I’m a bit of a thinker so I tend to analyze stuff a lot. I analyze things that just aren’t meant to be analyzed. At least I don’t think so. Like movies… I’m sure my wife Nadine gets frustrated when we’re watching a good action movie. Jason Bourne has just been hit in the face with a steel bar and I’ll lean over and say “there’s no way he would’ve got up from that…” or when Sam Witwicky is being flung around by Megatron, explosions everywhere… “Surely that would’ve snapped his neck??” Forget about the talking robots from another planet….

I like to analyze good comedy too. I know I’m supposed to just relax and have a good chuckle, but there’s an art to comedy that i recon parallels our Christian walk and I think it’s only fair I help you draw the long bow with me.

Great comedians have a joke for every situation. It doesn’t matter how trivial or how ridiculous the circumstance is, guaranteed Carl Barron has already crafted a gag around it.

“Hey Dad! Me and Mum are going to the shops.”
“You mean, Mum and I are going to the shops…”
“Nah, me and Mum are going to the shops.”
“Mum and I!”
“Fine, you go then…”

Comedians study life, and find funny ways of articulating those things that connect with the audience. They develop a library of anecdotes they can pool from for any situation. That’s the art. In the same way, we should be studying the Word, and how the the truth of the Gospel can be relevant to people’s situation, so then I have a library of truth I can pool from, to speak life into whoever I’m engaging with.

Great comedy routines always pull everything back to the original gag. Have you ever noticed that? They launch off with a random joke about vegemite. (Moderate giggles) Then take you on a journey of random life observations for a few minutes, before seemingly out of nowhere, BAM! Vegemite! Oh!! Haha!! Classic!!! Vegemite!! I SO did not see that coming! That’s hilarious!!

And so in my “that’ll teach” mentality I draw the parallel of how when sharing the hope that is in me, I should try to find ways of tying my observations of life back to the first point – the hope that is in me!

And so I conclude that sharing our Christian Faith is like great comedy. So keep thinking, keep observing and always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you… After all, we are sentient beings…

See what I did there?