by Cara Bell
T4JYM: What kind of relationship do you maintain with your audiences? Do you fellowship with them? Or do you remain distant as the performer?
BS: No…I’m not distant at all. I answer all my email…it may take me awhile but I answer it all. I drop in on my message board all the time and I usually end up hanging out with people after my show….usually until they all leave and the janitor asks me to lock up. But I think the best proof that I’m not distant as a performer is that I agree to do email interviews even if they ask a ton of questions (see: 9)
T4JYM: Is it more important to remain funny, or to spread the Word?
BS: Well, thankfully you can do both but obviously being able to tell a great joke is not going to get you into Heaven…so I’m going with the “Spread the Word” thing.
T4JYM: Could you please share a short testimony?
BS: Three things led me to Christ. The first being that my parents were and are great Christian people that provided me with a great example of people that turned their lives over to Christ in Faith and Love. However, my first major commitment came my Junior year in High School. I was going to a little school in Era, TX. We had a little over 100 people in the entire school system…and that was Kindergarten through Elderly; everybody went. Which was bad because that meant we only had 17 girls in the entire high school. That’s all. 17. That’s a bad sign when your opening pick up line is “You aint related to me are ya?” That’s not a lot of girls to choose from when dating. At a big school, its like a buffet. At my school, it was more like a vending machine.
My friend and I had conversations like:
“Who are you going to take to prom?”
“I don’t know. Maybe D-11.”
“No, she’ll just take your money.”
“What about her?”
“No, she’s chock full of nuts?”
We had two different kinds of girls. 6 of your classic text book cheerleaders with lots of energy, but no battery. Their cheers were ‘WE HAVE SPIRIT YES WE DO, WE HAVE SPIRIT BUT NO IQ. SUPERSTAR’. We also had 11 “Goth” type girls. They traveled in their own clicks. Expressed their own individuality by dressing exactly the same. They were rude, they were mean….they were in no danger of drowning because not even the Tide would take them out. Those girls were not marriage quality. Actually, I’m sure God has marriage plans for them. God made us all with a great plan and I have no doubt that there are men out there that need to be punished…but they weren’t for me. And all that was fine with me because I was always too nervous to talk to girls back then. I never knew what to say. I actually memorized the three answers to the three questions that girls asked me the most.If they said, “Hi.” I would say, “Hi.” If they said, “What’s up?” I’d say, “Not Much!” Or “Why are you following me?” I’d be ready with, “No Hablo Englese.” I was always so nervous. Not that I didn’t date. I had a lot of dates…well, I had one date…not that it was an actual “go out with you” kind of date…but I did kiss her…ok..it was during the school play but the play called for a kissing scene. And it was a good kiss. I think it kind of shocked her though because I wasn’t actually IN the play…I was just running the curtain for the play because my audition didn’t go…anyway, so I was running the curtain, but I could’ve sworn the guy called for his line. So, I ran out to help, and, uh, he didn’t have a line. He was just suppose to kiss the girl. So I did it for him. Kind of like a stunt double sort of thing…which is how I explained it to the School board afterwards. The play was Romeo and Juliet, so she was going to die anyway at the end of the play…so when she passed out we just turned it into a one act play. We cut straight to the ending. But the point is, I wasn’t really good with girls. Plus, I wasn’t the coolest looking kid in school. In high school, I had acne so bad that my dog called me spot. I weighed around 119lbs. I looked like I went to a blood bank and forgot to say “when”. I was so skinny that when I played football in school, I tucked my jersey in and half of the number disappeared. I was number 80 but It looked like my jersey said “On”. I once got called for the Holding. The Ref. said, “We’ve got holding on.On?” Oh, and I didn’t have cool clothes because we were very poor. We got clothes from two different sorces. 1. Hand-me-downs from my cousin,…..Susan. 2. My mom would make me clothes. She claimed she could make anything. We would be out somewhere and I would say, “Oh, that’s cool.” She would shout, “I can make that!” and I would have to tell her, “Mom, that’s a Toyota Camry.”
Anyway, my Junior year I fell in love with this girl that moved to our school and I spent a year pursuing her for just one date. I finally got her to go out with me and after spending a full year pursuing her, the date totally bombed. That night, I made my first realization that the only relationship that truly matters in life is the relationship that you have with Jesus Christ….anything else could turn out to be a dissapointment. Also, it hit me that night that everything else was going to burn away one day (the clothes..thank goodness, the school, the town, all the relationships I made on this Earth) and the only thing that will matter is if Jesus can say, “Yes, I know this brother. He lived his life following me.” I decided to let Jesus be the one that I would pursue for the rest of my life.
The other thing that contributed to me coming to know Christ is something that my Grandmother told me early on in life. She said, “If you want to be Christ-like, you have to go to the bible to find out what Christ was truly like. Read the bible every day. Don’t wait till your old. It makes me mad that Ederly people read the bible like crazy as if they are trying to cram for a final!” That has always stayed with me and I try to be in the Word daily to find out how to live and how to pursue Christ. I’ve learned that Christ will guide you through this life if you will trust Him. I could write more but to be honest, I would rather be reading my bible right now…I suggest you do the same….that wasn’t short was it?
T4JYM: Was it hard getting started as a Christian Comedian?
BS: No…God totally just opened the door. Here’s the story: I majored in Elementary Education thinking the classes would be easy. After all, I already knew most of the alphabet. During my Junior year, I entered a few standup competitions offering cash prizes. I found that standup offered a better salary per hour than determining whether or not someone desired fries with their purchase. However, a life spent in bars and standup clubs was not desirable to me. So, upon graduation, I did what most college graduates do, I got a job involving absolutely nothing I studied in college. I did want to be a teacher, but first wanted to see what it was like to have some money in a bank. So, I became a professional photographer in Dallas, TX. where I worked for 1 year. Towards the end of that year, I received an unexpected call from an old college friend who now lived in Nashville, TN and was working as a Road Manager for Christian singer Clay Crosse. This old friend had seen me do stand up in college and wanted to know if I was interested in going out on tour with Clay with the idea of getting up in-between the acts and using my strange, yet clean and positive comedy to entertain the audiences. Clay’s tour opened up the possibility of doing standup without having to go to the normal comedy venues. My comedy was well met with the Christian audiences and I began to get many other offers to do standup. …so getting started wasn’t hard. Of course, I still had to pay my dues playing at festivals at 8AM next to the sumo inflatable wrestling ring and horrible stuff like that. But getting started was easy.
T4JYM: What is the biggest thing you have learned from performing and ministering through comedy?
BS: Uh…not to spit when I talk so people wont mind sitting in the front row. I guess that’s all I’ve really “learned”.
T4JYM: Who, or what, are your biggest influences?
BS: First… my preacher because he knows the bible inside and out. Second…Supertones and Third Day because they only care about spreading God’s word and third…my dad because he may read this.
T4JYM: Do you have an accountability partner?
BS: Yes. Richie Ray…I promise that’s his real name… we keep each other accountable in our roll as a husband, father and Christian.
T4JYM: Are you active in your church or anything else?
BS: Yes. I attend the normal Sunday morning and night assembly. Also, this past spring I taught the Seniors in our youth group on Wednesday nights. We did a study on Galations and Ephesians. I also attend a Tuesday morning men’s prayer group…at 6AM! Its me and a bunch of old men..so the old men have been up for 3 hours already and I’m still trying to get enough crust out of my eyes just to see them. All of this is done around my touring schedule and show dates…but when I’m home, I’m active. I have a great preacher and love our home church.
T4JYM: Do you have any advice to give to the youth of our world?
BS: Remember that at some point everything on this planet is going to burn away and the only thing that will matter is your relationship with Jesus Christ…so ask yourself…who are you pursuing?
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