Brian Regan and Preaching

On a rainy Saturday at a men’s retreat, a year-and-a-half ago, Kurtz Smith popped in a DVD of a comedian named, Brian Regan.  The sun came out.  He was hilarious.  He was also clean.  For a little while, there was a time when he injected a bit of sketchy material into his routines but, as he said in a recent interview with CNN, he found that he did not need to do this. “I was always 90 to 95 percent clean with my jokes anyways, and I’m kind of anal so, why be 95 percent something when you could be 100 percent something? It worked out, and people really seem to respond to it so I guess that other 5 percent wasn’t that important anyways.”  What Regan does so well is comment on real life, the kind of situations any of us can identity with.  Here’s a favorite clip:

The CNN interviewer asked him, “How do you get your ideas?” Regan’s answer strikes me as one that offers useful counsel to preachers. Here is what he said: “I used to try and sit down with a blank piece of paper. I would stare at the paper, and it just continues to stay blank. I’ve learned that for me, it’s easier for me to go out and live my life and do my thing.”

I am often asked for advice on the “how to’s” of developing a sermon.  And honestly, I don’t think I can do a whole lot better than what Regan said. Go out and live, do your thing, and you’ll find lots of great material to work with.