So a pastor walks into a comedy club…

That is a lead up to a great joke, I’m sure of it. But over the past year it has been my life!

“Laughter is the body vomiting joy.”

Daniel Simonsen, Norwegian comedian

I finally decided to write this post after months of thinking about it! I felt the push after going to 3 very different, very unique, comedy shows and venues over the past 2 weeks. People started asking me questions about this new ‘practice’, so I knew it was time to share some thoughts on what I was doing over the past year…

Back in October 2024 I decided I would go see one of my favourite comedians I discovered online. I was not originally planning on making a habit or a practice out of going to see comedians, but that slowly became the case. It wasn’t my first time going to Rumor’s but it had been awhile, and as with many things, I went with other people. This time I went alone, and as you saw in my other posts, that also was a purposeful venture. If you can imagine the inner monologue, I felt inspired to go to this one event, looked around the living room and realised my kids all had a life, and other than church, I didn’t have much of one. That sounds dramatic, but believe me, it was pretty comedic to me!

So I went and saw this comedy show and quickly realized it was something I would do again. So I did.

In pastoral leadership, really in anything where we work with people, we can easily simplify the outlook and the message of the classic Greek theatre masks: Tragedy and Comedy. The masks were literally worn on stage to display the correct emotion for the moment portrayed and for many came to represent how we interpret a story or a situation at hand. For the historians out there, this is of course where we get the word ‘hypocrite’, the actor having 2 faces on stage. As one writer shared on the topic, and it has stuck with me for the majority of my time working with the church, tragedy and comedy overlap and are often found in the same place.

I resonate with that last statement. And over the past year I also realized that the best comedians were able to overlap those 2 sentiments well.

“I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.”

George Carlin

After a few visits to these comedy clubs, sometimes going as often as 3 times a month, I made a practice of watching and learning:

• Taking note of the mechanics of stage presence.
• ‘Riffing’ was acceptable, but it could not be the only thing. (What’s riffing? A tangent that is off-script but connects to what was said.)
• Observing how the audience moved back and forth from spectator to participant, and how the comedian orchestrated it all. Or didn’t and was visibly shaken when they didn’t know how to move forward.
• Watching how the trend of ‘crowd work’ impacts different comedians. Some seem to only have crowd work in their repertoire, others will pepper it into their show, and most just have no time for it.
• Telling the difference between those who had mastered how to recover when there was a full on disruption to their planned set, and those who had not.
• Seeing some who had done this for a long time and were merely resting on the laurels of their past achievements, relying on the crowd to just love them while not doing anything new.
• Crossing the line? Plenty of it. As one who crosses the line pretty easily, this was one I homed in on. I put them in 2 camps:
  • Those who cross the line on topics using observational humour, just to make sure they crossed the line.
  • Those who crossed the line and did something with it.
  • OK, a third category. The good ones, and there are a few of them out there, took the entire group to a different place of challenge and understanding on both sides of the line.
• My favourites? There were a few who weaved a story into an entire set and you could hear and see the entire room discover it happened to them at the end.
• There was an actual moment of awe in some cases. The crowd would linger on those nights, truly wanting to speak with the person behind the act.

OK, for you preachers reading this right now, take a moment and go back over that list: Did you see yourself? Did you see someone else? (I know I did)

Recently I almost walked out on a show. I knew a bit of what I was getting into, I just didn’t anticipate how a certain ideology personified in this person would impact me. It occurred to me at about the half point that I had not laughed for some time, and I was not with the crowd on this one. There was a lot of easy laughs, inside jokes, and creating safe space for a certain likemindedness. It occurred to me that as a spectator I was definitely a participant, something we all forget at some level. My expectations were not met and I spent the rest of the hour evaluating my motives, especially as a person who goes into this environment not easily offended. I discovered at a very minimalistic level I could divide the crowds into 2 groups:

1. Reactive – They need to agree with everything and expect the person up front to say what they want, the way they want it. There is no crossing the line. The comedian is viewed as an ‘apologist’ or ‘politician’ seeking agreement.
2. Responsive – Other crowds could see their own inconsistencies being pointed out, ideas shared that were not in their beliefs or ideologies, and expected the comedian to make them participate in what was happening.

And yes, both those groups could be in the room at the same time. That last show stood out so plainly to me because only one group was present. The best comedians made sure both groups were attentive and listening.

Comedians tend to speak in generalisations and leave the specifics to the crowd to work out on their own. When jokes or stories are specific and personal, they adapt the delivery to apply in as broad a pattern as possible. The reactive crowd responded in a way that asked for a specific meaning and delivery. The responsive crowd would interact with what they could and would seemingly draw out subtext and subversive messaging.

You might say some wanted a direct and explicit punchline, others liked the pathway where you couldn’t see beyond the next turn.

Some of the obvious lessons were things most often talked about by comedians when asked:

• Don’t punch down. Easy targets outside the majority are not considered good comedy. You get an easy laugh from those who want to go there, but it isn’t comedy.
• No pedestals. The comedians that did not present their weaknesses and biases were part of that first group, and they became spokespeople rather than part of the general humanity in the room.
• That last one would often lead to grandstanding. Once the act became a campaign, the room shifted.
• Don’t insult your audience’s intelligence. They may take some things personally, but don’t anticipate stupidity.

There are more but they start to get specific to different shows and individuals. Those 3 general observations stuck with me as I reflected, especially as I saw myself as an outsider.

“Even comedians know when their jokes bomb.”

An older pastor in a critique of my stage presence almost 20 years ago

As a comedic person I understand the difficulty of sharing deep meaning in a humorous setting. Honing this craft, to not simply add a joke in order to fill time or space before a bigger point, but actually wrestling with the place of comedy and tragedy together in the same space. At the same time, being flexible to the moment and being able to ‘riff’ when the moment arises. To understand the value of a good joke, without being viewed as a joke, or causing the participants to miss the point. It requires attention and practice to be malleable in the moment, especially when it is not going well.

So a pastor walks into a comedy club…for a year…and learns a lot about himself, his craft, and why he loves comedy.