, honor, and cherish my wife 24/7 if I want her to take delight in our sex life. #2 I have to become the expert at knowing what pleases my wife. Awesome principles that they were incredibly receptive to because we had fun.
The Bible says "A cheerful heart is good medicine" (Prov. 17:22), or in the words of Mary Poppins, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." The truth of God's word is the medicine that many sick souls needs. If we at times present that truth with joy, fun, energy, and excitement, it may be just the opportunity for the seeker to open their heart to the incredible message of life and hope found in Jesus Christ.
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