Healing through Joy // S08E09

Today speaker and improviser, Dave Ebert, joins us to talk about laughter. In a career that involves much comedy, Dave has come to realize the importance of laughter. A medicine for the soul, breaker of barriers, weapon for spiritual warfare. This episode covers this topic as well as the importance of lasting joy and redemption as we laugh together.

Guest Info and Links:

Dave is an improviser, actor, improv coach, speaker, and credentialed minister. He was born in Chicago, but grew up in southwestern Virginia. Much of his improv and acting ability is attributed to his 8 years as a pro wrestler on the independent circuit in the south. In 2013, after nearly two decades of battling with depression and suicidal ideations, Dave finally made the life-changing decision to pursue God. He says, “At that point, I wrestled with this choice: I could take my life…or I could give my life. I chose to give my life to the Lord.”

Dave’s Links:
Gifts 4 Glory Ministry
Well Versed Comedy
Pure Fest

Verses from Laughter’s Medicine:

Proverbs 17:22, Proverbs 15:15, Philippians 4:8, Luke 12

“You can affirm somebody as a human being, as somebody in the image of God, without affirming their sin, you can dine with the sinners and the tax collectors without becoming one, right?”

Dave Ebert, The Pantry Podcast, Laughter’s Medicine

“You know, a lot of times like,  you know, don’t, don’t look behind you, don’t worry about yesterday, you know, and worry about today. Don’t worry about tomorrow. And I get that. It’s really important to live in that, but sometimes it’s good to look back and see like, like the abundance of God in your life.”

Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Laughter’s Medicine

“you hear about joy, but it’s always linked with suffering. And so then you, and then when you’re just happy, you know, people have almost cast happiness as the enemy like, oh, that’s false. Like that’s, that’s going to fade. And it, and so we don’t think about joy residing beside happiness.”

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Laughter’s Medicine

Annotated Transcript:

Intro

Shea: You’re listening to the Pantry Podcast, part of the spark podcast network. Now playing on the Edify app. Hey, I’m Shea  

Michelle:  I’m Michelle, and this is the pantry podcast. Season eight road to Revelation.  

Shea:  We’re here to help you crave a healthier spiritual diet by teaching you to ask the right questions, seek the right answers in the right place. God’s word and break free. The junk food. The world wants to shove down your throat. 

Michelle: We live in a broken world. We can fall down in despair or rise up for our wedding day. This season, we’re looking at what it really means to be the bride of Christ in the end times. And the many things we can learn from the book of Revelation that will guide us today, tomorrow, and to the end of time.

Shea:  Join us and fellow listeners in 47 states and 66 countries. As we marinate on the word of God, clear the junk from our pantries and feast on real everlasting food.

Michelle: Support the show by sharing this episode with two friends that need a godly snack and becoming a partner at patreon.com/the pantry Podcast for as low as $5 a month.  

Shea: And now let’s dig into the meal. 

Laughters Medicine:

Shea: Hey, what’s up.  

Michelle: Welcome to the pantry,  

Shea: The pantry! and thank you all for being with us today, man. We want to shout out Spencer Favor, man. Thank you brother for listening. Thank you for asking us questions. You are awesome, man. We’ve really enjoyed the interaction with you, man. We have, we are continuing to grow. We just have countries coming up all of the time.  Is there any new ones or is there any that we haven’t shouted out or  

Michelle: I’m sure there’s some, you, you caught me off guard. I’ll probably be in the middle of the episode. I’ll just shout out a country and you’ll know that that one’s new. No.  I think the most recent is still Lebanon though. We are recording like two weeks early. So by then, you know, sorry, if you’re new, you’ll get shouted out down a couple of weeks.  but we are still looking as of right now, we are still looking for people in South Dakota and New Mexico and Wyoming. If you know someone in one of those states that would benefit from the pantry. If we get listeners in those three states, we will have covered all 50 states. So just saying… The incentive is just that that’s cool.  

Shea: Really? That’s the demographics that I love to look at. I love to see countries pop up. I think it’s really cool to see how, you know, a country gets labeled, like it’s been listened to. And it’s really neat that we’re reaching people because you know, this isn’t our message. This is God’s message. And we, we like to get out there, but anyways, Hey, tonight we are talking about laughter’s medicine. 

Singing : I’ve got the joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in, down in my heart. I got the… but why is it sometimes Christians that we always sit there and take this joy word like this, like joy, you know, we always eliminate happiness. You can’t be happy it’s joy. And then when you say it we gotta have joy. Where’s our laughter, come on, man. We need to laugh more as Christians. And I think tonight’s guest is the perfect person for this episode because man, he will make you laugh.  

Michelle: Yes, yes. And that, that hopefully that doesn’t add any pressure to him for this episode.  

Shea:  He does look like he could be from Wyoming. So maybe he knows,  

Michelle:  Prepare for lots of jokes from Shea, given who our guest is. So our guest is Dave Ebert. He is an improviser, actor, improv coach, speaker, and credentialed minister. He was born in Chicago, but grew up in Southwestern Virginia. Much of his improv and acting ability is attributed to his eight years as a pro wrestler on the independent circuit in the south. And in 2013, after nearly two decades of battling with depression and suicidal ideations, Dave finally made the life-changing decision to pursue God. And he says, at that point I wrestled with this choice. I could take my life or I could give my life. I chose to give my life to the Lord and you’re gonna learn more about him now. So welcome.  

Shea: And let me tell ya, he doesn’t walk with a limp with all that wrestling.  

Dave Ebert: I really don’t. That’s one of the advantages for your viewers. I,  you can tell I’m a bigger guy. When you’re a bigger guy, you don’t have to do the crazy stunts. It’s just being big. You’re like, Ooh, people are attracted to that. It’s a little guys ended up with a limp because they got to do all the crazy stuff.  

Shea: So was Jacob big or little. Jacob wrestling, ah, see, now, now I connected it. I’m saying, I’m sorry guys. I throw stuff out there sometimes. 

Michelle:  People sometimes forget his name was Jacob. They’re like, wait. Who’s that? And then you’re like, oh, it’s Israel. And then you’re like, oh, well I flunked it today, but that’s okay.  

Dave Ebert: Jacob was the first wrestler to have a gimmick change in the middle of his career.  

Shea:  Oh my goodness. It’s gonna be fun. Oh my goodness. So tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, we read that big bio and that probably like, just like, oh wow. That’s I got followed that up. But yeah, dude, you are so much more. I see you on Facebook. I see you on the social media platforms.  You’re on fire, but man, you do like to make people laugh and, and I see that and I, some of the great things that you’re doing,  

Dave Ebert:  Yeah.  Comedy has always been a part of my life from the time I was about two years old.  I was always trying to entertain my mom and her and dad and their friends. And as I got older and I entered into depression in high school, it went from something that was a pure heart to something that was corrupted as a way to cover up my depression and to prevent, you know, other people from feeling what I was feeling, because I felt that if I could make somebody laugh and improve their day, improve their week, then I was offering a value to the world where I could justify staying in the world.  And so it went from the purity of childlike nature to corrupted. And now God is redeeming it through my comedy ministry. And,  give me a chances to minister  to people through the gift of laughter, because I explained it like this. When you laugh, you have a good hearty laugh. The natural tendency to, to physically is to rock your head back and lift your eyes up. And the Bible says, where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord. And you lift your eyes up to the hills where he’s at and what better way to do that. Then through laughter the Bible says, laughter is good medicine or a cheerful heart is good medicine.  so basically I’m a, a drug dealer for God.  

Shea:  So hold on. I think, I think that like, when we talk about these things and people really do need to understand these things. And when I say that you’re going to have to go to the YouTube channel of family. Cause,  I’m about to ask Dave, what does a Hearty laugh sounded look like, See that he raised right up to the Lord  

Michelle: That’s improv where he can just summon. And so something hit me and it’s, I’m sorry. Y’all it’s like not funny. You could probably make it funny. I’m sure with your answer. But one thing that I heard it, it made me think of something. So you said that you were offering value by making people laugh, to keep them insulated from the depression you were feeling yourself, you wanted to kind of help them have a better life than you felt you were having. And it came back to like your value and what you brought to the table is how you had value. So then you come to the Lord at some point and we definitely wanna hear about that. But then the truth there is like, our stuff is like of no worth compared to the Lord. And some people come to that and they, and they feel worthless, valueless. Like what could I ever do for this Lord? But obviously that’s not like the direction you went in because you ran to him. So can you let us know a little bit more about like, why you came, like how you decided that it was to lose your life or to give it, and then like now, like when did you, when did it click that your value is no longer in what you could do for others, but in something greater.  

Dave Ebert: Yeah. And this gets into that deep theological thing that Shea was afraid of and might not get into, but  

Shea: I wasn’t scared…   

Michelle:  He was like “please bring Bible verses”  

Dave Ebert: But depending on your theology and it, it doesn’t matter now, but I had accepted Jesus as my Lord and savior as a sixth grader at summer camp, but I was never discipled. So that seed never grew. And depending on your theology, what you believe I could have either walked away from my salvation and then rekindled it, or maybe I was never saved and now I am saved. But at the end of the day, I’m now saved regardless, but there was something that was planted as a sixth grader. It just didn’t never took root.  So it was always there. I was a Christian in name only went to church a lot in high school, but I went to a church that was very old.  You know you guys kind of mentioned, you know, like Christians, you know, they, they kinda miss the meaning of joy.  You know, my, my church was kind of old and you know, you can’t have a lot of,  a lot of sagging jowls and know upset “children should be seen and not heard.” And they should just absorb Jesus by osmosis because we’re not going to pour into them. And, you know, they see joy to the world, but they sound like their dog just died.  But the joy wasn’t there. And so you thought you punched the clock, you on a Sunday and maybe you get in, maybe you don’t. So, because I never had that discipleship and never really understood what it meant to be a follower of Christ that allow the enemy to get that foothold in. And it creates the situation where I entered into depression and use the fact that my dad was very sick. He was an army veteran in Vietnam. And,  he got the side effects from that agent orange chemical that so many of our vets got. And,  we’re learning now that you know, that some of that stuff is passed down genetically. So me and my sister have had some health issues that are kind of related to that.  But he went from a very healthy, strong working with your hands every day, 30 year old to completely disabled by 36.  He had had three heart attacks in his thirties. And we went from Chicago to Virginia because we were going to the slower paced lifestyle. Cause if he’d stayed in Chicago, they gave him six months to live in 1988. He turned that into 20 years living down south.  So basically I think what they’re trying to say is, you know, if you leave Chicago and go to the south is like every day is an eternity. So…

Michelle: Sounds about right in the best way  

Shea: Outside of time.  

Dave Ebert:  But yeah, so I just had that, that battle with my dad and, you know, teenagers and their fathers, they butt heads naturally. But when you add illness and neither one of us having a root in faith to be able to deal with the illness, as well as a normal,  you know, son versus dad headbutting it, it just, it created a lot of angst in the home which fed into the depression. And,  I had a lot of romanticized ideals, you know, of what, what I should be doing with my life. Like I should be dating this girl. I should be doing this thing and going to this school and all these things didn’t come to fruition and that just all fed into it. And so, when I entered into that depression around 15 or 16, it took hard and there were, it was almost a daily battle to find a reason, not to find a way to make it look like an accident. Maybe I fell asleep behind the wheel. Maybe I,   you know, who knows maybe I was playing with something and it, you know, I was always trying to find a way to make like it was an accident because I knew I shouldn’t feel this way. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts. And I knew that it would hurt and embarrass my family if it was obvious that I did it to myself. But if it’s an accident and I don’t leave a mess behind, then it’s a little bit easier for them. So it was deep in the enemy, told a lot of lies. He was lying in his little red tail off every day. And God was faithful whether or not I was saved as a sixth grader, he was there.  You know, I looked back and there were so many times where I’d made dumb decisions where it could have easily been end of story.  but, but God was there and I’m sure that my guardian angel is, has got a really nice retirement plan because I put him through some… 

Shea: I like what you just said there. I like the fact that you can look back, right.  You know, a lot of times like,  you know, don’t, don’t look behind you, don’t worry about yesterday, you know, and worry about today. Don’t worry about tomorrow. And I get that. It’s really important to live in that, but sometimes it’s good to look back and see like, like the abundance of God in your life.  cause I, you know, I had those experiences, you know, my own testimony is it’s like, wow. And you look back and you’re like, it wasn’t luck, you know? Because that, that word gets thrown out there and luck is now out of my vocabulary. But you know, I like hearing that and seeing how you’re okay with that. And you’re like, now I look back at it and I’m like, oh wow, look where God’s brought me. So when we were talking about that, where was this trip with comedy? Like where did this come in? Where did, where did like acting and improv? Do you sing to?

Dave Ebert: No, I can sing but not well

Shea: So you act like you can sing and it’s funny. So we just covered all aspects. If we just have you sing, we’ll have comedy and we’ll have acting and no. Where did, where did like that transition come in to where that, that attracted you, you know? And then, and then let’s further that, so you can just keep on going, how did that then turn you towards a relationship? Or how did you turn towards it? You know what I’m saying?  

Dave Ebert: So the whole thing was I knew I was struggling. I knew that I shouldn’t be struggling. And I, it was like this vicious cycle of condemnation of like, you’re feeling this way. You shouldn’t feel this way. And so the whole time I’m wrestling with that and here, I don’t want anybody to know that I’m doing it. So I’m out there making jokes. And this is when I’m not in a relationship with the Lord. So yeah, anything was on the table, you know, write jokes about any topic, things that I’m embarrassed to even remember, that I made jokes about. And it was all a defense and it was all the way to hide. And then,  as we get to 2012 and 2013, I’m literally at that climax point of give or take my life and my comedy has been there, but it was for those impure purposes. And then when I finally decided to take that step and get my life back to the Lord and truly pursue him, he started showing me that he wanted me to be funny. He wanted me to do that, but to do it with the right motives and the way I summarize it is I used to use comedy as a way to hide me. Now I use it as a way to reveal him. And so I’m sitting in my one bedroom studio apartment in West Virginia and I’m like, okay, God, I’m going to flip. I’m going to read the King James Bible that I got Rick Warren’s purpose driven life. What am I going to do with it? And I know that there’s some out there like, Ooh, Rick Warren, but purpose driven life. It has a purpose. It helps. So I started reading and started praying and started saying, what do you want me to do God? Cause in West Virginia, no offense. It just wasn’t the place for me. And there was no comedy outlet there. And so even though she’s not in a relationship with the Lord, the Lord put it on our hearts for my sister to offer me a place up in Chicago. So I said, are you sure? And she said, yeah. So within six weeks, I’m starting completely over on her couch, pursuing the Lord, trying to find a way to use comedy and performance again, as way to serve him to death, to still try to help people feel better and trying to better their day in our life, but not because I’m hiding, but because I want them to know that there’s hope that there’s something better. There’s something bigger. There’s something more than what you see. And so I started the improv ministry in mid 2013,  met a guy through Craigslist and he put an advertisement on Craigslist looking for a Christian producer, which means that somebody, that fronts money for,  for a movie or some project. And I said, Hey, I don’t have money. So I can’t be a producer, but I do want to network.  So we met a month later and we started the improv group and I’ve been doing church shows, fundraisers and, and teaching improv,  as a way to just make people’s lives a little bit better.  

Michelle: Yeah. I remember when we first met on Facebook, it was because you were sharing like one of the ministries that you have with women and I’ll let you explain it,  where you teach improv. And I think that when we were coming up with this episode that we knew we wanted to on this season about this, because,  one of the things I have written my notes notes is laughter is a weapon it’s medicine. It’s a promise. And it comes with justice and you came to mind for, you know, it’s, it’s a medicine. So how have you used that to,  as medicine for other people?  

Dave Ebert: The ministry you’re mentioning,  right off is a Salt and Light coalition. They work with women who have survived sex trafficking.  And many of these women are coming from broken homes where mom or dad sold them as, as girls,  8, 9, 10, 11 years old into trafficking. So that mom and dad can get another hit. So these are women that probably have never had moments where they can laugh, like a little kid where they’ve had that freedom to just giggle and laugh and forget the cares of the world. So what I was blessed to be able to do is come and teach improv,  to these women as a way, not to prepare them for this stage, but to teach them how to read and respond to communication and how to, how to laugh again, or how to laugh for the first time. one of the greatest stories ever had. And,  for security reasons, obviously can’t use names, but,  this young lady, she was battling for custody of her kids. She had a record because many women who are in sex trafficking, they’re not, they’re not locked away in some dungeon. They’re out in the world. They just have people following them, tracing them. And as part of keeping them under control, many of them are forced into using drugs or many get into using drugs as a way to cope. Right? And so it’s, it’s not necessarily a choice, but it’s, it’s either way, it’s a coping mechanism to keep them under control.  so they ended up getting arrested. They get records for possession, this and the other thing. So when they finally get out, they’ve got this rap sheet and you know, the courts don’t care that, oh, you were under duress when you got the rap sheet, you got the rap sheets, you’re an unfit mother. So these women are wrestling to get their kids back their wrestling to get their lives in order. And so one day there was this one lady,  one of the ladies came in and she had the furrowed brow. The eyebrows are raised, if you could picture somebody saying like, I wish somebody would, that was her face. She wished somebody would say the right thing, do the right thing. Just so as she could blow up on somebody, you could see she was ticking. But part of the program is you have to participate. You have to be a part of it. Otherwise you don’t get your bus pass, you don’t get your stipend, this and the other thing. And so she came and we got in a circle to do improv, and there’s a warm up game of called Bippity, Bippity Bop, which you can’t say without chuckling.  So that whole idea, it’s a reaction game and it’s goofy and it’s fun. We played it for about three minutes and you could literally see that facade break and she starts laughing. And she’s a completely different person in about three to five minutes, right? Did that change her whole day? Maybe not. Maybe as soon as she left the building, she picked that facade back up, but she was able to find relief for that hour. And those are the moments that I cherish. And if I never do anything else with comedy, be able to have those moments where the burdens of the world can literally crack up and off somebody and they can have that relief just for a moment. You know, that’s, that’s the biggest blessing I’ve had in comedy is just to teach improv to these women who so many of us and me included would overlook or walk by or make judgements like, oh, there’s another crack head, or there’s another this or that. Not realizing that they’re in prison, their own prison, prison from somebody else, prison from the enemy. And it’s given me a soft spot in an awareness that things are not always as they seem. And I, and this has been a major blessing. And I just really appreciate that. God used my testimony because I shared my testimony one night and the founder of this organization said, Hey, I would really love for you to teach improv to my ladies. And as I really, because the thing I haven’t mentioned is I’m a man, obviously, right? And these women have been put through literal hell on earth by men, men that they’ve known and trusted. So now to be able to be a man to go in and have a healthy, platonic relationship and show that not all men are the same, that is a benefit. And that’s something that I’ll never underestimate the value of and something I’ll never not appreciate.  

Shea: I think you said something there. I said that that moment to put the world away, we know the world right now.  This world has not changed for some of them. It’s, it’s actually, it’s impacted it even more so probably because of what’s going on, but we allow way too much of the world. And I love this, this laughter I, she says I laugh way too much. 

Michelle: No I don’t! I say you laugh a ton.

Shea: Most people probably wouldn’t dial me in as that type. But I’m the opposite. I like to laugh at everything. Like, like I, it makes it easier for me to cope. It’s like, okay. And I’m not pulling anything in. Cause it’s like, oh, what’s the point. But I like the fact that you’re using a mechanism,  and I’ve heard this thousand times frowns actually take more muscles than smiles.  laughter sets off the endorphins in your body and it, and it brings on a different kind of,  thought.  I mean, all these things are God-given by the way, you know, it’s like, wow, God knew when he designed the things that would work. And so when I look at Christians, I look at people and I see, especially in these days, I’m seeing a lot less smiling for whatever reasons. But when I say that, I don’t have to see your mouth to see if you’re smiling. And if anything, I’ve seen a repression in that, like the eyes are just looking. So just beat, just beat up. And so doing a program that you’re doing with, with, you know, getting people to do improv and to laugh and to hear someone, you know, that walks in, like it reminds me a lady in Baltimore, we were evangelizing and you walk up to her house and you’re like, Hey, how you doing? “Why are you here?” And like, anyway, well we’re, you know, we’re just out here sharing the word of God. “Oh, the word of God.” I mean, the voice never changed. It was like this, this, like, she’s going to rip you apart voice. I, in fact, I’m not going to do it cause it’s just very hard to do in the microphone, but it’s not like she just wanted to kill us the whole time. But it was like, it went from like this face and the voice stayed the same. But this face that matched the voice to a smiling face. They still had that voice and it was just cool to see the transition. So I imagined that. So what it would feel like to see some of,  some of the people that you work with or that you teach to, to come out of that shell. And that’s really cool like that.  

Michelle: Yeah. This season being about, you know, the end times and like you said, like all the things that are needed, I think it’s, it’s so important to have an episode about this.  because you know, I’m, I’ve led it. I’ve parked it for a little while, but I’m about Proverbs. And I think the last time I mentioned Proverbs, every episode was like season five or season six or something. Now we’re in season eight.  but when you look in Proverbs, it’s like the book of a wisdom and it’s always applicable and it keeps bringing up joy and laughter and I like to look at those kinds of things as weapons because when you look you’re like, how am I suppose, what am I supposed to do in a world where there’s so much going on? I don’t agree with, I have been told or sifted, like you have you’ve, you’ve shared this story sifted to, by the Lord to realize that I can only do so much that ultimately the Lord has a plan. He has my place in that plan. But outside of that, I am just in whatever it is. And yet joy is a weapon. And there’s that verse in Proverbs 17, a joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. And that is what you’re helping people do,  by offering clean comedy and to, to invite them into it themselves instead of just being, you know, watching it, but also be a contributor to that. And,  and I think it’s, it’s so cool to see that happening.  

Shea:  I have one question though, because okay, I know again, I’m going to share something. People would be like, really, I used to spit rhymes, like literally, and I grew up the same way, dirty side. And every time Michelle’s like, come on, just do something, I’ll start. And then it’s like, I get to that. She stopped to ask me, cause I get to a point and I can’t without dropping a bomb, like until a point and I haven’t been figure it out. So how, how did that transition? Like, was it a hard transition? Was it really easy because sometimes God just works and just says sh and stitch stitches away, but how was that transition? Like what was the battle that went on or not battle?  

Dave Ebert: Actually, God really,  like I said, God kind of flipped a switch in many ways.  because once I started pursuing him in early 2013, I came to Chicago a few weeks later and I started doing improv in the city, which, you know, I was the only Christian, probably in five city blocks, each show I’m doing.  But in that time he gave me a resolve to always put, play clean, but he also developed in me the ability to kind of think faster than anybody else so that I could avoid putting myself in a position where I would have to say the curse word, or I’d have to go blue or go for the low-hanging fruit. In some ways it’s kind of cheating and improv where I would like, I would intentionally drive the scene a certain way to make sure that I was protecting my witness. And it made me a dominant improv player, but I was not, and I didn’t want to boast, but it’s kind of a boast, but I’m good enough at it that I could make a good scene. Even if it’s going totally blue. If I walk in, I can turn it. And that’s something that, that God gave me the ability to see and do in order to protect my witness in order to show that clean comedy can be incredibly creative, incredibly fun and funny because when we, when my improv group went into a bar to do a show, we followed some of the filthiest nastiest, most shock oriented comics you’d ever heard of. It was one that we thought, well, we should leave. And I said, nah, let’s pray. Let’s pray that the holy spirit cleanses the stage and let’s go do this. We got the loudest reaction that night because we were different.  We were pure and people didn’t have to check with each other to make sure it was okay to laugh. And that, that’s what God helped develop in me when I’m performing with people who think that Jesus is some weird hippie prophet and not a real savior. Right. And they want to think that God does not exist when I’m up there performing with them. I can still support them on stage and still create something that is creatively fun for us and for the audience. And that the audience doesn’t have to think like, is that okay to laugh at, right? Because so much of comedy today, and this may be a strong word you want to edit out, but comedy is a gift from God, but it’s been bastardized for the world, right. It’s just like so many other gifts from God, like sex. That’s a gift from God open on your wedding night.  It’s been used in such a way that uglies it, but when you use it in the way it’s intended, that’s when everybody can enjoy it and appreciate it. And they don’t have to fear it. They don’t have to fear. Like if I laugh at this, are you going to judge me? Because whens it’s pure and it’s from God when it passes through the Philippians 4:8 filter, it’s all good right  

Michelle: Now. I want to park on something you said that made my, it lit up my analogy candle in my head.  So you said that you are a dominant improv. I think you said player, but dominant improv, and that you can turn a scene. That’s going blue. And I’m, I’m assuming with context clues, that means is going into the E for explicit category, or it’s not passing the Philippians test.  but that you can turn a situation that I’ll just say is going south and you can redeem it because of the gift of the spirit. So you can do that on a stage. Right. But the reason you can do it on a stage is because of what the Lord has given to you. That can be in play in any scene. So walking us through that, how do you, like, what can you tell people who, you know, they’re not, maybe they don’t even think they’re that funny, but they are, maybe I was surrounded by a lot of people who didn’t believe when I came to Christ. You know, I came to Christ, kind of lone ranger, all my friends, super not Christian. And they were like, we love you, but you’re weird. Like this is weird. And,  and so what, what are some of the things, and you can go ahead and be very specific to improv. And then I think the listeners will see the analogies connect themselves, but like, how do you, how do you turn it? What are some of the techniques you notice yourself doing to redeem the situation without alienating yourself?  

Dave Ebert: With improv the fundamental that many people here as esan, which is rooted in the fact that you can even say no as the character, but you can’t say no as the, and the difference is if I offer you a banana in the middle of a scene, you can say, no, I don’t want a banana. But if you say, well, that’s not a banana, that’s a chicken. You’ve denied me instead of the character. Right? And so you’ve now derailed what we’re building together. But if I can still affirm what you’ve offered, if I can still affirm you as a person, as an actor by if you offered me the banana, I’d say that’s a beautiful banana, but I really prefer an apple. You have still acknowledged and accepted you and what you’ve offered, but I’ve been able to now drive it a different way.  And that’s a very,  you know, kindergarten way of explaining it. But I mean, basically the whole idea is as long as you affirm the person that they’re valuable, that you don’t, you’re not judging them, that you’re not thinking that they’re, they’re an idiot or they’re, you know, if you respect the person first affirm the person and their value their worth, and then you can make the decision to go a different direction. But if I were to deny the person on stage and judge them or create some kind of awkwardness, then no longer are we connected in the scene or a longer, we connected as teammates on an improv stage, then everything goes awry. So I think affirming the person, not in, I know that there are a lot of people, no matter Christians watching, like, what do you mean? What are you talking about there to be a heretic? It sounds very cliche. Love the sinner, not the sin, right? So you can affirm somebody that you disagree with. You can affirm somebody as a human being, as somebody in the image of God, without affirming their sin, you can dine with the sinners and the tax collectors without becoming one, right? And you can affirm them as valuable as people that have something to offer the world as somebody that you’ve come to see and meet and eat with. But you don’t have to get anything on you. Jesus showed us that. And in a small way, I’m able to do that with improv, the one stage in not getting any on me, but still affirm people. And it’s still build relationships and friendships. And I think that the two have a lot in common because I explained that Christianity and improv have three traits in common love, humility, and support. If I serve you in love, humility, and support, whether it’s on an improv stage or in life, I’m going to be doing well at Christianity or in improv and love as defined by God. Not….

Shea: Yeah we’re speaking the same language, you know, cause Jesus, Jesus, you know, it affirm the Samaritan woman and he didn’t end up with five, five husbands. I’m just saying, you know, I love your cat and that’s a beautiful cat. Well, one of them was just deciding to bust in on the show, but I love your cat, you know, is it available?  Cause I know that cats down there  oh yeah. I should love that. Hey, there’s a kitty cat honey. Oh no. I, you know, it, it really teaches us how, you know, there’s improv and going up with not just like-minded, you know what I’m saying? Like, like being willing to, you know, we had a pastor who stood outside the bar, you know, on, on one of the, the red light district streets in Baltimore, he didn’t go in the bar. He didn’t go drink shots with them at the bar.  But he was there with them and he was there loving them. He was having conversation with them. He wasn’t telling them how to talk, how to act, you know, he was sharing Jesus, which then Jesus is the one who, who starts to, you know, do the, do the work. And I think it’s awesome that like, watching those parallels of improv, you know, where it’s like love. And it’s like, you know,  you know, working with each other, you know, working together, being there for each other support is what you said. And just being able to have dialogue. And it’s amazing that in the dialogue, they know who we are. They know exactly who we are at some point either you’ve told them, or somebody told them, oh, that’s a LA a lot of times probably like, oh, that dude. He don’t cuss, no other man that dude like straight laced Christian, but, but like it, but it’s, but it’s cool because then you get to be a, a voice and that’s something I’m still learning as a Christian because, you know,  a lot of times in society we’re learned, we learned to engage instead of disengage. And it’s amazing when we disengage, it actually brings a more beautiful engagement, you know? And so it’s just kind of cool hearing how that kind of breaks down. Even the elementary, like school ideology. I’m, I’m cool with that. Cause it’s like, I understood it. I was like, Ooh, banana, banana, but Hey, nice banana. I liked the apple,  

Michelle: I mean, I think we’re talking about how joy gets almost a weird rap. Like not even a bad rap, like it’s confounding because you hear about joy, but it’s always linked with suffering. And so then you, and then when you’re just happy, you know, people have almost cast happiness as the enemy like, oh, that’s false. Like that’s, that’s going to fade. And it, and so we don’t think about joy residing beside happiness. We just think about, we need joy when we’re sad. Like when you were depressed, I shouldn’t feel this way. I shouldn’t feel this way. I shouldn’t feel this way. And what we’re talking about here is hitting on one of the reasons why I think a lot of believers might struggle to have joy in their everyday interactions, unless they’re surrounded by believers. And even if you’re surrounded by believers, if they’re not completely in line with you, agreeing with everything that you have decided is right for you and everything, that’s good for you, you know, then, then you don’t know how to engage. And there’s a good news. We can bring, he says, bring that good news. And so if we focus on that, trusting the holy spirit to be the holy spirit instead of ourselves, then the joy, like we might have so many more conversations with laughter with, even if we disagree, you know? And I think that’s, I think we’re hitting on a thing. I didn’t even expect as they head on why the Joy’s heart  

Shea:  And I keep going. And as we’re talking, and I know another verse that just gets thrown, you know, and, but you know what? I’m sitting here, fruit of spirit, fruit of spirit, right? Like when I sit here and I’m looking at this and I was like, oh, joy, oh, joy is in there. Oh yeah. Cool. But it’s like, if I don’t have love, peace, long suffering, kindness. Goodness, faithfulness. Self-control I don’t have joy now. Now watch this. I don’t have love if I don’t have, I don’t understand. Love if I don’t have joy, look, it’s like, you could stand each one of those words up. And if you don’t have the pyramid below them, it’s like, it falls, it crumbles  

Michelle: You said pyramid. People going to say, you blasphemed talking Illuminati.  

Shea: I’m doing it. Don’t cut it. Don’t cut it out. Look, y’all be real. We talk about a pyramid in our relationship to it. I thought about that once. Cause we were like, it’s a pyramid. And like, you’re on the left and I’m on the right. And we meet up in the middle with God. And then, and then all this stuff about Illuminati. And I’m like, I don’t know what people even think, but nobody’s ever questioned me. I thought that was kind of funny, but not like crumbles. It’s like, it’s like the fruit of the spirit fruit, fruit. It’s one it’s singular. So when you have it as a singular, right. It requires the requirement is all of that. You know, it’s like the fruit of the spirit is all of this now. Unpack it. Okay. I want joy, boy. I better know how to love. Like God loves let’s agape, agape. Although God will meet you phileo like he did Peter, but it’s okay. It’s okay. We’ll get there. Theology One-O-one but no, I love it. I love, I love that this episode is about joining and like really like let’s laugh, you know?  that was making me think.  and as I looked this up real quick, I had a question for you though.  I’m not sure how this is going to go over  

Michelle: That’s always the beginning of a great sequence.  

Shea: I do have a question. Uh I’m I’m getting there. Hold on. Y’all I’m really  okay. So we w that’s perfect. Should we do, should we do,  should we do a commercial? W w w come out and see them fall? No wrestling. I don’t know. Come on. We’re laughing, but okay. This is like in the beginning, God created earth and rested. Right? Right. Then God created man. And he rested and then God created woman. Now I’ve got a question. Do you agree degree or disagree with this statement? This is for you, Dave. No, be careful. I know your wife’s probably in the room since then. Neither God, nor man has rested.  

Michelle: Just set him up to fail.  

Dave Ebert: I would have never disagree with scripture.  

Michelle: Amen. That is the way that is the, that is the way to answer Dave  

Shea: Proverbs. Wasn’t it? Proverbs that said, go call up on the roof.  

Michelle:  It’s better to live on the roof or something and have a nagging wife. And I’m like, amen.  

Shea:  I mean, we live on the roof though. It’s right there though. It’s pretty close, but we live on it together. Improv is cool. I watch it every time I get a chance to watch it for free. I’m not there. I’m not in Chicago. I’m just saying like he puts out stuff and I just love watching it. It makes me laugh.  

Michelle: So on that note, this has been really cool. But I want people to know how they can reach you, how they can see or hear, or watch your improv, how they can co-labor in your ministry. All of the good stuff. Just let people know what you’re doing, what’s coming up and how they can get involved. Sure.  

Dave Ebert: The easiest way is Facebook because occupies way too much of my time,  you can find the improv ministry, a well-versed comedy, at well-versed C M D Y,  that’s on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and Twitter has a shorter handle limit. So that’s why I took out the O and the E in comedy,  at well-versed CMDY on all three? Or you can find me at gifts, the number four glory,  and,  that’s where my podcast is at these two amazing people on  this past summer. And,  you can check that out.  And those are primarily the best ways to reach me if you’re interested,  I’m ready to go out and teach improv wherever,  as a way to improve ministry. Cause I, I liken using improv tools to getting out of your own way so that you can truly trust the holy spirit. Like Jesus told us in Luke 12, where he said, don’t worry about what you’re going to say. The holy spirit will give it to you, but we get so afraid of saying the wrong thing, the holy spirit. But if we trust that the holy Spirit’s there, because there’s so many pastors, if you talk to them, they’ll say that somebody would come up to them six months after they spoke and say, you said this in a sermon. And I spoke to me and it changed my life. And then that minister be like, I never said those words. It’s the fact that you were there doing what you’re called to do. God uses whatever you say and do. You don’t have to worry about doing it the wrong way, but within probably kind of get you out of your own way and do that. So contact me at gifts for glory and,   I be happy to help you out with using improv to improve your witness.

Shea:  And one last thing. One last thing. Do you drink coffee? 

Dave Ebert: Yes. 

Shea: Do you make the coffee  

Dave Ebert: Well I brew it.  

Shea: Okay. You know, that’s biblical, right? 

Dave Ebert:  Because Hebrews!  

Shea: He Brews! I had to do it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it it’s been a blessing to have you on the show, brother. We love you. We interact with them a lot.  although I’m still waiting for him to like that. I was,  two witnesses on his posts today, but that’s okay. Just kidding. Just kidding. He was like I said that exactly. And I’m like, yeah, two witnesses.  

Michelle:  You have traumatic brain injury, then you remembered the most random stuff. I love it anyway.  

Dave Ebert: And I just want to say that after that joke, Shea, you’re grounded.  

Shea: And now I’ve got to go to the compost. I’m sorry. No, it’s beautiful. Always the, to have conversation, brother, we should do it more often just on the side.  just thinks fun talking with you.  

Michelle: So as always, this has been awesome. You can get the show notes, catch all the hilarious, witty humor that happened. If you missed any of it  at thepantrypodcast.com in the show notes. And that’s where you can also donate through Patreon. That’s where you can share and catch up on all the past episodes. And we will talk to you guys next time. Bye  

Michelle: Thanks for listening to the pantry podcast. Subscribe to the show, wherever you listen and check out other great shows on the Edify app and eternity ready radio.