From Pain to Punchlines with Mike Williams

[00:00:10] Speaker A: My father became a Christian drug addict. His anger would go off the chain just like that. You didn't know what or for why. And when he did, he started punching and he would hit my mom and he would hit me. I learned that my survival and mom's survival was determined by my ability to keep him singing and keep him laughing. [00:00:39] Speaker B: Welcome back to Code Red. I'm your host, Zach Terry. On this episode of Code Red, we are honored to have Mike Williams. Mike is a comedian and a minister of the gospel. He's making a tremendous impact around the world and he's doing it with a smile. He's making people laugh. He's written some amazing books. He's raised a lot of money for great causes. So you're going to want to hear his story. It did not start out in a humorous way at all, but he's brought joy out of that. So get ready for this episode of Code Red. So his. One of the biggest songs that he did that we had the most hope for was called California Wildfire. And it was supposed to be, it's about a girl from California. And it was just a well written, well crafted song and it came out right when all those wildfires hit in California. So it's like you really can't push that. [00:01:46] Speaker A: Timing is everything. [00:01:48] Speaker B: And it was like Mike could do a relief type thing, you know, that might would work, but anything else is going to be poor taste, not going to be received. Right. [00:01:56] Speaker A: You know, I'll keep it for a while. [00:01:58] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, that's what I told him. [00:02:01] Speaker A: It's. [00:02:01] Speaker B: So, Mike Williams, welcome to Code Red. [00:02:05] Speaker A: Well, good to be here. [00:02:07] Speaker B: We've been talking about it for a little while and done a few events together and glad to have you back on Amelia island and get caught up a little bit. You're the first comedian we've had on that that meant to be a comedian at least. So what's that like? [00:02:23] Speaker A: Boy, you. You get right to the point, don't you? How about some small talk? How was the drive up here? You know, did you enjoy Bucky's? We've got it. [00:02:31] Speaker B: We've got it. We've got so much time here. [00:02:32] Speaker A: Beef jerk price. [00:02:34] Speaker B: There's so much tape in these things, right? [00:02:36] Speaker A: So, you know, I, I have been blessed, you know, I've been able to make my living making people laugh. It doesn't get much better than that. Maybe a pastor, you know, you get to make your living helping people get into the kingdom. Right? And I do that too, but I get to bring a little laughter And I like to do it wherever I go. You know, just wherever I'm at, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make people laugh. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pray with people. I, you know, I usually pray with a waitress or waiter every day and just to, you know, bring. We got to bring joy, but we got to bring truth to their life, too. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Well, when did you, when did it hit you that you might be able to do this for a living? Oh, well, because I know you're. I know your story. Our viewers may not know your story, but I know it wasn't, it wasn't a funny upbringing. [00:03:31] Speaker A: I have recently been telling the entire story, and it's been, it's taken 60 years to be able to tell the whole thing. But a quick update on that. Born in Chicago, Illinois. Born to a what people would call an inner city family, sometimes a street family. We were in the hood of the time. I'm the youngest of five. My oldest brother was killed in the streets of Chicago at 17. My next brother died in a jail cell in Louisiana at 17. Sisters, I can't tell you much about them. You can lose people to drugs the same way you can lose them to death. And that's kind of what happened there. Met my biological father one time. I was 27 when I met him first and last time he agreed to meet me. And it's not similar fathers for all the family. And spent about five minutes with me and asked me to drop him off at the bar so he could get on with the rest of his life. Thanks, dad. Some things you never get over. That might be one of them. My mother did one of the kindest acts that a woman could ever do. My mother decided to give me away. Now, this was, and I know I don't look it, but this was in 1962, okay. Probably when most of our listeners were not even fetuses. [00:04:52] Speaker B: You know, how old were you? [00:04:55] Speaker A: This is zero. This is zero when this is all taking place here. And this is part of my adoption story here. But mom was considering having an abortion. And now immediately people go, hold it, Mike, your story doesn't add up because that was before Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade didn't bring abortion to the United States. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:19] Speaker A: Abortion was going on since hundreds of years. Really? [00:05:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:24] Speaker A: And Roe v. Wade legitimatized it where it just wasn't questioned. Where, where, no, the States couldn't come in and say, hold it. We're doing, you know, different. Different story for a different time. I, I suggest a. [00:05:38] Speaker B: About that and really, it was a different time. I've gone back and listened to some people that we would consider just stalwarts of conservative theology that were pro abortion, you know, back in the 60s. [00:05:50] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. I know you had Carol Everett on your show and you know, she was involved in doing those in those early years. I speak all the time, I share my story. And an older nurse will come up to me and will say, oh, I remember when we did them at the hospital all the time we would code them a different. You know, we wouldn't put abortion down there, but they were going on. So that was my world. My mom, according to her own words, the only Christian man that she had ever met was the mailman. And she determined this because every day when he would deliver the mail, we lived in one of those red brick apartments. You know, I always call it the three story walk up. You know, this was before required elevators or anything like that. And he would come through the. There was a storm door. And for those of you who are from the south, you wouldn't understand this. Up north you have a storm door to protect your door from the winter weather. And so you'd come through that storm door and there'd be kind of like the entrance to the apartments and you'd have the steps going up and right there would be all of the mailboxes. And next to the mailbox would be the, the doorbell. Because why you have the doorbell down here? Why walk up three flights to find out that somebody's not there? And so you ring the doorbell here and then you wait for them to come out, who's there, and shout down the steps, you know, that's the way. That's the way it was. And he would come in and he would ring all the bells for all the different apartments and he'd go all the way down and he'd come all the way back. And they'd get used to, okay, the time that he would get there, they'd realize, okay, the mail's here. And that was an important thing because where we lived, our neighborhood, if you didn't go down to get your mail, somebody else would. And so people come down, start to gather if they were there. This man, Harry was his name, always had a kind word, always had a smile. And if he saw you, even if he'd already put your mail in the box, if he saw you, he'd remember your name, he'd pull it out, he'd put the mail in your hand and say, here's your mail and remember, God loves You and, wow, that would probably be illegal today. You know, we'd probably have to have the Congress meeting, separation of church and junk mail or something like that. But back then you could say that. And one day my mom stopped him and said, harry, I'm pregnant. I can't do this. She had options on the table. She said, but if you would take this child, I'll go through with it. And he said, I can't. He said, my wife is very ill. I take care of her every night when I go home. And there was just no way we could do that. But he said, I've got a daughter and a son in law, and they have prayed for a child for 12 years. They can't have a child. You see, my daughter has multiple sclerosis. They would love to have your child. And to fast forward on this to the part that I want to get to here is, you know, I'm born, I'm given to this family who'd prayed for a kid for 12 years and got me. So be careful what you pray for. Be specific. Now, in that home, Zach, in that home, very conservative. Conservative. We put the conserve in conservative, okay? We were Baptist people, okay? Very Baptist, extra Baptist, extremely Baptist. People don't understand that either. Some of your watchers will. We didn't play old maid cards. This is how conservative we were. We didn't play old maid cards in the house. We. Because somebody could drive past your house at 55 miles an hour, see through the front window, see back in the kitchen, which is amazing because this was before open concept, right? [00:09:56] Speaker B: Next thing you know, see you in. [00:09:58] Speaker A: The house playing cards. They would think you're playing poker. If you're playing poker, you're probably gambling. And we all know that gambling leads to premarital dancing, okay? And that was, you know, wouldn't want that to happen. [00:10:08] Speaker B: So we used to say where we come from, you didn't hold hands in public to your third child. [00:10:12] Speaker A: Right? Right. Pretty much it. You know, that was the, the time. Grateful for that culture. Okay? Grateful. We're past it. But I'm grateful for that cultural upbringing too, though. And so very conservative home. But they told me about Jesus. You know, I grew up with a mom who, though she was in a wheelchair, always helped out at the church. In fact, most churches that I remember as being at, she was always the church secretary. I mean, that was her way of serving, was that. My father was the song leader guy. He would work with the youth department and the young adults. And I always say he would do karate for Jesus. Because back then, you know, now we have our worship bands and they're up there and they're kicking it and we're all just singing along and we have words on the screen to follow along. Back then you had the song leader's right arm. It's like 1, 2, 3, 4. You know, I thought we were Catholic at first doing this. And then I realized, no, no, he's. Apparently people are following. I don't think they ever did. But it was a cultural thing to do. You get up there, you encamped along the hills of light, you know, And I learned all that. There's different motions for different timings and things like that. And so that was my world. Came to faith in Jesus in that era. My dad was a Sunday school teacher too. I tell folks, you know, if the church was open, we were there. And back then, that was Sunday morning for Sunday school. That was that hour 15 minute break before you go into church. That was that hour. We'd have our time of rest between the services, you know, catch a little lunch and a little nap. Then you'd come back for training union. That was an hour. And then you'd have church for an hour. Wednesday, of course, we had prayer meeting. Okay, prayer meeting and Bible study. After that, you had choir rehearsal. And so you knew that right there, before you add youth events and things like this, you already had six hours dedicated to training in the church at that time. Nothing wrong with it. Grateful for it. That was the culture at the time. Maybe we could do with a little more of that. But anyway, one day on the way to church, I'm sitting in the back seat. I remember very well where it was. We were right in front of Jack o' Donnell Chevrolet, where my father, who was his real job was an auto mechanic, 24 years with General Motors. Go GM. And that was his world. And we had just turned past where he worked and dad finished practicing his lesson. He would always practice his Sunday school lesson on mom and I in the car. And he finished up that lesson. Then he looked in that rearview mirror and he said, mike, are you ready? I knew what he meant. Are you ready to receive Jesus as your own personal savior? King Christ the king in your life? And I said, yes. And he pulled that car over the side of the road. It was a green 1967 Chevy Impala, metallic, dark metallic, green, painted by Earl scheib. Any carr, $29.95. That was a big deal back then. You saw it in the commercial. Every other commercial was get your car painted $29.95. Can you imagine getting a car painted for $29? [00:13:36] Speaker B: Oh my goodness, $29. [00:13:39] Speaker A: They wouldn't scratch. They would paint an entire car for 2999. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. [00:13:44] Speaker A: I knelt in the back seat and in a very simple way gave my heart to Jesus. I have not always been faithful in every moment of making him the king of my life, but he has always been faithful in being there and being the king of kings, no matter what I did with it. Right. I'm grateful for that. Grew up, had great years and then 12 and a half hit. And my father as a mechanic had a car. The car lifts back then were different than they are nowadays where they have those. All those safety clicks. You hear the cars being lifted up on a jack and you're clunk, clunk, clunk. They used to have one big huge pole in the middle. You may remember these. I don't know if you're old enough. [00:14:36] Speaker B: Grew up in a service station. [00:14:37] Speaker A: Okay. So remember the hydraulic right there? And those things got a little tricky after a while. Dad had one of them come down on him and crushed him. He spent over half a year in the hospital for it. And I remember that year growing up literally in the hospital. Just, you know, we would. You'd go sit with your family. That was what you did. They didn't have a fix for him, so they medicated him. They did what they could. He was out of the hospital for a couple months and he was rear ended sitting at a traffic light, red light. Our family doctor was in a car next to him. They waved at each other and the next thing you know, he was rear ended by a guy. They said he was going between 60 and 80 miles an hour. Drove him through the intersection, did horrible work on his back and neck, and he spent another six months in the hospital. He was rear ended by the mayor of our town's son. And we received a visit from the. Now you understand. Remember Chicago. Okay, Chicago 60s. [00:15:54] Speaker B: This was the mayor of Chicago, son. [00:15:56] Speaker A: Let's just keep it as broad based as we can here. And we, we were told we're not going to press any charges and if you and your family want to be safe. Wow. Yeah. Daly was a sort. Okay. Yeah, man. Do. Do the Google search. [00:16:19] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:16:19] Speaker A: No, I'm familiar. And then when he was released from the hospital, two blocks away from the hospital, he was pulled over by the police and they drug him out of the car and they beat him senseless in his bad. In his crushed leg with billy clubs to remind him not going to do anything. And so we. We ran. We. We ran to. I tell people, you got to get out of Chicago. Where do you go? What's the best place? We moved to Gary, Indiana. [00:16:50] Speaker B: Now, if you're familiar, that's where the comedy comes in. [00:16:54] Speaker A: If you're familiar with Gary, Indiana, you know, you have that nice song. Gary, Indiana. Gary, Indiana. It's nothing like the song whatsoever. [00:17:03] Speaker B: Who is from Gary, Indiana? Is that Michael Jordan? [00:17:05] Speaker A: Michael Jackson. [00:17:05] Speaker B: Jackson, okay. [00:17:06] Speaker A: He lived four blocks from our house. The big Jackson family bus would sit out in front of these little cracker houses right there. And, you know, we all lived in them right there. [00:17:15] Speaker B: You don't mean that in a racial way. [00:17:16] Speaker A: Oh, no, no, no, no. [00:17:18] Speaker B: Cracker houses. [00:17:19] Speaker A: No, I call them. I call them cracker box houses. They're paper thin. They're tiny. You're all in there together in a sleeve right there. And I never met him. Never met him, but I knew that they were four blocks this direction. I was a block and a half from the White Castle hamburger place. Now, again, for your folks who understand White Castle, that meant that now I'm growing up in an area where the whole town smells like cooked onions 24 hours a day. It just. It permeates your clothes. [00:17:52] Speaker B: It's a wonderful, wonderful aroma. [00:17:54] Speaker A: You could be over in Hammond and people go, you live near a White Castle, don't you? [00:18:01] Speaker B: It's like a paper mill, but onions. [00:18:03] Speaker A: Right, right, exactly, exactly. You guys know a little bit about that? Well, here we are. Dad became addicted to the early opioids. Valium, Darviset. That's all they had for him back then. They didn't have a fix. They didn't have an operation to do. They just kept giving him medicine. And my father, who was Zach, this amazing, wonderful Christian man. This is the part of the story that you've never heard. Because it wasn't until just about a year ago that God gave me permission to even. Or maybe it's the freedom to even talk about it. My father became a Christian drug addict. He became bipolar. His anger would go off the chain just like that. You didn't know what or for why. And when he did, he started punching, and he would hit my mom and he would hit me over and over. It was back in the day where you didn't talk about that. This was, you know, I talk about. I jokingly say, you know, I grew up three years before the invention of Ridlan. I grew up under an experimental medication called the belt. And you didn't have to wait four hours to give me another dose. [00:19:30] Speaker B: I've never heard you mention this before. [00:19:33] Speaker A: And so, you know, here I am. Now, you asked, where did the comedy come from? Let me put this into perspective now. I'm with this dad who still loves the Lord with all of his heart, but he would just. A switch would flip for no reason. [00:19:53] Speaker B: It plays for keeps. [00:19:55] Speaker A: And, you know, I've been in the car when he's screaming and he stomps on the gas and he's headed the car directly into a tree going, I'm just going to kill us all. I remember one time, and this one time, you know, you don't know why things stick in your mind, but I remember one time, it was just before school, and I know we didn't have the money for me to have school shoes, but I needed school shoes. And we went out and bought shoes and got these brown shoes. And we got in the car and we start back, and he goes, did you get shoe polish? Did you get brown shoe polish? I said, well, no, I didn't get brown shoe polish. The guy at the shoe store said that this particular color is. Is called antique. And that set him off. And I remember him ripping the shoes in the car, ripping the shoes off my feet and throwing them out the window and just swinging and punching and screaming. I'll never forget that day. That day may have changed my life. I learned the way to keep dad calm was two things. One is if he was singing, somehow the music brought calmness to him. He was less likely to go off if we were mid him. You know what I'm saying? You know, right in the middle of we have heard the joyful sound, Jesus saves. It was harder for him to make that twist. The other thing was if he was laughing. And so literally here at, you know, this age of. Right at 13, I learned that my survival and mom's survival was determined by my ability to keep him singing and keep him laughing. And we would get in the car. That was a real trigger for him. We'd get in the car, I would immediately start singing. We would try to do a family trip. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Did you know it at the time that's what you were doing? Or if you just said in retrospect. [00:22:12] Speaker A: At the time, I didn't understand the amount of meds that he was taking. I didn't understand. That was before we had the education about what medications. And I'm 12. In a very conservative home, you weren't exposed to things. [00:22:28] Speaker B: Well, you're close to Hammond, Indiana, at that time, the largest church in America Was First Baptist Hammond, Jack Hiles. And so, you know, there's a lot that you didn't talk about, you know, in that day and time because it could get public and nasty really quick. [00:22:45] Speaker A: My grandfather was one of his deacons, my uncle was one of Jack's deacons. And of course, you know, even the secrets among that particular church which have come out now, but this was back in a time where what happened in the family, stayed in the family. You just, you don't talk about it. Doesn't make any difference what it is you, you don't talk about it. This was a, you know, that conservative world. When I'm, when I'm doing a comedy event and boy, boy people are going, you know, that comedian was the most negative guy. You know, when I'm doing a comedy event I often, I say, you know, you know, my house, conservative upbringing, dad gave me the birds and the bee stalk and people get a little nervous, you know, I said, I'm going to tell you dad's birds and beez talk. Mom, dad, don't worry, stay with me for just a second. This was my dad's birds and bees talk. Okay? Okay son. Men and women are different. And that was the whole talk. [00:23:46] Speaker B: That's it. [00:23:46] Speaker A: That was it. And I was 28 and had already been married five years when I got it. Okay, so that's, you know, that's the break. [00:23:52] Speaker B: My dad let me watch an R rated movie one time. He said if you can't figure it out from that, then God help you. [00:23:59] Speaker A: I didn't know Finding Nemo was there. Well, so here I am in this crazy home and I'm learning that the way to keep sanity. You know, there's an interesting verse and I hate to tie in a verse with abuse, but you know, God in his infinite wisdom knows what works. And he says a merry heart does good like a medicine. And it's hard for people who are laughing to flip flop into violence. And so I didn't know at that time, Woo. Hallelujah. I didn't know at that time. But what God was doing at that time in my life was prepping me for what I was going to do for over 30 years. What was going to fund a mission that is now in the Dominican Republic, Malawi, Africa and Mexico City. God will take our worst nightmares. And it comes. Romans 8:28. We know that God is working in all things. It didn't say God caused all things. God is not the bringer of badness to teach us a lesson because he can teach us a Lesson through good too, if we'll listen. Okay. But the promise was, is that in all things, he will work and if you'll let him. And that's what he did with me. He gave me a career starting when I was 13 years old, that I stayed with for 10 years because I stayed at home till I was 23 to protect mom. This is what I learned in that time and didn't start doing comedy until I was 30. [00:25:43] Speaker B: There's a quote that you may be familiar with better than I am. But it said something to the effect of humor is on the other side of pain. Have you heard that before? And I can't remember who it was original with, but it was said better than that. But they said that, you know, the purest comedy is always on the other side of pain. [00:26:03] Speaker A: Tragedy plus time is comedy. That's. That's the old comedian saying. [00:26:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:26:09] Speaker A: I think it was G.K. chesterton. And the nice thing about quoting Chesterton is he had so many quotes that you're bound to hit it close. Okay. But he said this life does not cease to be funny when people cry any more than life ceases to be serious when people laugh. And so in this world scheme, there are so many different emotions that are going on in so many different places, but in the midst of it, God is working and. And we're going to get through this. And so laughter has been my way of getting through it. And then, you know, just help others. Yeah. [00:26:46] Speaker B: I've always. And you know this about me, that I've always been fascinated by that art form and people who are. Who do well at that. When. When. Who was the first person that you heard that you said, oh, that's like you have a mechanic, you have a tailor, you have a cook, and there's a comedian. Do you remember who those early comics were that. [00:27:06] Speaker A: Oh, you know, I. Boy, I hate to mention his name now, but Bill Cosby. [00:27:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:12] Speaker A: Was one of those early guys. Of course, we all know that there was a tragic ending to that, as there is with many lives without God. Okay. But I remember listening to him in those early years and just going, this guy is hilarious. But as a Christian kid at that time, comedy wasn't thought of as a way you could be in the ministry. That's. That's what the. [00:27:36] Speaker B: Even though. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Was doing. [00:27:37] Speaker B: Even though at that time, you know, even Jack Hiles was hilarious at times, you know, and I don't. I wonder how premeditated that was. Like, looking back on it, you know, did they realize the roller coaster of Emotions that they would take people on and how disarming comedy can be. [00:27:55] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:27:56] Speaker B: You know, but the timing, all that was just. Was it, was it Kinison that was the. Grew up in a church home and was going to be a preacher and all this and the things you learn in just communication in general, it, the math is similar in timing for comedy, don't you think? [00:28:15] Speaker A: Oh, you've nailed it. You know, Daniel, Larry the cable guy. Okay. I'm told that his father was a pastor. Now think about this. Some of the greatest evangelists that you know, maybe barring Billy Graham who brought in comedy all the time, he had. [00:28:34] Speaker B: A little pre written thing at the. [00:28:35] Speaker A: Beginning of his, but he was that natural comic. But of course he was very strict in staying with his script in all things. But most of the time when you have a special speaker come to a church, they may not identify as a comedian, but these were always the funniest people that would come to your church and you go, oh, I love it when the evangelist comes. He's so funny. Oh, he's so funny. He's so funny. They just didn't never said I'm a comedian. They just said I'm an evangelist who is really funny. Now our concepts have changed. Now I can say, you know, I'm an evangelist at heart, but I can identify as a, as a comedian. [00:29:15] Speaker B: Hey guys, I want to personally invite you to join us for a very special evening. Our annual Maximum Life Celebration dinner. This is more than just a meal together. It's an opportunity to hear from our heart about the vision God has given us for this ministry. You'll get a firsthand look at the ideas and the initiatives that we will be launching this year before anyone else hears about them. And of course you will enjoy some wonderful food, some fellowship and be surrounded by like minded believers who share the same passion for seeing lives changed through the power of God's word. God is opening some incredible doors for Maximum Life and we believe that this evening will be both encouraging to you and will help us step forward together into all that he has planned. The details are available right [email protected] events and that's also where you can reserve your spot. I hope you will join us for this special night of vision, fellowship and celebration. We cannot wait to see you there. And you've so over the years you mentioned your ministries in different, different places that you're supporting and that you're helping to fund. That's really been your legacy and what you've really been passionate about. It seems to me. Is that true? [00:30:40] Speaker A: You know, yes. But let me explain how it took place. We used to travel and do all of the festivals in the summer. Now I would stay on the road. I'd like to tell you that I was a great father. I was a good father when I was home, but I wasn't home a lot. My work pulled me off all over. But in the summer, we had the bus. You know, if you're successful, you had a bus. Nowadays, if you're successful, you lease a bus right there. And. But so in the summer, I would take the whole family with me. We'd get in the bus and we'd go play a live festival. And I was the host guy. Usually that's what they would bring me in for that host spot. Go. I'm between third day and mercy me. You go out there for 10 minutes, make them laugh while they're doing the set changes out there. Love doing that. My kids got to grow up playing basketball backstage with a lot of different people. Those were great times. Did that for many years in many different festivals. In fact, the largest group I ever spoke to goes back to people say, what's the biggest group you ever spoke to? And it was 53,000 people. [00:31:55] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. [00:31:55] Speaker A: And it's a big crowd. [00:31:58] Speaker B: How does comedy sell in that? [00:32:00] Speaker A: It's really tough because audio moves slowly. Oh, yeah, that's true. So when you've got this many people back there, it's like, I'm already on to the next joke when the sound is getting to the people. [00:32:14] Speaker B: Right. [00:32:15] Speaker A: So you would have to go out there and just totally pace yourself. It was horrible. Most comics love a room of 300 people. We. We love to have a room of 2500. That's fantastic. [00:32:24] Speaker B: I want you to. I want you to unpack that because you've taught me so much through that. Because, you know, I had. I'd kind of put the training wheels on and tried a couple of events and they were very difficult. And I speak all the time. The most comfortable place in the world is in the middle of that stage in front of the people at First Baptist. That's home to me. I don't get nervous with it. It's just that's where I'm comfortable. So I tried this thing and literally a guy said, you know, about every sermon, you use some humor and kind of sprinkle it through it. Why don't you take all of that and come entertain our people up at an event in Georgia? And so a comedy type routine. We get up there and I thought, you know, I've always admired comics. I want to. I want to see if I can do that. I get up there, and I've got all my material, you know, written out. I'm ready to go. To go. And it's outdoor. Nobody told them it was supposed to be comedy. It's at a racetrack where you've got, you know, cars with loud engines going by constantly. And nobody told him it was going to be comedy again, you know, so. So I'm telling these stories that are meant to be hilarious, and they're like, amen, Amen. Going, oh, this is not connecting. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Well, first of all, let's go back very quickly here to Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld says, and I don't do a Seinfeld voice, but I kind of do the vernacular a little bit. Seinfeld says I can't be funny at round tables. Why round tables? People are too far apart. [00:34:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:01] Speaker A: I need an audience sitting shoulder to shoulder to be funny. This is Jerry Seinfeld. [00:34:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:07] Speaker A: Okay. If Jerry Seinfeld needs them to be together and focused, don't you think you do, too? [00:34:14] Speaker B: I've thought many times who could have, like, scored at that event? You know, who would have been? Maybe Larry the Cable Guy. I don't know. [00:34:24] Speaker A: Outdoors. Outdoors is horrible. I turned down a really lucrative gig a couple months ago because they told me it was an outdoor thing. [00:34:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:34] Speaker A: And, you know, as. As an MC guy, you can go in for 10 minutes, do some things, make it work. But really what I'm doing is I'm doing comedy for about a thousand people right here. And that's what you have to focus on. You have to say, okay, yes, that's just back. The people out there are background to my life. I'm not trying to connect with them. I'm trying to connect with maybe 500 to 1,000 people here. And you've got to see it that way. But you were in the worst of cases because you were at a distance. See, even right now, our distance here is maybe six foot. Okay. Comedians don't even want that distance. You look at a comedy club, comedy club guy, he wants to be right there where he can reach out and tap the guys in the front row on the head if he wants to. Because comedy is a conversation, and you want to be as close to the people as you. You can be. You know, when it tell you how this happened. So I wasn't. I didn't go into comedy. I became a youth pastor and. And a music pastor, maybe. [00:35:39] Speaker B: Like, dad, a lot of material. [00:35:40] Speaker A: Right. And enjoyed that. And a guy sees me and sees what I do and he says, you know, I've got this friend who's this nationally known comedy act, and I'm going to leave his name out specifically today because he doesn't like for people to know that he has writers. Okay. But at that time, he didn't. [00:36:03] Speaker B: I know who you're talking about. I knew this. Everybody would know him. [00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And so would you meet him? I didn't know him. They tell me his non stage name. He is. And I didn't know who he was. So I went over one night and met him and showed him some of the props that I was using as a youth pastor to teach Bible lessons. He loved them. He wrote me a check that night for it. And so for the next month or two, anytime he was in the area, I would go out, take him new stuff. He would buy stuff. He would tell me about ideas. I would build them for him. I'd get paid. It was a good, good little deal. And I remember one night traveling down Interstate 4, Central Florida, Tampa, back to Lakeland. My hometown is in Lakeland. And I felt the Lord just kind of tugging at my heart and said, you know, you could do this. You know, people would come up to him afterwards and say, man, this made such a difference in my life tonight. I just recently went through a divorce or I just recently lost my job. Just laughter meant so much. And I felt like God was saying, you know, you can give that same laughter to help somebody for a night, but you can also share with them the truth and the realities of the kingdom. Living a lifetime of love and hope and an eternity of peace and joy. And I kind of had a Lord and I often have disagreements. I don't know if you ever. [00:37:32] Speaker B: Oh, Bill. Same. [00:37:34] Speaker A: But he and I are not always. [00:37:35] Speaker B: On the he doesn't always consult me wavelength. [00:37:38] Speaker A: I will ask sometimes for him to send me a backup text to verify, you know, hey, hey, if my dentist can do it, he can. Right? And so anyway, I remember pulling over on the side of the road right in front of the rooms to go warehouse. Okay. So there's not a shrine there if you go there. I haven't put up a little statue or anything, but pulling over and saying, lord, if you want me to do this, I'm happy with the job. I was working. Everything was great. Best it ever had it. Making the most money. And for a youth pastor, they never say that, okay, I was getting paid. Well, Lord, how old were you? 29. Okay. Yeah. So there's quite a distance of not doing any comedy just now. When I would speak, I was funny, but didn't put it together with that. I mean, I knew Mike Warnke. I'd heard Warnke out there, but we were just so different in what we were doing stylistically that it didn't work for me. And said, lord, you're going to have to make it really clear. And a couple days later, a church calls me. Kind of like your phone call. Hey, you know, when you've spoke here before, you're always real funny. Have you ever. Would you consider coming out and doing an event where you just went out and did some humor? It's like, yeah, okay, yeah, I could do that. And I did that. And it was 15 of the most grueling minutes of my life. It was just. It wasn't set up right. I wasn't set up right. I was used to being the preacher who was funny. And now I was trying to go in, you know, da, da, da, da. I think I even had some theme music to come onto, and it was just. It just didn't work. Then I get a call from, well, a guy, you know, David Burton. And Burton calls me from the Florida Baptist Evangelism Conference, and he goes, hey, we heard that you were writing for so and so. And I said, yeah. And he said, you know, he said, we've got an event coming up at the Daytona beach convention center, about 6,7000 students. We're going to have a new band that's really sweeping the country. We think they're going to be the next big thing. They're a band called Casting Crowns, and Mark hall leads their band. And we've got them coming. And we've got this girl from Texas coming. Her father is a Southern Baptist pastor, and her name is Jessica Simpson. [00:40:05] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:40:06] Speaker A: And we would like you to come and be the speaker guy and then kind of lead it into the Christian message. And we've heard good things. And Zach, I'm about ready to turn him down. Okay. Because I remember, okay, I'm already with the little church group. It didn't go great. Okay. And I'm thinking, you know, no, I can't do it for 6,7000 people. It's not going to work. And I'm just going to blurt this out. He goes up. We would be willing to pay you $3,500 for about 25 minutes. [00:40:44] Speaker B: And nobody made that back then, right? [00:40:46] Speaker A: And that was the moment that Jesus called me to the comedy ministry. [00:40:50] Speaker B: I hear you, Lord. You're Speaking. [00:40:52] Speaker A: Keep speaking, Lord, keep speaking. I'd like a couple of confirmations on that one. I did not ask for a backup text. And I was able to squeeze two comedy events in before that and just. [00:41:07] Speaker B: Kind of, you know, work out the material and all that. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Work out the material. Did that event. Booked like 80 churches in Florida and Georgia booked me after that. The next week I went up to Youth Specialties and they heard what had happened down here. Mike Iaccanelli pulls me up to be the opening act for Michael Card and 90 churches. From that, and literally overnight, I went from this little youth group ministry to having 100 dates on for me to go out. [00:41:41] Speaker B: I may. I may sprinkle. If you can send me maybe a link to what you would prefer, a couple of bits in here so that people can get a taste of kind of what your approach is because it's different. And it's difficult for me to describe a comedian style, but. But the math, there's a typical. Like if you. If it's Chappelle, there's a certain algorithm that he follows that when he gets to the punchline, you know, you can understand what he did there. [00:42:07] Speaker A: Right? [00:42:08] Speaker B: Well, Mike Williams is a little different. And I don't know, it seems like to me your approach to comedy would be difficult to emulate. It's got to be you. You can do it. I'm not sure I could take a Swanberg bit and probably pull it off, you know, but I don't think I could pull off what you're doing. [00:42:26] Speaker A: How do you. [00:42:26] Speaker B: How do you describe how the math works in your brain? Or when does a bit. When does a light come on at. That would be a good material. I could develop that. [00:42:34] Speaker A: You know, you're very perceptive on that. My comedy buddies, they tease me about my setup because I have. There's different things. Like, let's go back to a comedian that I dearly love who's dead and gone now. His name is Mitch Hedberg. Okay? Mitch had a formula. That's what you're talking about, a formula. See, conversation is A plus B equals C. Okay? Humor is A plus B equal D. The unexpected comedy is A plus B equal a bagel toaster. But yet somehow it makes perfect sense. Okay? Now within that last one, you have different. You have the setup punch. You have the guys that do set up setup punch. The goal is for a professional comedian that people would laugh seven times a minute, okay? My buddies tease me about the fact that I have a 20 minute setup for a huge laugh at the End. But yet what I do is then I take all along the way. I've got these little laughs in there. But the way I start is I work for what is the funniest thing that could possibly be. Do that. Where's the story that leads up to that? Then I just start telling that story and go, where can I stop along the way and drop a joke? So as many jokes as I can drop in on my way to the story, though, you want to put Mike on the spot. You say, mike, you're going to be on and we need you to come in and do four minutes. Four minutes. I can't tie my shoe in four minutes. [00:44:19] Speaker B: I hadn't thought about that. But yeah, that would be. That. That's not the way that your, your brain works. [00:44:23] Speaker A: I've developed a few things to do that for those emergency spots like that. But it's, it's not me. I'm, I'm Mr. Nice Guy. I'm the guy that goes out there. I love everybody. You, you, you, you can tell it. And I do, I do. I, I appreciate my audience. I'm not Ted Nugent, you know, my audience is the lowest form of human existence. You know, to me, that would be insulting. I mean, you know, oh, you got a million laughs. Yeah. But your people were dumber in a stump. Okay. I don't think we had one three digit IQ in the crowd. Okay. No, I want for smart people to laugh and I want for people who don't have those. I want everybody to be involved because that's the, and that's my kingdom side. You know, God makes us all different. I want to bring as many people along. Some people have no sense of humor. [00:45:14] Speaker B: True. [00:45:14] Speaker A: Why they come to comedy events, I don't know. Yeah, Maybe they're hoping. [00:45:19] Speaker B: Yeah, there are some people. If I disliked my pastor as much as some people dislike their pastor, I think I'd go to a different church. [00:45:28] Speaker A: Right. [00:45:29] Speaker B: You know, if I hated my banker, I think I'd go to a different bank, you know, but, but yeah, I don't understand that sometimes. But have you done the secular tours? Have you done like regular comedy clubs and all that? [00:45:45] Speaker A: Yes and no, not comedy clubs, but I work the cruise ships for a number of years to help fill the bills. And that is a comedy, it's a floating comedy club. The difference is maybe that on the cruise ships, if I can say this, a lot of people come into the show already drunk. Yeah, okay, that's true. And it's, it's very unique because I used to Work. And of course now I do things like, you know, premier Christian Cruises and things like that. And I'll go out and do those things and they're so much fun. And we'll end up doing a comedy show every night. We'll end up doing that 12:30 comedy show. It'll start out, you're going to do one and then we do one and we go, hey, want to do this tomorrow? Let's just all get together. And so you'll do four one hour sets and that. Oh, I love those nights, those weeks, man. That's what I'm rocking. [00:46:34] Speaker B: Why is that? What do you like about it? [00:46:35] Speaker A: Well, the connection. Because now you've got these people that you can not just take on a 20 minute journey, you can take them on a four hour journey where you're doing callbacks from. Not a callback from five minutes ago. You're doing a callback from the first night. From the first joke. And it's funny. I have a joke, you've probably heard me do it about Diet Coke and, you know, so in the night, it's one. It's a callback joke. When you say it the first time, it's not funny. It only becomes funny as the callback. But when you're doing four nights in a row, an hour a night, that last night I'm gonna end the show with my 15th callback of the same line. And now has everybody on the floor. [00:47:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's awesome. [00:47:22] Speaker A: And so that there's a beauty in that. [00:47:24] Speaker B: Have you, have you played with AI at all? Is it. Does it have a sense of humor? [00:47:27] Speaker A: No, it doesn't. I have friends. There's a very popular thing in Austin right now called Kill Bill. Yeah. And it's, it's pretty edgy. I'm not recommending that anybody go there. You're probably going to be offended. Or maybe I should say you should be offended. [00:47:44] Speaker B: It's big right now, though. I've never seen it, but I've. People have asked me about it and told me about it. I heard Wynonna was on there sometime recently. [00:47:52] Speaker A: I have a dear friend. His goal is to be on Kill Bill. [00:47:55] Speaker B: And what is the goal of it? Is it just kind of stand up and be funny? Like. No, it's. [00:48:01] Speaker A: It's stand up and be funny, but in the most insulting way you can possibly. [00:48:07] Speaker B: Kind of a roast type thing or. [00:48:09] Speaker A: A bit of a roast. But it's how edgy can you be? How out there can you be? And so his thing is he's A Christian. And he's trying to say, but if I could get on this show and show them that I could be this funny but not be dirty. And I'm like, I don't know that the audience is going to appreciate that as much as you think. But so you've got. I forget why we started down this. [00:48:35] Speaker B: Line, but coming off the cruise ship. [00:48:37] Speaker A: And all that, the four hour, different things, different places. Comedy is hot right now. There's a new company that's coming out right now to actually compete with Dry Bar. You know, I did a Dry Bar special and that's been the new thing on and it's. It's been met with mixed emotion because when Dry Bar started, they started in Provo, Utah, a couple of Mormon guys who really. [00:49:06] Speaker B: Which are naturally hilarious. [00:49:08] Speaker A: Right, right. It's the special underwear. It's the special underwear. [00:49:12] Speaker B: Any religion was special underwear. [00:49:14] Speaker A: You know, it's got to produce comedians that'll work for you. Get a pair. Get a pair. Get online. I believe you can get them on Amazon 12 for a dollar. And I don't know if Chinese Mormon underwear are official. But anyway, so why. You can edit that out. So anyway, so they started this wonderful thing called Dry Bar comedy. Dry Bar, meaning dry non alcoholic bar comedy. And so they started bringing in. Most of us were all evangelical Christians that they started with. Then, then it started to go well. And then they were like, oh, well, let's get other guys. And so they started inviting people out and they were paying well and taking care of things and. And the Internet fees that you're getting paid and the residuals were good. Ran out of comics. So they started saying to this comic, hey, I got to be careful using a name. Tom Jonesy, would you come out and do one? But you've got to work completely clean. And he'd go, oh, and I can make this much money. Yeah. So he would come out and do a completely clean chauffeur. Dry Bar. So you're sitting at home, you're watching it on your app, you're watching it with your friends, and you go, oh, man, this Tom Jonesy is funny and he's clean. Oh, he's gonna be at our comedy club down in Jacksonville. [00:50:35] Speaker B: Totally different. [00:50:35] Speaker A: Let's go see him. [00:50:36] Speaker B: Same thing happened to me. [00:50:38] Speaker A: So, yeah. [00:50:39] Speaker B: Julie, do you remember who was the guy that. Do you remember his name? So there's this guy that I just seen on, like, you know, reels, right. And it was hilarious. It's one of these. The guy that was riding for Saturday Night Live. And he got fired. Probably late 30s, early 40s. Ring a bell at all who this guy would be? Yes, but it's huge now. It's huge. So. So, yeah, it was the same kind of thing. No, no, no, no. This guy's probably built about. Yeah, Gillis. Is that McGillis? [00:51:12] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I. I haven't followed center. [00:51:15] Speaker B: So, no, this guy. This guy's. I don't think he was ever. Actually. He hosted recently. That's how big he's got. [00:51:20] Speaker A: Okay. [00:51:21] Speaker B: But same kind of thing. I saw him on reels, and it was just hilarious. He comes to Jacksonville, and I told Julie, I got us tickets, we're going to get to hear this guy. So she's like, who? What does he do? And so we're bringing up, like, a YouTube special. I mean, it's like, I can't go there and be seen at that event. You know, it was so bad, I couldn't. Wouldn't take my wife to it, you know? But it was the same kind of thing. He must have cleaned it up for television or something. [00:51:50] Speaker A: You know, you had to go in with your bass pro hat on and your sunglasses and a fake duck dynasty beard right there. [00:51:57] Speaker B: But. But, yeah, that must have been the same kind of thing. Clean it up for, you know, the deal. [00:52:02] Speaker A: So that has happened a lot. There's another company right now that's coming on that's going to try to be. And I know their name and everything, but I can't say it yet. Who's going to try to be competition for them with a name very similar to Dry Bar, kind of a parody name of it. So when you hear it, you'll go, oh, that's what Mike was talking about. They called me on the phone in Charlotte the other week asking me to be on it. And so it's. It's interesting. There's a surge of clean comedy right now. People are enjoying the fact that, wow, you can laugh. And, you know, Nate Bargazzi has taught the world that. Wow, he's probably the number one comic in the country right now. He's huge. His Internet, what he do, is fantastic, but he has taught the world, wow, you can be clean and be very, very funny, and everybody likes it. And I remember a number of years, I was coming right up here to Jacksonville, just south of you here, and I did an event for a major tire company in Jacksonville. I'm always careful. I don't know what we're allowed to say for things. [00:53:15] Speaker B: Nobody's seeing this. [00:53:16] Speaker A: Don't worry about it. And the owner Came up to me afterwards, and he told me this story. He wanted to have one particular comedian back then, and if I said the name, you'd know him. And he said, the only thing is, he said he was not a religious person, but he said, half of my employees are. And he said. So I offered him $30,000 for the night to come. And that was a going rate for him at the time. Okay. And I know that that number may sound crazy out there. [00:53:53] Speaker B: It would probably shock people, what some people are making. [00:53:56] Speaker A: You know, Foxworthy's making 300 grand a night. Larry's making more than that. Yeah, right. And so he goes, I offered him $30,000, but I told him, the only thing you cannot do is you cannot do the F word. You've got to promise me you will not use do everything else. The comic turned him down because he said, I don't think that I can do my show without using that word. I don't think I would be funny. And so some of these guys, especially in the earlier years, back when Richard Pryor came on the scene and he was so funny because he shocked people with obscenity. And it almost becomes that nervous laugh. Sometimes you see people and they laugh over nothing. It's like, hey, beautiful day, isn't it? Ha, ha, ha. And it's that. I don't know what else to say. I blurted something out. I need time filler. [00:54:55] Speaker B: The thing in our environments, in churches, that threshold for nervous laughter is lower. You know, you get fired if you say the F word. But there are things that a pastor might say to get that nervous laughter that, you know, is much lower of a threshold. [00:55:12] Speaker A: I saw. [00:55:13] Speaker B: I think it was this week, Seinfeld had. He had one bit that had the F word in it, and he tried it, and he said it just didn't. He had so built his set. I've not heard him live. So he may do this more live now. But at the time, he said, you know, he built his set around clean humor, that when he dropped the F bomb, it was like it just caught everybody off guard somehow. [00:55:41] Speaker A: Things are changing in regards to that. Okay. We are now within a culture. And let me say this. You may have some seniors that are watching. Let me say seniors. Give me a second. I'm a senior. Okay? I've got the AARP card to prove it, and I've used it. Okay? All right. But we are now amongst a culture that that word is not. It means so many things. It means good, it means bad, it means happy, it means sad. It has Become as if it's the word. When some people talk, everything they say is, I was going over to the store. And that has replaced the. So as a senior myself, I have to say, get over it. It's the culture of the day. There's nothing in the Bible that said this is the ultimate bad word. We don't actually know where it came from. There's some things out there any more than you would be offended if somebody came in and spoke Spanish. Because to this younger culture, they're hearing it every single day of their life multiple times. If it comes out of their mouth, don't freak out. They have just heard it so much. [00:56:57] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. And it's especially outside of our Bible Belt type culture. I have to work out, you know, when I travel, I'll hear guys in the airport, you know, and I'm so tempted to just bow up and say something, you know, but it's like. Like with our kids, it's like it's 20, 25 out there in this house. It's 1950, you know, but. But it is. And. And some of the funniest guys. I couldn't let my kids hear them, you know, even though it's actually brilliant humor. Chappelle's kind of that way. It's genius. [00:57:40] Speaker A: Very much. [00:57:41] Speaker B: But that's his audience, and he's performing for that audience. Why is it. And I don't know if this is something that everybody is aware of, if they know or not. Why do you see in comedians an emotional struggle with depression or suicidal tendencies and all of those things? And we can. Robin Williams comes to mind. There's so many people that could make the world laugh. Is there a clinical approach to humor to where you can say, as a comedian, I'm going to go on and make these people laugh, but I've got to guard my heart at the same time so that I don't have to course correct emotionally. Does that make sense? [00:58:42] Speaker A: I'm not a doctor. I'm not a licensed therapist. I'm giving the. Stuart Smalley, you know, here's the way I feel. It is so many of the people who are comics came from a background very similar to mine. [00:59:03] Speaker B: It's true. [00:59:04] Speaker A: Comedy was a drug for them that helped them deal with the pain. They didn't have the other side. That I have an understanding. I now tell that story of my life and I talk to churches about the hardest verse for me in the Bible. And I'm sorry, I'm chasing a rabbit here, but give me just a little Give me a carrot for just a second. The hardest verse in the Bible I was taught when I was on crutches last year for nine and a half months. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. They were using therapy. I gained 35 pounds because I can't walk. I hobbled everywhere. We didn't know if it was ever going to go away. And every morning I would do my exercises and somebody said, you know, don't stare at the clock for 60 seconds. I would have to do these 60 second intervals. Somebody said, Pray the Lord's Prayer. It's about 60 seconds. And I know as Baptists, we're not supposed to pray repetitively or repetitiously or. And especially vain, vain repetition. But I would not do vain repetition. I would truly try to pray the Lord's Prayer. And I kept getting to that spot. We have all these beautiful parts of the Lord's Prayer, and then we get to a spot that is a quid pro quo. And forgive us our debts, our trespasses, our sins, commensurate with the way we forgive others. And that if you're trying to follow Christ as king, that hits you right between the eyes. Because there are people that have done things to us. I talk about my father. I talk about how God brought healing in my life, because he did. It's a powerful ending to the story. We shot in a different direction, and that's fine. But because of. Of hope, because of the gospel, the gospel changes lives, okay? So whereas what happened to me in that time of depression and using comedy to get through the. Because I was a depressed kid, okay, growing up in that, you go, am I going to do drugs to escape? Okay, Use comedy to survive. But now, once I'm out of that, have I allowed God to transform me or am I still using the drug? So a lot of our guys are still depressed in their life. Comedy is that drug. In fact, they will tell you, Robin Williams said the only hour of his day that he felt like he wanted to live was the hour that he was on stage. [01:02:06] Speaker B: So. So it's legitimate, like they are. They are elated. If they seem elated on stage. I've wondered that sometimes if that was just a gift or if they were great actors or what it was, if they could be so depressed offstage. But you're telling me that in that moment, it's lifted. It's. It's legitimate joy or happiness or frivolity or whatever it is. [01:02:27] Speaker A: Comedy is the ultimate skydiving experience. But your crash is just that People didn't laugh. But to dare to say, I'm going to walk out in front of an audience, whether that audience is 50 people or 300 or 58,000. Okay. Is to walk out that says I got to make them laugh. And so to go out there, that exhilaration, those endorphins that are released in our body, not only would we laugh, but all these other things that are happening, it's kind of like I'm dealing right now. I need. I'm going in for two root canals tomorrow morning. Okay. Tomorrow morning when you're filming your next one here, I'm going to be being drilled upon. Okay. But this weekend I was really having a hard time. I didn't have medicine for it or anything like that when I was on stage. Never felt a thing. [01:03:20] Speaker B: Wow. [01:03:20] Speaker A: Never. [01:03:21] Speaker B: I get that from preaching. I know what you mean by that. [01:03:23] Speaker A: And so that the stage time becomes the drug for them also. There is also a spiritual factor. Zach, I think you will understand this, though. Until you brought it up, I hadn't even put this together. But you know, when we give to other people, we're blessed. The Bible says the same way that you plant, that you sow, you reap. Okay? If you sow helping other people, people will help you. If you sow into the, you know, this commensurate, if you plant a tomato, you're going to get a tomato, right? So I believe as these guys, even though they don't understand it, because God's principles work whether we understand them or not, they're planting joy into people's lives. And for the same amount of time that they're bringing joy to these people's lives, they're receiving because it's God's law. It's just as. It's the same as gravity. It's there for the just and the unjust, the educated, illiterate, black, white, poor, rich, whatever, it's there. And so I believe that's what happens. [01:04:37] Speaker B: You have an ability that. To turn the corner. And it never has seemed premeditated, even though I know you have to do some of that. You're one of those guys that can make you in the same 25, 30 minute set, weep as well as laugh. And it's authentic, it's real. But you do it in a very classy way because you're just telling the truth. You're telling what's really happening in the world. Whether you're talking about your work in the Dominican Republic or around the world or your own story. And it's not Awkward. Because sometimes that can be awkward. To go from the silliest thing in the world to the reality of the hard parts of life with you. It's never been awkward. It always seemed like, no, that's just Mike. That's what. Mike over lunch. That's how quick his gears will shift, you know, and if a person has never had you in their church as a pastor, that's had you a few times, I want to say you were respectful to our people. You were honoring to our people. I think we had you on a Sunday morning one time, didn't we? [01:06:01] Speaker A: Oh, I preached two Sunday mornings at. [01:06:03] Speaker B: Your church, and it's not. It. It's. You don't feel like you have to ask for forgiveness after it as a pastor. [01:06:09] Speaker A: And. [01:06:10] Speaker B: And sincerely, I don't know how many of my pastor brothers have thought, well, you know, that might be fun, because it. It would lighten it up. But, you know, we kind of. We put a big deal in being expository, preaching all that kind of stuff. If I bring Mike in it, I don't. I don't know, I just kind of feel like that's, you know, crossing a line. Maybe get him for an event on a Thursday night or something. Do that. But you're one of those guys that. It was great Sunday morning. It was appropriate. I think people came to Christ through it. We saw some sincere life change. I don't know what to compare it to. I think you look at, like, the difference between Paul and Apollos in the New Testament. These guys had two totally different gift sets, and you really need both of them. And so for the guys out there that are like me, that we do a lot of the same stuff, and hopefully it's good. But it has been a benefit to me to bring somebody like you in who has a totally different gift mix and just trust you with that time, that stage, and our people. And it's always been extremely well received. Something you said that I've thought about probably more than you realize is. And I want you to say it in your words, live to be a statue. Live in such a way that people one day would want to put up a statue in your honor. Where did that come from? [01:07:45] Speaker A: I don't know that I heard it anywhere else. It just was. I signed my email that says this. I want to live a life that is more worthy of a statue than a tombstone. I used to do a sermon entitled what Are youe Going To do with the Dash? And I actually had a tombstone that I would bring up on stage with Me. And it had a guy's name up at the top, and it had his birth year and his death year and the dash. And I would ask the question, what are you going to do with your life in between that? I don't want to be defined by my birthday and my death day. I wanted to be defined by the life that I have been asked to live. You know, I would speak to the pastors that question whether or not humor could be used and say this. If you don't think humor has a place on Sunday morning, then by all means, be honest with yourself and stop trying to tell a joke every Sunday morning. Don't do it. But you know that. That loosens up a crowd. It lightens them up. It makes them. They go from this to. It's the breathing. When you laugh, you do this. And all of a sudden, now I can hear. Laughter is. What do they call that? Sorbet. It's the palate cleanser. Now, let's listen. I never, on a Sunday morning, my wife would say, you never on any event, have any idea what you're going to do until you walk up there. Which is true. Okay. I've been doing this long enough now, and I have, you know, five hours of stuff up in the brain if it pops. And I literally just walk up and what comes out, okay. I want to connect with people. That's why I like the lights on on a comedy event. I want to look at people. I want to read their faces. I want to. I want to know if I'm going down the right road or the wrong road with them. I have a couple of little things I say right up front that helps me kind of determine what kind of food they like. But I don't go into a sermon going, okay, I'm going to start off with this joke, and I'm going to end with this joke with this joke. I was just in Jacksonville last weekend, Sunday morning, church, Parkwood Baptist Church. I'm thinking Manny, Manny Kaiser there. And I got up and I said, folks, I said, I'm a little bit embarrassed. I said, last Sunday morning, I did what I always do. I showed up to speak at a church, and pastor said, hey, we're a little early. Would you like to go into one of the rooms and one of the Sunday school classes? Not to teach, just to sit in there. I love to do that. I want to do that because I have to be fed, too. Okay. I get put into a very small class. Okay. I felt kind of out of place because the teacher is about 80. And there's two men in there who are late 70s. And in me, I'm the youth group in the room. And the teacher goes, I want to do something I saw a guy do on television. And so he hands us each a three by five card. And he said, in 15 seconds, I want you to imagine that you could get on a time machine and you could go back and do one thing, okay? And he said, write it down right there. And so 15 seconds, I'm thinking, time machine, comedy mind kicks in. Time machine, comedy mind kicks in. So I write down mine. And then he goes, okay, everybody hand me your card. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought this was a self explanatory thing right here. And so he starts, he reads the first guy and the first guy goes, you know, I would go back to the Garden of Eden and beg Adam and Eve not to, you know, not to eat the tree there. And that was great. And the other guy goes, you know, I would go back to Ford's theater and I would stop Lincoln from being shot. And he read that one and we're, wow, pretty heavy. And. And then he gets to mine and he goes, I would go back to third grade and punch Billy Harrison in the mouth for calling me a boogerhead. And. And the people all laughed. And I said, so, folks, here's the deal. You're not looking at the most spiritual person up here today. You're looking at a person who, just like you, works in a regular world with regular people. And I'm going to share my personal experience with this powerful word of God, and hopefully in it all, that somehow God will speak to you because of it. I don't care if he speaks to you about the topic that I'm speaking about, because that's not important. God has you here for a reason. You've dedicated this 40 minutes that we have. You listen to him, Zach. When I pray and I pray, and I mean this, whether I'm praying out loud or before I go up, and you know, we pastors have the kind of a way that we do things. I always pray the same prayer. I say, father, I will do my best to distract these people from the Facebook posts that got their dander up from the stuff that's happening with their kids right now that they're angry about, from the diagnosis that they've heard that has them scared. I'll do that. Would you, through your holy Spirit, speak to people's hearts? And if that happens, then it's been a success. Powerful. [01:13:38] Speaker B: And, you know, you think about the dash if all you had done with your dash was make people laugh, that would be a good thing to give to the world. But you've done a lot more than that, Mike. You've brought true ministry when it. When we've had you in. And we all appreciate that. And I've got to tell you, you know, RG Lee. Do you know the name you are? Julie. So Payday Someday was one of the great preachers of his generation. A young guy was asking him one day, he said, what are you thinking about right before the sermon? Like, what's the last thing you do? Have you heard this before? Says right before you go on stage, what is, what are you. What are you praying? What are you thinking? And it was just one of those holy moments. You talk about humor. And he said, he said, my biggest concern right before I go on stage is did I zip my britches? [01:14:26] Speaker A: We've all been there. Oh, yeah. [01:14:30] Speaker B: Every head bow, every eye closed. [01:14:32] Speaker A: Right? I mean, every eye, every eye, ma'. Am. [01:14:38] Speaker B: Well, Mike, thank you for coming on. If people want. If people will say, I want to find out more, I'd like to bring him to my church. How do they do that? [01:14:44] Speaker A: Mike Williams. My name and the word comedy.com mikewilliamscomedy.com our mission project in the Dominican Republic and Malawi, Africa and Mexico City is Cups Mission. Think about coffee cups. Cups mission. C u p s mission.com Tell us. [01:15:00] Speaker B: About your books real quick. [01:15:01] Speaker A: Oh, this. [01:15:02] Speaker B: And where do we get them? [01:15:03] Speaker A: Yeah, well, these are all available on Amazon holding Someday. It's a novel about what's happening behind the scenes in the pro life world. If you've got somebody who's on the fence and they're going, I'm not sure. We're in a world where people are very convoluted in whether they're pro life or not. This book is a novel. They won't know where it's going to land until the very last chapter. But I believe it will change their heart. It's in a novel form. Kidnapped is all about how the mission got started. Right there. The stories you'll read about. Chapter one, the Christian prostitute right there. Doesn't that. That shocks you Right there. You probably. I don't believe that. Read it, read it, read it. Chapter one. And lately what I've been doing is, oh, 17, 18 years ago, I wrote a book entitled Men moved to Mars when women started killing the ones on Venus. And a number of people around the country have had me come out and do marriage seminars from it. My wife And I have been married for 40 years consecutively. And so what I do is in a humorous way, I'll go into a church, we do a Friday night. Usually it's a Friday or Saturday night, we'll do a date night. And this bring your wife, bring your girlfriend. Or I always say, if you're hoping to one day have a girlfriend, come out, to come out to the date. [01:16:18] Speaker B: Night, call those things that are not as though they are right. [01:16:22] Speaker A: You've spiritualized it right there. And so what I'm going to do is we're going to laugh, we're going to talk about relationships a little bit, and then I will come back either on the Sunday morning or on a Saturday morning and do a seminar based on what we call biblical bonding. Genuine love is based in four different loves that combined together creates an epoxy glue within you. And of course, those loves are eros. And we get that confused sometimes, but we have to have that eros that, wow, look at that. But also philia, the commonality, what brings us together and allows us to be not only partners but friends in life. Storge. The most important part there in my, that I'm going to be faithful to you. You will not die alone right there. And of course, agape, that's the one we all know the most. But agape is the least emotional of all of them. It's the contract, it's the covenant. And it's the same covenant that God gave to us, that agape, love herein is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us. And so it's that covenant. We talk about the difference between a covenant and a contract, and then we give some practical advice. And so the new version of it, I needed to make it because what I found, the first book was 325 pages and men would not read it. And so I always say, never buy a book for a man that he can't read in the bathroom. Okay, good point. [01:17:49] Speaker B: And so most men graduate. Never read another book, right? [01:17:52] Speaker A: And so this new book is called if Men Are from Mars and Women Are From Venus, How Can I Live Happily with this alien? And it's a humorous approach to perfecting your marriage or dating relationship. It's a simple, easy read. And here, let me just one quote off the back. I really like goat yoga. My wife wrote this right here. It's on her side over here. Goat yoga is the best preparation for a happy marriage. Goat yoga trains you to find inner peace and continued focus while a wild animal walks all over your back. [01:18:29] Speaker B: Are these on Amazon? Where we get them on your website? [01:18:31] Speaker A: They're all on Amazon right now. [01:18:32] Speaker B: Excellent. Excellent. Well, Mike Williams, thank you again for coming in. It's been a pleasure. [01:18:36] Speaker A: Thank you, Zach, Terry, appreciate it.