Faith, Comedy, & Authenticity

Things That Matter (Part 1)

Stand-up comedy is a strange thing when you think about it. Seriously, it’s really strange. It’s just a person standing in front of a room full of strangers saying, “Listen to me.” But why? Why should anyone care? Why should anyone listen? What makes that one person’s perspective worth hearing? In many cases it’s this: authenticity.

Richard Pryor put it this way: “I mean, how screwed up a brother I gotta be to stand up in front of a million strangers and say ‘Listen to me’? Yes, stop what you’re doing and listen to me so I can make you laugh—so the sound of your laughing drowns out the voices in my head.”

Comedy, at its best, isn’t just funny—it’s revealing. It’s also distracting, as Pryror notes. But even more, it’s an honest exposure of how we see the world, how we process pain, how we deal with everything life throws at us. It’s not just about the laughs; it’s about why the laughs exist. That’s why authenticity matters. And the audience can feel when a comedian is putting on an act versus when they’re giving them something real. Every single person in the audience is interpreting and they know. And, frankly, they’re pretty good b.s. detectors! Faith works the same way.

Here’s what I mean: The church often isn’t a safe place to be real. It’s supposed to be, but let’s be honest—it’s not. Instead, it’s a place where people perform. I once heard a preacher who’d been at it 30+ years say, “When I didn’t make it in Hollywood in my 20s, I took up preaching because I thought, ‘Hey, at least I’ll have a captive audience each week.’” And he wasn’t joking. He was 100% serious.

When it comes to church, people put on their nice clothes, put on their nice smiles, say all the right things, and make sure no one sees what’s really going on underneath. They leave church and go right back to the things they’d be embarrassed to admit to anyone. It’s a mask, a front, a performance. It’s inauthentic. And it sucks. People know it’s a fraud, so why even bother?

And the ones who actually try to be real? There’s not much space for them. Because the moment someone is truly vulnerable, the moment they stop pretending and start being honest about their struggles, the moment they speak up, the moment they take a stand, they find out real quick that church people don’t always know what to do with that. Now, don’t misread me here. I’m not saying the church should be a place where anything goes—it shouldn’t. But it should be a place where anyone goes. It shouldn’t be a place where everything goes, but it should be a place where everyone goes.

And when people are in church, if the small things are being covered up, you can rest assured the bigger things are, too. And people know this, instinctively. They flat out know it. I’ve been in ministry for decades. Trust me: they know it. And that’s why I was always brutally transparent. And that’s also why it cost me dearly at times.

But that’s also why so many people would rather confess their struggles to a stranger at a bar than to someone in a pew. Because in a bar, there’s no pretense. There’s no need to pretend you’re better than you are. Church, on the other hand, is often a place where weakness is hidden, where struggles are masked, and where you only talk about your problems after you’ve cleaned them up.

Okay, I’ve kinda gone into preacher mode on this comedy site. Let me course correct just a bit with a quote. Author Scott Sedita said this, “The history of the world is made up of groups of people who have faced oppression at some point in time (some more than others). One way to deal with that pain is with a strong sense of humor. The idea is either ‘you die, or you laugh about it.’”

That’s real. That’s human. That’s what makes comedy powerful. And that’s what the church should be but often isn’t—a place where people can be real about what they’re going through. A place where people are given the tools and skills to laugh in the face of sin, pain, hurt, death, and all the other crap we deal with.

That’s why I love comedy. People don’t connect to perfect people. They connect to real people. That’s why, when a comedian gets up and delivers something deeply personal, something that might even feel like a confession, the audience doesn’t recoil—they lean in. They laugh, not just because it’s funny, but because it’s true.

That’s what I want my comedy to be. Not just clever. Not just entertaining. But real. Because if I can’t be authentic on stage, then what’s the point of standing up there at all? And if the church can’t be a place where people can be real, then what exactly are we inviting them into? What a strange question!