When I was about fifteen years old, I decided that religion was a soul-sucking dead-end. This decision was a big shift and it came out of nowhere, as far as I recall.

I’d been a happy churchgoer my entire life, a singer in the Sunday choir, a winner of Bible recitation prizes. In my confirmation class a couple of years previously, I’d declared my intention to be a Methodist preacher when I grew up. My father was the church Choir Director. My mother taught Adult Sunday School. Both of them served on the Administrative Council and Pastor-Parish Relations Committee. It was simply what my family did, and who we were. This was our community.

I don’t know what changed my mind. But I distinctly remember sitting in the choir loft in my red robe and silver stole, being struck by the sudden thought, “This totally sucks.”

Maybe it was simply a part of my teenage defiance. Nothing really wrong, just my individuating need to reject things old and established. I wasn’t particularly troubled by the theology; our nice, middle-of-the-road Methodism was pretty tame, pitching very little that might make anyone uncomfortable. I had no beef with the minister — I really liked Pastor Ginny and I’d loved Pastor Pat before her — both were genuine, kind people and intelligent, dynamic speakers.

The problem (if it was a problem) was that I suddenly realized how bored I was.

Please understand, in my parents’ house, to complain of “boredom” was almost worse than swearing. It was a surefire way to be assigned a chore. Also, to be subjected to a very long lecture on how terribly-wonderfully busy everyone else was, with a thousand examples of things that others were doing and a thousand other things that needed doing. To be bored was to betray a lack of imagination, commitment, responsibility, and vitality. Boredom was antithetical to life and all its purposes.

But there I was in church, bored out of my mind, feeling drained, like my time and attention were being wasted.  I decided that church, anything to do with institutionalized belief systems, was just a drag.  It wasn’t relevant to my interests, my priorities, my needs.  I certainly wasn’t here on the planet to be bored and idle and disengaged!  So as soon as I could get away from it, off at college, I did.   And I found that the vast majority of my friends and contemporaries had outgrown and left their childhood faith.  Church was ancient history.  At best, dusty and irrelevant.  Often, worse, it could be repressive, regressive, and dangerous.

Most people I know today have either discarded organized religion altogether, or they drift in and out of it with a tentative and uneasy feeling about the whole thing. And I get it, totally.

Yet I find myself, now, four decades later, a career minister. Sometimes, it still surprises me.

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I don’t really know what brought me back to church. When Travis and I first stumbled into it again, I’d say that we both were open to spirituality, but definitely not looking for it. If we’d been actively looking, I probably would’ve looked anywhere else but church. So discovering a theology that resonated was a pleasant surprise. The Science of Mind made sense to me, and I found a natural groove with it.

Still, though — I mean — it’s not like these beliefs and practices could only be accessed in a spiritual context. Positive thinking and affirmative self-talk is fairly ubiquitous nowadays in everything from psychology to the arts to corporate culture. One doesn’t need “church” to feel connected, empowered, and alive.

Neither was it a matter of salvation or worries about eternal life or anything like that. I like what Emma Curtis Hopkins said: “Our souls don’t need saving, they need to be made visible.” And absolutely I believe that we can experience and express our soulfulness in any number of different contexts. Quite frankly, it seems like organized religion often is the least hospitable place for honest heart and soul. So not that, either…

I think, mostly, it was just community. I like community. I believe in it. And I was feeling an urge to make a bigger commitment to being a part of something, together.

It might easily have been something else — my neighborhood association, a yoga class, or theater. I suppose it was those things, too.

But there’s just something special about a regular gathering for the sole purpose of opening our hearts to something great and good, something of which we are all a part. Community itself is my religion. Relationship, Togetherness, is my spirituality.

And the main thing that made it possible for me to experience that again in a church-y context was my realization that it didn’t have to be boring. It could be FUN. In fact, it’s supposed to be fun. I’ll go so far to say that if we’re not having fun, we’re probably doing it wrong.

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Considering church and fun, I got the idiom in my head — “more fun than a barrel of monkeys.” After a while, it began to trouble me. Because the more I thought about it, the less fun a barrel of monkey sounded. A barrel of monkeys sounded pretty freaking nightmarish.

So I looked it up.  And, for sure, it’s a little twisted.  While by the mid-twentieth century, the phrase was being used to describe a delightful and rowdy chaos, a rollicking romp, originally it didn’t mean that at all.  Originally, “more fun than a barrel of monkeys” meant decidedly not fun.  First recorded in the 1840s as “more fun than a cage of monkeys,” then later as “a wagon-load of monkeys,” it was intended as sarcasm and irony.  

Screeching primates confined together in a cramped space. Turning on each other. Trapped. BORED.

It’s tricky. How to bring us monkeys together, celebrating both our individuality and our deep connectedness? In any context — social, political, systemic, creative, familial, religious…

A few weeks ago, I talked about prioritizing play. This week, I’m still at it, thinking maybe we need to prioritize fun. To make our enjoyment of each other, with each other, our number one aim. Even when it’s noisy together, when we’re confused and frightened, when it feels like the barrel we’re in is rolling downhill to who-knows-where. Maybe especially then.

Fun is self-care. And having fun together may be one of the most important reasons for organized spirituality right now. If we’re not having fun, let’s do it differently.

I can’t wait to be with you this Sunday, April 6, 10:00am. With the divine Patty Stephens. XO, Drew

©2025 Drew Groves