“My wife is slim and I’m stout. That’s why our favourite Scripture verse is ‘she must increase; I must decrease’.”

“Both my wife and I have grown over the years of our marriage. She has grown wiser; I have grown wider.”

“Some husbands come in handy to help around the house; others come in with brandy to mess up the house.”

“Don’t ever say to a guy who is recovering from a stomach operation that laughter is the best medicine.”

Did my four original, recently written snippets capture your attention and make you chuckle a little? I am sure they did. That is the power of humor in communication. Let us consider seven ways humor can be used to enhance communication.

1. Connect with the Audience

When a speaker is addressing an audience for the first time, a rapport must be established right at the beginning and in the quickest possible time. Once a rapport is built with the audience from the start, half the battle is won. Humor is the quickest way of building the rapport and breaking the ice. You tell a joke, they laugh, they respond, they are relaxed. Once people are relaxed they will be more receptive to you as the speaker.

One opening joke you could use is the story of a lady taking an airplane for the first time.

She approaches the pilot and says, “Sir, this is my first flight and I’m very nervous. Would you please be more careful?” “Young lady,” the pilot replies, “I know exactly how you feel. Like you, I’m very nervous as this is my first flight too.”

At this point, the audience is bound to burst into laughter. After the laughter has subsided, you could go on to say, “Although this is my first time speaking here, I don’t feel nervous, but I feel so warmly welcomed by the friendly smiles written all over your faces.”

Once that statement is made, almost instantly a connection is established between you and the audience. Having made the connection, you can confidently go on with the rest of your speech.

2. Capture Their Attention

Connecting with the audience is only the first step. The next crucial step is to capture their attention. An engaging speaker is able to capture the audience’s attention not just at the beginning but throughout the speech. This is done through the deliberate, seamless, and relevant insertion of humor at the various strategic stages of the speech. This ensures the audience is engaged all the time.

Humor keeps the audience engaged because it gives them a chance to take a “mental break,” without which most people would find it hard to concentrate on a speech continuously for 45 minutes. It gives them a chance to take a refreshing breather before the next part of the speech begins. It is much like seeing an audience being refreshed and revitalised after a coffee break or an intermission before the next part of a seminar or show begins.

Capturing the audience’s attention cannot be over emphasized because there are so many things that can compete for their attention. They may be sitting in the pews, but their minds are often distracted and preoccupied with work and family, etc., and may not be paying full attention to the speaker. Coupled with that, many busy people are “sleep deprived.” A dull and boring speech is bound to send them straight into deep slumber. But if your speech is interjected and spiced with humor, they will be busily laughing away and will not even have time to fall asleep.

Many people have at various times said to me, “Oh, I’m very tired and didn’t have enough sleep the night before but your humorous preaching marvelously kept me awake throughout the sermon.”

3. Concretise the Lessons

Humor also helps in concretising the lessons, making it easier for the audience to remember them.

One common argument frequently advanced against the use of humor is that all the people will remember about the sermon are the jokes. But that’s only half the truth. The other half of the truth is because they remember the joke or story, they are likely to remember the lesson illustrated by the joke.

The truth is because they remember the story of the prodigal son, they are likely to remember the lesson about the forgiving grace of God. Because they remember the story of the woman who gave her two mites, they will remember the lesson about sacrificial giving.

Why? For the simple reason that that was how God has created and wired us. We are wired by God to remember jokes and stories much better than cognitive truths. Jesus understood this so well and that is why He used parables and stories frequently (quite a number of these stories were actually Jewish humor which many Christians miss) to His great advantage to enhance His teaching and so should we.

Will the lesson be overshadowed by the humor? Certainly not if the speaker does it the right way!

A camper who attended a church camp in which I was the speaker wrote the following in their evaluation of my sermon: “My worry that jokes/humor may dilute the sermon was unfounded.”

4. Communicate Tough Messages

Humor not only contributes in concretizing lessons but is a great help when it comes to preaching tough messages.

This is because humor has the positive effects of putting people at ease, reducing the tension and resistance to a tough message, and unobtrusively breaking down the defences of people. Through the use of humor, the tough message is “softened,” making it more appealing and palatable to people to accept the hard truth. So, if you want to tell people the tough truth, you had better first make them laugh or they may just “switch off” on you. Herein lies the paradox that the serious lessons of life are best learnt when you can laugh heartily about them.

For instance, if you were preaching on something as serious as hell, you could tell this joke about a government official who had difficulty in pronunciation. He was given the task of introducing the Minister of Health who was the Guest-of-Honor in a big meeting. As he stood up, he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to introduce to you the Guest-of-Honor, Mr So & So, the Minister of Hell!”

After the anticipated laughter has subsided, you could go on to say, “There is no Minister of Hell but there is a place called hell and those who die without Christ will perish there.”

5. Convert the Unbelievers

Humor can also be used in the context of evangelism since it is non-threatening and most people enjoy a healthy dose of it.

If you were preaching about salvation through Christ, you could use this joke about a teacher who caught two students fighting.

“Since you fought,” the teacher reprimanded, “I’m going to punish both of you. I want both of you to write your names one thousand times.” “Teacher,” one of the boys complained, “that’s not a fair punishment.” “Why not fair?” the teacher retorted. “It’s not fair,” the boy argued, “because his name is Jim, my name is Govindasamymanavelu.”

Then you could go on to say whether it is Jim or Govindasamymanavelu, names are given for personal identity and to differentiate one from the other. But the name of Jesus Christ goes beyond that because it has the power over your eternal destiny and invokes the blessings of salvation (Acts 2:21, Acts 4:12).

Some time ago, a church invited me to preach an evangelistic sermon which resulted in the salvation of two persons. One was an elderly gentleman who was suffering from terminal illness. The other was a young man. His sister had tried to witness to him but he had stubbornly refused time and again to accept Christ until he heard my sermon. In both cases, the pastor of the church encouragingly said that what got through to them was the humorous and down-to-earth way in which I delivered the evangelistic message.

6. Cheer the Downcast

Besides evangelism, humor can also be used to bring healing and deliverance to believers.

A few years ago, I was preaching in a church and after the service, one lady with tears in her eyes came up to my wife and said, “Tell Pastor George that he is God-sent.” 

Later, we found out that she was a florist who was living under a cloud of self-condemnation because of a mistake she had made some time ago. A church member had ordered a floral wreath from her to celebrate the birth of a child. But the florist made the blunder of sending a funeral wreath instead, which offended the church member. Although the member had already forgiven her, she still could not forgive herself.

But she was instantly liberated from that self-condemnation because the humor I shared in the sermon (which I took from one of my humor books) fits almost exactly to her circumstance. Instantly, she knew that God had sent and used me to liberate her.
 
There was another occasion in which I was the church camp speaker. One lady, who attended the camp, related to me that she could not get over the death of her sister because she was very dear to her. She was even “blaming” God for her death.

But she experienced a breakthrough when I shared a piece of humor about death as part of a sermon. The humor I shared liberated her and she saw the light and was able to “release” her late sister to the Lord.

7. Captivate the Children

If humor is crucial when communicating with adults, it is indispensable in the case of children. I have learned from first-hand experience that when it comes to communicating with children, humor is not a luxury but an absolute necessity.

To date, I have spoken at 35 primary schools in Singapore, with a combined student population of nearly 60,000. In every school that I spoke in, whenever I have made the kids laugh in the context of a lesson, they have felt instantly endeared to me. They would lovingly wave at me and intimately call out, “Hi Uncle George” or “Goodbye Uncle George,” as if they had known me for years, but the truth is I have only met them for the first time.

The effect of humor on children is truly magical. Once you have succeeded in making them laugh, you are bound to win their hearts over and bond with them.

In one of the schools I gave a talk in, a teacher spoke to me about a delinquent kid who was a “police case” and stayed in a boy’s home. The teacher said that he was a very distracted kid and normally would not pay any attention during school assembly. But during the particular assembly in which I was the speaker, he was captivated by my humorous talk. He was not only listening attentively but laughing away hilariously. Humor is indeed a great tool to connect even with difficult and wayward kids.

Jesus Himself connected so well with children of His day. Hence, it is not farfetched to consider the thought which flashed across my mind a year ago, that if Jesus did not have a sense of humor, do you think children would have been drawn to him?

As I conclude, let me leave you this quote of mine: “Humor is like cosmetics. It can take something that’s plain and turn it into something phenomenal.” Humor indeed has the power to enhance your communication by turning your unadorned speech or sermon into an exceptional one.

Rev. George Ong is an itinerant speaker who preaches in many churches of different denominations, both in Singapore and overseas. He is also a certified trainer of UnveilinGLORY Seminar (Cat & Dog Theology). The Seminar has been consistently rated highly by many churches. To date, he has written 12 humor books. Another batch of 12 NEW humor books is slated to be out in two years time. If you wish to invite him for speaking engagements, please contact him: georgeog@singnet.com.sg or (65) 65634704. Website: www.revgeorgeong.com.
The New International Version of the Bible has been referenced.