So you want to be funny. Good. Everyone except flint-face fuddy-duddies enjoy
a good laugh, and I have seen a slight smile crack even their lips.
So you want to be funny. Good. Everyone except flint-face fuddy-duddies enjoy
a good laugh, and I have seen a slight smile crack even their lips. But, trying
to be funny can be dangerous, and no laugh is worth hurting someones feelings
or getting you stoned.
Fact & Trends, a publication of LifeWay, had a neat set of guidelines for
preachers wanting to be funny, and we preachers need help knowing what to say
and what not to say when it comes to that. (Facts & Trends, July/August,
2004) I repeat, trying to be funny. Nothing is more “unfunny” than
someone who tries to be funny and misses by a mile. I know. I have an ostrich
egg on a table in my office someone accused me of laying one Sunday.
So, the next time you want to tell a joke or story during “opening assembly”
or before any group, consider these edited F&Ts questions.
1. Does it pass the “Is God laughing” test?
Well, Ive never heard God laugh, but I have felt like he was, but I think
it was more when I was trying to know it all more than when I was trying to
be funny. Still, F&Ts question reminds us we are in Gods presence
when we tell a joke, so we should not offend him.
2. Does it pass the “spouse or confidant” test? Personally, I tell
my wife the joke first, as I watch her face carefully. If there is not a broad
smile, I chunk the joke. Polite smiles do not count. “I dont get
it” cause lines to be junked forever.
3. Does the humor belittle or tear down anyone? Husbands are especially bad
about telling wife, kids, deacons and mother-in-law jokes that tear them down.
I always ask my wife and kids if telling the story is okay with them. I assume
the deacons do not want to be laughed at. I lose a lot of efforts at humor that
way, but Im treated a lot nicer in the car on the way home and in the
next deacons meeting.
4. Does the humor make light of racial or ethnic differences?
Enough said.
5. Does the joke negatively reference a persons physical attributes,
such as weight, height or baldness? Such remarks are never appropriate.
6. Does the joke promote negative stereotyping about peoples occupations?
Well, there go the lawyer and car salesperson and preacher jokes.
7. Does the joke have marginally acceptable words, words that may be misunderstood
or pertain to a questionable topic?
If there is a question, do not use them. Be safe, not sorry.
8. Is someone in the audience a target of the humor? Just because folks are
laughing does not necessarily mean the target is all that happy about it. A
parallel question is, “Is the joke worth an enemy?” Humor should not
embarrassingly target any one person.
For this writer, the cardinal rule of humor is this: Does the humor try to
get people to laugh at another person, or laugh with the person trying to overcome
a human predicament?
About the only safe humor is humor addressed at ones self. Laugh at yourself
and the world laughs with you. Laugh or get others to laugh at someone else,
and you are likely to die alone.