The casual sometime of the Helsinki parish gathers a lot of praise. The purpose of the humorous approach is to both delight and narrow the gap between man and the church.
Usually people’s image of the church is serious, sacred, and conservative. It would be less often described by the adjective “humorous”.
The Helsinki Hague Parish challenges this traditional image of the church on social media.
Funny throws and funny memes as well as animations are everyday food on the parish’s Twitter account. In the account, the congregation often takes a stand on everyday things like snow work or whether or not a pineapple belongs to the church.
Style like. There are constantly new followers, and currently there are already close to 2,300 of them. Compared to many other Finnish congregations, the number is exceptionally large.
Praise also rains. They can be read, for example, on Twitter in people’s publications, but some come in the form of feedback directly to the congregation.
“We get a lot of feedback, and it’s almost exclusively positive. People and Twitter users have greeted us terribly kindly and feel like they’re there. It is nice to be there when the messages are like this, ”says the priest of The Hague Ward Sami Lahtinen.
Lahtinen is one of the active updates to her Twitter account.
“I understand from the feedback that many find it therapeutic that the church works this way. Especially the slightly older people may have had different experiences with the church. ”
Twitter account is still quite young. Lahtinen recalls that it would have opened in 2019.
“We didn’t start with what we have or what we should say, but we’re more concerned about what kind of place some are. It was also thought about what some need and what we could bring there. We don’t want to complicate people’s lives, but humor and joy are the thing. ”
Lahtinen himself compares something nice to going to a local pub.
“It may not be worth opening a discussion on all topics there. You will enjoy yourself there and get a good feeling. ”
Humor is also important in the Hague parish because it makes people feel like they are living in the same reality as the church.
“When we see the same traits and experience this in the same way, it becomes an experience that the Church lives in the same world.”
Moment of surprise brings extra spice to humor.
“After all, the image of the church is a bit striking, solemn and valuable. It serves as our resource, ”says Lahtinen.
Even everyday humor feels more fun when presented by an unlikely party.
“If I threw the same stuff out of my own account, it wouldn’t be as fun.”
However, The Hague Congregation is not the only or the first more traditional body to use humor in the world. For example, the urban environment of Helsinki With a Twitter account is used to seeing humorous updates as well In the Finnish channels of the tax administration.
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