Admittedly, I am ambivalent about your group of people. I absolutely know that applying the skills used in stand-up would transform the effectiveness of your messaging. However, I also absolutely understand the consequences. This is a question of morality. Power corrupts.

I grew up surrounded by church ‘culture’: services four times a week, bible camp, youth conventions, revival meetings, and PTL (Praise the Lord) constantly on the television. There are so many parallels between evangelists and comedians it’s crazy that more evangelicals (like Bill Hicks and Sam Kinison) haven’t transitioned to stand-up.

Evangelists dismiss other Evangelists as corny and derivative, and I know for a fact that they call each other hack. 

  1. They believe preaching is something they were ‘meant’ to do. 
  2. There’s a low bar for entry.
  3. They believe God speaks through them – specifically. 
  4. They believe they’re important and the world should hear them. 
  5. The more God speaks through them the more famous they deserve to be. 
  6. They tour.
  7. They secretly watch everyone else and cherry pick what they like. 
  8. But don’t attribute.
  9. They reject the idea there are psychological mechanisms behind the whole ‘moving people in the spirit of the lord’. So they pretend it just happens. Because God. 
  10. They don’t get better. They do one thing over and over again and call it ‘my brand’. 
  11. They ‘find it on stage’. 
  12. The small group who discover stagecraft practice for hours. 
  13. Most don’t.
  14. The best speak at 92bpm. (Even Sam Kinison when preaching at the end of his life.) 
  15. They use ‘us’ and ‘them’ as a premise.
  16. They’re obsessed with ‘followers’.
  17. They do call and response.
  18. They have routines and bits.
  19. They avoid taxes.
  20. They’re competitive.
  21. If they become famous but their moment comes to an end, they simply believe the world has become more Satanic.

In my generation the top tele-evangelists were Jimmy Swaggart (Jerry Lee Lewis’ cousin), Jim Bakker, Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copland, Billy Graham, everyone on PTL and I got to see these great performers live. I mean, seriously… what a great training ground for a comedy director. I still check in with evangelists from time to time, I like to keep my hand in and I have to say, even mega church pastors could sure benefit from having a director.

What are you Christians waiting for?