Church for clowns and other holy misfits
The Monthly Playground
Once a month, on a perfectly average Saturday, something entirely not-average happens.
A group of us - the motley crew, the odd socks, the loud laughers and soft criers - gather in a room somewhere above the streets of Sydney. And we play. We fall over, we make weird faces, we stare too long into each other’s eyes, we giggle at farts, we gasp at beauty. It’s called The Monthly Playground, and it’s technically a clown class. But let’s be honest: it’s church.
I didn’t say that first. One of the regulars did. She looked around the room one day before class, her eyes shiny and her heart open, and said, “This feels like church.”
And she wasn’t wrong.
It’s a spiritual experience, this kind of play. A quiet rebellion against the fast-paced productivity agenda. A coming home to the self: the weird, wonky, wonderful self that rarely gets an invite anywhere.
Here, we show up exactly as we are: beautifully unhinged and full of yearning. We reach toward something we don’t quite have words for: grace? truth? transcendence? - through absurdity. We flirt with the divine using red noses and ridiculousness.
I look around the room, and I see misfits clawing at humanity like it’s the last Tim Tam bickie. Eyes wide. Hearts open. Trying not to try. Reaching toward connection like it’s salvation.
We play like it matters. And it does.
It’s messy, and often confusing
Someone always ends up crying. Sometimes from laughter. Sometimes not. And there’s always this moment, somewhere in the middle, when time melts, and something bigger than all of us takes over.
Call it clown. Call it presence. Call it Spirit with a capital S.
Whatever it is, it’s holy.
Not the boring kind. Not the sit-still-and-be-good kind.
The kind that flips tables. The kind that weeps and dances and belly-laughs at the madness of it all.
This isn’t church as punishment.
This is church as poetry.
The poetry of nonsense.
As communion.
As collective catharsis.
We offer up our confusion like a prayer.
We stumble toward wonder like pilgrims.
We confess, not our sins, but our silliness.
We worship through play.
And when it’s over, we’re a little more human.
A little more cracked open.
A little more willing to look someone in the eye and say, “I see you” (and, you see me).
Amen and ahahaha.
See you next month, ding-dongs. The altar awaits.
Come feel the holy stupidity yourself
Clown Church happens quarterly - a gathering, not a performance.
Once every season, the doors open and the work spills out - raw, ridiculous, and real.
This is where the fools from The Monthly Playground and the public offer up what they’ve discovered: glimpses of truth wrapped in nonsense.
We don’t promise polish. We promise presence.
Witness the holy mess.
No script. No stage. Just souls in red noses reaching for something honest.