Free book on humor

Is humor a forgotten area of Christian ministry? Leslie Flynn’s classic book is one of only a handful on this subject published in the past 50 years. When this book was first published, back in 1960, the church was a much more formal institution. Along with the rest of society, we have all loosened up somewhat since then! Humor is certainly used far more widely these days within Christian ministry. And the therapeutic role of humor in health, both mental and physical, has been proven by clinical trials. The message of the book is remarkably undated, and it remains highly relevant today. It remains the only book which covers the entire subject in depth. Flynn is a highly-professional and clearly focused writer whose starting point is a firm conservative evangelical position.

Despite the changes of the last half-century, I am not sure that the church as a whole understands the biblical context, indeed mandate, to use humor. And many find it very hard to perceive the extent to which humor and whimsy is embedded into the vast majority of the books of the Bible. The cultural and linguistic gap between us and the books of the Old and New Testaments can prevent us understanding the frequent use of irony, whimsy, word-play and puns. We expect no humor, so we see none.

This is tragic, because humor has a remarkable role, especially in evangelism. It is a way of smuggling truth past people’s defenses into their hearts. It should be seen as an integral part of effective Christian communication and proclamation.

• More about humor – including other humor books and links
• Book recommendations – on other topics, including other free e-books

Download the book

The book is offered in several formats for all needs and computer platforms. Each file is easily printed on American or European standard paper sizes, and is set with 10pt main text, giving a book of about 75 pages, or about 57 pages if you do not print the appendix. It is also easy to save these files on your hard disk, or memory stick, for later reading. If there is a book format that would be helpful to you, but is not offered here, please suggest it.

• PDF format, 700k
  Right-click to save to a chosen directory on your hard disk, or to a memory stick, etc. Left-click to view within Acrobat Reader (a free download if you do not have it), after which you can also click the 'save a copy' icon at top-left of Acrobat toolbar. Note that you can navigate between the different chapters and sections by clicking on Acrobat's vertical tab Bookmarks which gives clickable navigation within the document.

  Click here to download Serve Him with Mirth as PDF file

• MS WORD
  You can download the book in safe virus-checked WORD format (600k file), which can be read by MS Word, or the free Open Office, or WORD Viewer. Right-click to save in a chosen directory, or left-click to view immediately.

  Click here to download Serve Him with Mirth as WORD file.

• RTF page
  If you cannot read WORD files, this RTF file is readable by any word-processory on any operating system. Appearance may not be quite so good, and page breaks may sometimes appear in unhelpful places. Save this 375k file to a suitable directory on your computer, or onto a diskette.

  Click here to download Serve Him with Mirth as RTF file

• Microsoft e-book format
  If your computer or portable device has Microsoft Reader installed, download the 294k file here.

  Click here to download Serve Him with Mirth in Microsoft e-book format

• HTML page
  The book is also available as a single long web-page – a printer-friendly conversion from the WORD document. To save the page, select file > save on your browser toolbar, and save this 600k file in a convenient location.

  Click here to download Serve Him with Mirth as HTML file