Colliding Ducks: My Standup Comedy and My Christian Faith

Currently, I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well. Anxiety about fulfilling my dreams keeps me awake. Last night I stayed up till 1am obsessively researching for my standup comedy.

Yes, you read that right. One of my ducks not in a row, that I’m trying to train to walk, swim, and fly is my standup comedy duck.

For years I wanted to explore standup comedy. I wrote sitcoms, made my family laugh, had people gathered around me at parties laughing at my stories (when I wasn’t huddled by the food eating my weight in cheese spread and avoiding eye contact with people).

This last February I took a standup comedy class—all women, all hilarious. In April, we performed a showcase at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank. We got all dressed up. People laughed. People cheered. It was a blast.

Ever since the showcase I’ve been on this journey. I performed at a gallery. Now, coming soon, I’ll be performing again at Flappers. Shows are coming my way.

The trouble is my whole life what I read, the way I think, and simply how I live is influenced by my Christian faith. I have jokes about the church and the Bible that are so funny to me. However, the setup takes too long; you try explaining Church culture and or Biblical cultural context to a group of standup comedy fans, within a five-minute set. It’s downright impossible.

Still, this Christian faith thing is another one of my ducks—it’s part of who I am. To share my life as a comic I have to share my Christian faith. These ducks are colliding whether I like it or not.

The truth is, I’m afraid to share that I’m a Christian (let alone a trained Pastor) because I know some churches, and some Christians have caused so much pain and suffering. People are wounded. They’re angry.

I get it. I don’t blame people for being angry—even if the anger is directed at me who didn’t do anything to them, I get it.

I also don’t like anger aimed at me. And as a standup comedian, I want to be able to make people laugh, not rage.

Another truth is I’m angry too. I’m angry at how much the church has hurt people by teaching things that are not Biblical at all. I’m angry at all the people who’ve left not knowing that it’s not the Christian faith they’re really mad at, it’s how the church (and or family), they happened to be at taught it. It makes me so mad that the church is treated like this one unified thing as if we’re all teaching the same Gospel. We’re not.

Lastly, I’m angry that I’m made into a stereotype that’s just not me.

I’m not someone who’s trying to save people, who’d ever preach Hellfire and Brimstone, I’m not going to tell you not to dance, drink, or call anyone a sinner (though Biblically, that last one is true for us all).

My faith background is very different than any stereotype.

I grew up in a family that valued Church, as long as it was a place, we were reminded we’re loved by a loving God. Church wasn’t some program one had to get through to go to Heaven. My parents gave me and my sister freedom to believe and practice faith as we felt worked for us (which worked really well to keep us in faith). Whenever we came home from camp, school, youth group feeling shamed for not being “good enough” to be Christians, my parents quickly debunked any of this “shame-based” theology. They taught me to be stubborn, to believe, we’re loved by God, that shame had no place in church. I went to Seminary—trained to be a pastor— because I believe the church is valuable. I believe the church can be a place of healing if we keep God’s unconditional love front and center.

But how do I get a standup comedy audience to see all that about me, in five minutes?

I don’t even get five minutes to share about all this, it’s more like 30 seconds. Because if I don’t get it done quickly, the room could simply become too tense and too quiet that no one’s going to laugh for the rest of the time. Or I could very well get heckled.

I’ve heard people say, and I admit I’ve done this, make fun of the church. Well, here’s the thing, I don’t want to reinforce the stereotype that the church is evil. Like I said, I value what church can be. I know the church can be something amazing.

In Seminary, through study, and through my own faith journey I’ve learned so much that debunks shame-based theology and replaces it with a hope-based theology. I want others to know this hope. I want people to know the healing power of God’s love. But preaching during standup is frowned upon. For good reason.

Preaching doesn’t honor what the audience is experiencing. As a standup comedian (and as a preacher too) I need to be able to make what I say relatable. That’s the real trick. How do I relate to people who think, feel, and experienced life so differently than I did?

These next few weeks I will be thinking about all this, hopefully not losing too much sleep. I’m sure there will be some lost sleep. But I’m going to find a way to be me, a Christian who loves the church and a hilarious standup comedian.