Off the hook

What a fun night. I had a great set at the Holiday Inn in Springfield OH. I know what you're thinking....wow man....Dwight has ARRIVED. It was one of the contests where you go up and get evaluated on the night and I didn't get first or second-I don't know if I got third. But I KILLED. The crowd was lovin' my stuff and I was performing it better than I have maybe EVER. So good times. One of the pros mentioned that going towards the front of the lineup can make your act less hot than it would have been if it were at the end...the two comics who won? The last two to perform. I was fourth....not saying they weren't better comics-but I had an amazing set.

Being successful during a performance is perhaps one of the finest feelings on the planet. I am grateful to God for working through me.

I was standing there afterward with the two comics who won-both working comics by the way-and noticed something that I know will help me along the way. I felt like I belonged-that I was not having to think of myself as play acting as though I was a comic. Tonight....I was a comic....I am a comic. This realization will make me better from here on out. The crowd can crush you as well as lift you high on their shoulders...but tonight was mine and God's and it was and is amazing.

Where do we experience the most excitement in our faith lives? Is it in a charismatic worship service with Holy Ghost preaching and dancing? Is it in a well prepared intellectual sermon that touches us in our heart but in a subtle and quite way? Or is it when we can go into a place where perhaps the last thing on people's mind is God and church...and we can bring it into their awareness and point to it as something full of life and maybe not so out of touch after all. That doesn't have to be in a comedy performance-but it's like a definition of the call into ministry posted on the PC(USA) website (or it used to be)-a calling is where your deepest passion and the deepest need of the world meet. For me-that's comedy in addition to being a Minister of the Word and Sacrament.


As God continues to work through me to help people not fear laughter, (as it pertains to the Holy and the Sacred), I believe it can help reach people who have written off or never considered Church. It could help folks think about God and the Kingdom of God perhaps more seriously from having laughed about it.

I have no delusions that I'm the next Billy Graham Cosby...I just know that God can use this as a way of helping get the church off the hook for all of the violence and damage we've done in the name of God. It's a VERY small part of that type of healing-but it's a start. It's a part of the whole picture-a pixel of prayer amongst the many people working to lift up Jesus and praise the Kingdom of God. I am glad to be a part of it.

I look forward to when I next hear the words from a person in the crowd afterward about my act "THAT was OFF THE HOOK" and remember to thank God for helping me perform and facilitate some joy.

Please forgive the self aggrandizement here-I just love it when I am able to do well and bring some joy to other people doing what I love-and I wanted to share it with the handful of folks who stop by here now and again.

grace and peace of Christ to you all,
Dwight