The 80-year-old elder met me at the door and said, “I just have to say…” and I braced myself. That’s not usually the start to a good sentence. But when he said, “I bet you could make the flu funny,” I almost kissed his feet. Because if you were to tell me I am a funny preacher, I would be tempted to bow at your feet. (But I won’t because, you know…BLASPHEMY!)
I want to be a lot of things as a preacher. But, clear, concise, and hilarious are among my main goals when it comes to preaching the gospel. I can make a pretty good case that Jesus told jokes too, so, don’t get too uptight on me. Not every preacher is funny. (I know—I’ve met some of you!) But you don’t always have to be either. The goal of being funny in a sermon isn’t to have people tell you that you’re hilarious. The goal of humor is to break tension, keep their attention, and draw a point to a much bigger, far more important moment.
Personally, I’ve spent my entire life trying to be funny. I don’t know if it’s deflection or pain, but humor is a wildly large portion of my personality. (I get old. Quick.) Admittedly, I fail more than I succeed. After all, there’s a reason one of my distinct memories of my grandfather is him walking away and muttering, “Everything is funny to that boy…” So. It would make sense that over my life, my dad established the “Rules to Being Funny.” And honestly, if you are a preacher/communicator/teacher, these are so helpful. (And someday, Dad, I swear, I’ll listen.)
RULE #1 – Part of Being Funny Is Being Unpredictable.
This one is key. I inherited my dad’s sense of humor, but it didn’t take long for my youthful exuberance and unhealthy craving for attention to combine with his humor and get old, fast. So time and time again, after a failed repeat of an already-tired joke, he would say, “Ben, part of being funny is being unpredictable.” I would add, “To the point where it’s predictably hilarious!” (He still doesn’t think so.)
If every week, I make the same joke—one of my old standbys is, “First service thought that was funnier”—people will expect it and it can become a distraction. (Worse—they won’t laugh!)
Additionally, if the point of humor is to keep people’s attention, I will lose them if there is a “line” where the jokes end and the content begins. Interweaving jokes and quips help to keep people knowing that there is an “unpredictability” to what is happening. Not in a wild, or dangerous sense, but more in a way that keeps their attention. I write manuscript but take only a keyword list onto the stage with me. This gives me the freedom to improvise and add, but it proves dangerous if my comedian side “gets on a roll.” It takes practice to know when/where to add humor and keep it unpredictable.
“Interweaving jokes and quips help to keep people knowing that there is an ‘unpredictability’ to what is happening.”
My all-time best joke I have ever told from a sermon comes from an illustration at a grocery store. I’m tall (6’3” after the chiropractor) and I was talking about how often sweet little old ladies will ask me to help with an item off the top shelf. Suddenly, inspiration struck and I dropped this gem: “So I do what any good Christian would do, I grab her by the waist and lift her up to reach it!” No one expects that line. The unpredictability is what makes an already silly image hilarious.
RULE #2 – Part of being funny is knowing when to quit.
While the goal is to keep things unpredictable, there has to be a time when the jokes quit. (Admittedly, it’s still a lesson I am learning.) When you get into meat and potatoes, when it comes down to the brass tacks—when you start realizing that you have too many idioms in your repertoire—those are the moments that you must buckle down and cut the funny. Sometimes, I have sneaked one in to get a few smirks, but as I grow older, I have realized that those moments are too important to throw away with cheap jokes that may get a few laughs. Know when to quit. Know that you want to leave them wanting more. Another famous saying of my grandfather was, “Little bit of this goes a long way…” and it applies to humor in our sermons. 
As a rule, I almost never write jokes on the last two pages (I write five pages or so, manuscript). And I try very hard not to improvise them in those final minutes either. Sometimes, the unpredictable nature of a joke in a serious moment gets a good laugh, but the question comes—at what cost? When it’s time to nail down an application, when it’s time to really push the invitation, those aren’t the times for a quick ego boost. (I am preaching to myself here!)
“While the goal is to keep things unpredictable, there has to be a time when the jokes quit.”
RULE #3 – If you have to explain it, then it wasn’t funny.
Almost every Sunday there is at least one vague reference to The Office. Once in a while, I quote memes and other TikTok trends that I know only three people will get. When there are jokes that not everyone gets, I’ve learned that I don’t need to stop and bring other people along for the joke; I just need to move on.
One of the tensions between my dad and me comes from this rule. I like to tell him just because HE didn’t get it, doesn’t make it not funny. (He never finds that funny.) Not every audience member will get every joke, but jokes need to be mostly accessible if you expect them to be effective. Inside jokes (“I like inside jokes, I hope to be a part of one someday…”) are terrible sermon material.
So I try, as a rule, to make my humor pretty general, things that a guest and long-time member alike would get. I don’t usually name names or say, “Everyone remembers the time Mike…” because I want most of my humor to be universal. (Even if people still don’t laugh.) But I have long learned not to expect everyone to laugh, and not to expect everyone to get it. Just because there wasn’t a laugh break doesn’t mean the humor didn’t strike.
“Just because there wasn’t a laugh break doesn’t mean the humor didn’t strike.”
Again, not everything needs to be explained. I had a friend who was preaching on a tough topic one week, and a famous preacher had “tweeted” about it. I sent it to him. He said, “I can’t use it; not only do I have to explain to my people who that is, but I also have to explain what Twitter is!” No, he didn’t. He could have just said, “Someone once said…” and moved along. Not everything needs fully explained.
If people laugh, great. if I pause for a laugh and get nothing, I can just move on and get to what matters. My goal isn’t humor, it’s life transformation. The point of my time on stage is connection, concision, and transformation. Humor just plays a role in getting us where we want to go.
Because the goal of preaching is never our egos. It’s never, “Come hear how funny he is!” The ultimate goal is preaching Christ crucified, to transform lives, to make disciples who make disciples. And whatever means can help us get there, the better.
