Humor, sarcasm, irony, mockery, me.

Too many people are convinced a person can’t learn to be funny: Either we have the built-in ability to make people laugh, or we lack it and are never gonna get it.

Which means these folks obviously don’t understand how humor works. Anyone can learn to do anything. Maybe not well, but better than previously. Anyone can learn to be funny. They just gotta learn how humor works, and practice at it.

No, I’m not trying to sell you a class. I’ll even explain how humor works—for free.

Laughter is an automatic nervous reaction. People laugh when you expose them to the unexpected. Surprise ’em, shock ’em, play around with words a little, push things to a ridiculous extreme—or even frighten them, which is why some people laugh when they’re scared. The unexpected makes us laugh, and laughter floods the brain with feel-good endorphins. It’s actually a defense mechanism. But since it feels really good, people pursue laughter.

Unless of course their brain doesn’t produce enough of those chemicals; then they don’t bother. That’s why they’re humor-deprived: There’s no payoff. So they don’t see the point.

So how do we get people to laugh? Simple: Throw something unexpected at them. Like a monkey throwing poo. See what I did there? Unexpected. Shocking. Hence laughter.

But of course not everyone will laugh at it. Some of us won’t find it funny because they expect poo: Their dad was into poo jokes, their brothers were into poo jokes, their spouse is into poo jokes, their kids are into poo jokes, all their friends are into poo jokes, they’re up to their armpits in poo jokes. Poo wore off a long time ago. “That’s the lowest form of humor,” they’ll respond. It’s old, so it’s no longer unexpected. Nor funny.

And many are offended by scat or sex jokes. Or profanity. You notice how certain comedians swear a lot: Half their laughs come from the audience being so unused to all the dirty words, or the way they juggle those words for shock. They’re giggling about as much out of discomfort as surprise. But to the easily offended, these things aren’t funny whatsoever. Loads of people don’t find the Three Stooges funny at all: Three grown men beating the tar out of one another is horrifying, not hilarious. They have the same problem with Warner Brothers cartoons, Tom and Jerry, America’s Funniest Home Videos, or someone simply slipping on a banana peel or taking a pie to the face: They feel bad for the victims of these pratfalls. They’re not amused; they’re sympathetic.

But because laughing at the unexpected works so well, it’ll get people to watch terrible sitcoms and movies. Case in point: The Date Movie/Epic Movie/Disaster Movie/Scary Movie films. Critics can’t understand why on earth they sell so well. I do: Throw as much unexpected stuff at the screen as possible. “What’s she doing there?” makes a lot of people laugh. Even when it’s not actually funny.

Stop sucking up to the wealthy.

James 2.1-9.

A lot of Americans aren’t Christians anywhere near as much as they’re Mammonists: They covet wealth. They don’t necessarily have it, but the American Dream tells ’em if they work hard enough, they will. So, anticipating the day they become wealthy, they wanna rig things so they get to keep as much of their wealth as possible… even if such a system totally works against them today, or even if it actually makes wealth creation impossible. Single-minded covetousness blinds people to a whole lot of things.

And to their minds, critiquing the wealthy kinda means you’re critiquing them. ’Cause they aspire to wealth. One day they expect to be wealthy. Since they already envision themselves in the role… well, those criticisms aren’t justified. They aren’t greedy. They aren’t exploiting anyone. They’re honest, hardworking Americans. The critics are just trying to shake them down and get something for nothing. Greedy opportunists.

They can’t—and really won’t—fathom the idea some wealthy folks are totally exploiting the needy. Have been for centuries. And aren’t anywhere near as good and kind and Christian as they imagine. But they sure do play Christian.

Jesus’s brother James saw right through all of that, and pointed it out to his readers who were blind to it:

James 2.1-4 KWL

1 My fellow Christians, don’t act prejudicially.

Not in the faith of our glorious master, Christ Jesus.

2 When a man with a gold ring and showy clothing enters your synagogue,

and a poor person in dirty clothes also enters,

3 and you covetously eye the wearer of showy clothing and say, “You sit here in the good spot,”

and tell the poor person, “You stand there,” or “Sit under my footstool”:

4 Isn’t this prejudice among you?

Have you become critics with evil schemes?

See, it’s human nature to want to suck up to the successful. Irritating, but true. Everybody loves a winner, and whenever somebody does well in an area we admire, we flock to ’em like flies to manure. Those who love money flock to the wealthy. Those who pursue fame gather round celebrities. Those who aspire to be smart kowtow to the intellectuals. Those who covet power follow the powerful. And this is true even in church.

Thing is, not everyone who’s achieved worldly success has done so in a righteous way. In fact, since it’s worldly success, it’s almost guaranteed they did a lot of worldly things to achieve it. They made compromises. They lied or stole or slandered others. They took advantage of people who couldn’t help their circumstances. This was true in the Roman Empire, and true today. Success and righteousness have nothing to do with one another. Remember, the devil promised Jesus the world if only our Lord would kneel down. Lk 4.5-7 Too many of us haven’t resisted that temptation.

Church-shopping. ’Cause sometimes you need a new church.

Know what to look for when you’re considering a move.

Church-shop /'tʃərtʃ.ʃɑp/ v. Look for the best available church.

[Church-shopper, /'tʃərtʃ.ʃɑp.pər/ vt., church-shopping /'tʃərtʃ.ʃɑp.pɪŋ/ vt.]

If you haven’t been going to church, or never did go to church, it’s time to start.

And at certain times in a Christian’s life, we’re gonna have to go to another church. Sometimes for good reason; sometimes not. In my case it’s usually because I moved to a new city, although twice it’s been because the church went wrong.

In any event, Christians decide to begin a process we Americans call “church-shopping.” We visit a new church and try it on for size. If we like it, we stick around. If not, we move along and try another.

It’s not a complicated idea. It only gets complicated because certain Christians are extremely choosy about their churches. And there are other Christians who are convinced church-shopping is fundamentally wrong. Even devilish.

Devilish? Yeah; it’s because they read C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Namely where senior devil Screwtape advises a junior devil to encourage what sounds an awful lot like church-shopping. If a person must go to church, “the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that ‘suits’ him,” which “makes the man a critic where [God] wants him to be a pupil.” Letter XVI We’re no experts on what makes one church better than another. We’ll wind up using silly, superficial criteria to judge. How dare we?

Well, here’s how dare we: You’ve got a brain, don’t you? You can learn how to gauge a church on meaningful, weighty criteria. Ain’t that difficult. Those who insist we leave all the thinking to experts, have a really bad habit of doing very little thinking, and as a result fall prey to a whole lot of false teachers and legalists. Ignore them; they have their own problems.

For most Christians, church-shopping isn’t at all complicated. There’s a church in town they’ve either visited, and wouldn’t mind visiting again; or a church they’ve never tried, but they’re curious about it, and would like to give it a shot. They go. They like it. They stay. Simple.

For other Christians, church-shopping is an incredible trial. They go to a church for a few months: They get involved, get to know the people, even try to minister or join or get into leadership. Then they discover the dealbreakers. And they’re just heartbroken, and leave. They’ve been church-shopping for years, and haven’t found a church home yet. Just about every church in town—heck, the county—has met these folks: “Yeah, they went here for five months. So they’re at your church now? Well, glad they’re somewhere. I always wondered.”

I gotta tell you, though: If you’ve gone through 25 different churches in the area and can’t stay in a single one, it’s not the churches which are the problem. It’s you.

Needlessly long and wild prayers.

As I’ve written previously, ain’t nothing wrong with praying short prayers.

You might remember the Lord’s Prayer is a really short prayer. I mention this to Christians and they respond, “Oh! Yeah, that’s true.” Somehow it hadn’t occurred to them. Obviously Jesus has no problem with us keeping it brief: His example showed is it’s fine with him.

Problem is, we’re not following that example. We’re following a different one—where Jesus went off places and prayed for hours. Seriously, hours. One evening he sent his students off ahead of him and climbed a hill to pray; Mt 14.22-23 by the time he caught up with them (walking across the water, but still), it was “the fourth watch of the night,” Mt 14.25 KJV meaning between 3 and 6 a.m. Even if we generously figure Jesus stopped praying and started walking two hours before the fourth watch began (so, about 1-ish), that meant he was praying from sundown till then. Easily six or seven hours.

There’s nothing wrong with aspiring to be able to pray that long. But it needs to come naturally, like it does to Jesus. Can you talk six or seven hours with your best friend, or a beloved family member? Well some of us can. Others of us simply don’t talk that much, to anyone. And yet we all have this screwy idea we’ve gotta engage God in prayer marathons.

No, we’re not ready for six-hour prayers; we’re not Jesus-level prayer experts. But we figure we can at least do six minutes. Sounds reasonable, right?

Except we’re gonna attempt a six-minute prayer with two minutes’ worth of material. Two minutes of praise, thanksgiving, and requests. Followed by four minutes of repetitive, meaningless fluff. Two minutes of authenticity, four minutes of stretching things out. Two minutes of prayer, four minutes of hypocrisy.

Yes, hypocrisy. Who are we trying to impress? God? He didn’t ask us for long prayers. Others? Ourselves? Well, yeah.

When I became a theologian.

My pastor recently asked me what led me to go to a bible college and study theology.

It strikes a lot of people as odd that I majored in biblical and theological studies… and yet never had any plans to become a pastor nor college professor. ’Cause that’s usually why people major in that area. Or it’s not, but it’s what they naturally gravitate towards next. Whereas I went right back into journalism.

Well, journalism and theology are both searches for truth, y’know.

But generally how it happened was like this: I originally majored in journalism. Then I got sidetracked by newspaper jobs. And since the whole point of journalism school was to get newspaper jobs—and I already had newspaper jobs—I ditched school for work. Till I got downsized out of a job. Then I decided to knock out that bachelor’s degree once and for all.

By this point, I realized I didn’t need a journalism degree to get a journalism job. Half my fellow employees had no such degree: They majored in other stuff, and a lot of times they used that other stuff to help ’em be better reporters. A political science major is definitely gonna write better stories about politics, as will an economics major about business trends, or an education major about schools. You certainly don’t need a journalism degree to own or start a newspaper. Since I figured I’d taken all the relevant editing, ethics, media, and law courses, I didn’t feel like taking the others. I wanted to do journalism, not study it.

My mom asked me what I’d study if it could be anything I wished; I picked God.

For that, I figured my best bet would be a college in my denomination, the Assemblies of God. I looked into their nearest school, Bethany College (later Bethany University, which closed in 2011). The biblical studies major covered everything I wanted, so I knocked out the last general ed classes I needed to complete my A.A. in journalism, then transferred in. The journalism stuff didn’t transfer—which left me some units short, to my annoyance—so I minored in biblical languages. They come in handy.

And yeah, it confused my fellow students when they found out I had no plans to get a pastoral or teaching job. ’Cause that’s why they were studying it. What, was I there for fun?

Darn right I was there for fun. I had a blast. Really annoyed my roommates, ’cause all those years writing on deadline means papers come ridiculously easy to me. Plus I have this bad habit of remembering everything I read, so I spent way less time studying than they did, and aced tests anyway. I spent my free time turning the school newspaper from a monthly to a weekly, and writing a third of it myself. And yes, I still had a social life. And got my seven hours of sleep every night.

And after graduating, went back into journalism. Teaching came later.