People often ask me which is harder: preaching a sermon or performing stand-up comedy. The answer depends on the week. Both involve standing in front of people with a microphone. Both require preparation. Both involve reading a room. Both involve ideas bring presented to an audience. But they are still both very different. Here’s what preparation looks like for each.

Preparing A Sermon: Start With The Text

When I prepare a sermon, I don’t begin with what I want to say. I begin with what God has already said. I’ll spend hours reading a passage over and over, looking for repeated themes, structure, historical background, theological connections, and how the passage fits into the larger story of Scripture.

Then, I ask, “What’s the main idea of the passage?” This main idea becomes the thread of the sermon that I want to pull throughout the sermon as I go verse by verse through the passage. Now, every story, application, and transition needs to serve the thread of the passage. After I identify the thread to pull throughout the sermon I generally use these 4-parts in every sermon:

• What is the hook of the passage? Why should someone listen? What difference does the passage make in our lives practically?
• Where is the tension of the passage? Where will people object? Why will they object? When will they push back?
• Where is the gospel in the passage? The goal isn’t to leave with a moral code to accomplish. The goal is to see how Jesus rescues us from the weight of the passage so that He is our hope.
• How does the passage lift our eyes to a greater vision? It might be the vision of our church family or our personal lives but I want to draw out the vision of the passage?

Preparing Comedy: I Still Start With A Biblical Idea.

My comedy doesn’t start with a passage in God’s Word, but it does start with biblical ideas. They are just packaged differently. In a sermon, the idea is front and center, but in comedy the idea is smuggled in so the audience never sees it. In fact, my main goal is for the audience to feel like they discovered the biblical ideas on their own. I am not sure I am always able to accomplish this goal in comedy, but that is my end goal.

It doesn’t mean my jokes are “Christian jokes.” It means the moment I let the audience know I am a pastor I am shaping the lens by which they hear everything. It means there is a biblical layer running quietly beneath the entire set.

First, I identify a biblical idea like marriage, money, faith, parenting, etc. Then, I look for inconsistencies in those areas in my life or in our culture. What’s bothersome? What’s frustrating? What’s discouraging?

After that, I want to look for the tension, so that I can create tension for the audience on some level, because laughter comes out of tension. Telling the audience at a comedy club that I am a pastor in the first 10 seconds of being on the stage creates tension.

Next, I start writing out those ideas to create a surprise or a turn for the audience. They know the idea. They are a little uncomfortable with the tension. Then you try to release the tension with a surprise. It’s really hard!

Most of the time I can write all I want but at some point I have to get up at an open mic and see how those words land on an audience. I will show up with 3-minutes of ideas and it’s a success if I can leave with 30 seconds of something that might be funny.

That’s one of the humbling parts of comedy. I may spend an hour writing three minutes, only to discover the audience liked one sentence. Then I go back, rewrite, perform it again, and hopefully build something worth keeping.

The Biggest Difference

In a sermon, I deliver one time. In comedy I will deliver an idea 30 times and maybe on the 50th time I start to see the timing that will make it funny. In a sermon, I don’t always know what lands, but in comedy I know immediately. When I preach, my responsibility is faithfulness to the passage. When I do comedy, my responsibility is to connect with the audience. Those are very different scorecards.

The Biggest Similarity

Oddly enough, both require a deep love for people. If I don’t understand what people fear…What they’re hoping for…What they’re frustrated by…What they’re ashamed of…I’ll struggle in both worlds.

Good preaching applies timeless truth to real people. Good comedy exposes real people to timeless truths about themselves. Both begin with careful observation.

Why I Love Doing Both

Well, sometimes I hate both of them. It can be agonizing to work on something over and over, and then not have the satisfaction of those ideas connecting. But, on Sunday mornings I hope people leave seeing Jesus more clearly. In a comedy show, I hope people leave laughing a little harder at life, and maybe the ideas in the comedy will linger a little longer. Because both remind me that people are searching for hope.

Sometimes hope comes through hearing God’s Word. Sometimes it begins with laughing at ourselves. And every once in a while, those two worlds unexpectedly meet. Those are my favorite moments.