Shannon Keeley and Brian Gibson at Times and Seasons have an excellent post about lines of dialogue that creep into our personal relationships from mutually enjoyed movies and TV shows. Even beyond that, let me suggest that inside jokes are the glue that holds any group together. From family, to friends, to work associates, to church members, the ability to share a knowing laugh and smile over some past experience is the foundation for the fond memories that make it more desirable to work out a problem than to just split.
I've got different sets of inside jokes with different people, and I consciously work to build up a secret repertoire of humor with anyone I care about being close to. There's almost nothing more intimate than tossing out an apparently benign comment to a group of listeners and seeing the one for whom it was intended crack a smile or break into laughter. There's us, and then there's the rest of the world. They don't get it, and they never will. It's like telepathy, getting inside someone's head and curling up for a nice long stay.
Well, maybe.
There's a time and a place for inside jokes but one time and one place isn't ever church. All interactions within a church setting should be transparent as a witness to the fact that we are in fellowship with all believers, not just our friends.
JT: Nah. Plus, you can have inside jokes among church members, which is mostly what I was talking about.
If they are truly inside jokes where no one gets hurt, fine. But I've been in countless situations in the church where a church member will say something that a few friends get and then the joker will announce to everyone, including those the joker isn't friends with, that "this is an inside joke" -- leaving the non-friends hurt and embarrased. One of the main complaints I hear from church folks is of being left out or ignored by other church members. Church is worship and fellowship, not a private club.
JT: I doubt many people feel very hurt or embarrassed just because they don't get an inside joke, unless they joke is at their expense of course, which isn't very nice at all.
Our favorite family inside movie line is:
When someone says they can do this, or this, or that, we add:
"Or I can make a hat. Or a brooch. Or a pterodactyl!"
Neither of my kids have seen Airplane, of course, but I told them the joke once and they thought it uproariously funny so it's stayed in the family lingo...
Dun Dun Dun