I’m reading a book about stand up comedy.

Really very good, it’s helping me think about how to connect better with those I’m speaking to, especially in church. I was thinking I might even try out at an ‘open mike’ session somewhere, some time.

One good section was about hecklers, and various ways comedians deal with them. My favourite approach is Harry Hill’s, who says ‘he found suitably surreal ways of answering hecklers, like telling them, “You heckle me now, but I’m safe in the knowledge that when I get home, I’ve got a nice chicken in the oven.”‘

Made me laugh anyway.

I don’t get ‘heckled’ much when I’m speaking, unless it’s street preaching where I’ve had a few people swear at me and shout out to put me off. At my home church up North we used to have a disturbed lady who’s undress in the middle of sermons (not mine). Reading through the gospels it’s interesting that we think of Jesus as a teacher, yet much of what he did was not didactic ‘sermon on the mount’ preaching, but often came out of interaction and even interruption by the people around him. Read the beginning of Mark 2 – and how Jesus handled what others might have considered a rude interruption.