How to go
What: Jeff Jena's Clean Christian Comedy Night
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Dayton Funny Bone, located at The Greene in Beavercreek
Tickets: $10 (must be 18); call (937) 429-5233 for more info.
SPRINGFIELD — As an aspiring comedian, the Rev. Dwight McCormick frequently finds himself sharing a stage at open-mic nights with comics who aren’t as familiar with James 3:10.
“From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”
“There isn’t any frontier that hasn’t been crossed,” explained McCormick, pastor of Springfield’s Northminster Presbyterian Church. “Intelligence has to factor in somewhere.”
McCormick will be one of the featured comics Thursday at the Dayton Funny Bone during a clean Christian comedy show topped by Jeff Jena, a frequent guest on “The Bob & Tom Show.”
“For me, it’s a big show,” McCormick, 39, said. “But for the Dayton Funny Bone, it’s big because they’ve never done a clean show. They’re taking a risk, but it’s one I think is going to take off.”
If you’re skeptical, don’t be.
Think of all the comics who’ve historically worked clean: Bill Cosby. Our own Jonathan Winters. Newhart. Seinfeld.
It’s possible to be funny without having to cuss — but maybe more importantly, it’s possible to be funny and still be true to your faith.
“People are hesitant to laugh in church,” McCormick said. “I don’t want to make the gospel a punch line, but I want people to experience the grace of God and know that faith isn’t a straitjacket.”
Just because it’s being billed as a night of “clean Christian comedy” doesn’t mean there’s going to be an altar call — but this sort of comedy has been relegated to churches for so long that it’s relatively new for clubs.
The Toledo Funny Bone has had success this year with clean comedy, and McCormick has performed on two of those shows.
“There’s a lot of comedy that’s the same because it talks all about genitals and uses four-letter words,” he said. “There’s at least some demand for more intelligent writing.”
He’s never embarrassed to work the same stage as a comic who swears — but when asked later for his thoughts on that guy’s failed doomsday prediction last weekend, he seized the opportunity.
“That’s the embarrassment,” McCormick said. “Folks like him and Fred Phelps.”
Amen.
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