A laughing matter Iowa congregation reaches out with laughter club Earlier this year the congregation I serve—Our Savior Lutheran in Lansing, Iowa—made history by holding what we believe is the first church laughter club meeting in Iowa. That’s right: a laughter club.
The next morning he went to the park where he knew he could find other health-conscious people. He asked four of them to start a laughter club with him, and within a few days the group had grown to more than 50. In the beginning everybody stood in a circle while one person came to the center to crack a joke or tell a humorous anecdote. Participants had fun and felt the benefits all day. But after about two weeks the stock of good jokes ran out and the sexist and off-color humor emerged. Two women were offended and complained. It was clear that an alternative to jokes had to be found if the club were to survive. He told everyone to come back the next day to try a new method. That evening Kataria re-read the research on laughter and found the answer he was looking for: The human mind doesn’t know how to distinguish between fake and genuine laughter. Either way it produces happy chemistry. He created a routine in which people simply laugh for no reason. His wife, Madhuri, a yoga teacher, suggested adding gentle yoga breathing to deepen the impact of the exercise. Thus they invented a method they named “laughter yoga.” What started with five people in 1995 has grown into a worldwide movement of more than 5,000 clubs. After learning about laughter’s preventive and therapeutic values—like boosting the immune system and removing the negative effects of stress—I approached Our Savior’s council about starting a laughter club as a health ministry we could open to the community. They sent me to Los Angeles to be trained as a certified laughter yoga leader. Our first meeting was announced in two area newspapers and by word of mouth. A dozen people—including several from other congregations and a couple from a neighboring town—gathered at the church and laughed for a half hour, the typical length of a laughter session. There were three times as many the next week, and within weeks we outgrew the church and moved to the Lansing Community Center. Member Gene Scott said if people regularly attended a laughter club “they’d see a big difference in their day-to-day living. It really relieves stress.” Quipped member Don Thran: “I’m surprised how quickly our laughter club has taken off. It’s a good ice-breaker for people to get to know one another. It’s such a fantastic outreach that it’s hardly a laughing matter.” Our Savior is proud to be known as the laughing church. We’ve even changed our church Web site to www.laughinglutherans.com. No kidding. |
.jpg)
Join the discussion
Type your comments in the form below and click [add comments]
Please keep your comments brief and on-topic. We reserve the right to edit or remove inappropriate entries. E-mail lutheran@thelutheran.org with any problems or questions.
