Hey, everybody, welcome back to The Covenant Eyes Podcast. We are so glad to be here today at the NRB Conference, and we have got an amazing guest joining us. Rob, I am so excited. Carrie Murphy is here. She is a comedian. She is a Christian and just all around amazing person. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here with you guys. Thank you. Yeah. Well, Carrie, can you start out, just tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into comedy and what you're doing now? Absolutely, yes. Well, my name is Carrie Murphy. I'm a Christian comic. And I would say all my life I wanted to do comedy, but I felt like if I'm a Christian, comedy is not something I can do. I kind of put God and humor into different boxes, and I grew up in a very fundamentalist environment, and I think sometimes Christians, all of us, can take our faith really seriously. We can be white knuckled about our relationship with Jesus. So I just had them in two different boxes comedy and faith. And then God started prompting me, I made you into this unique individual who's weird and quirky, but I made you that way. And you can steward your gifts and your personality for my service. And so finally, I just decided to take the plunge and I said, okay, Lord, if you're giving me permission, let's just be weird for God. I it, life is too short to be serious. I believe that laughter is holy. Laughter is something God created for us. And so really, it's harnessing the power of laughter and comedy as a service, as respite to this hard thing called life, the living experience. So I started doing comedy. I left a full time job at a church and, put on a one woman, one hour comedy show, and someone from K-Love was there and gave me my first special, oh, so God really just opened doors. And I have been trying to walk through the doors ever since then, and just seeing where he leads me. I love that, I love that, yeah, well, you know, humor can be so healing, you know? I mean, when we laugh sometimes it is just so therapeutic to the medicinal. Yes, it really is. Yes. So talk to us a little bit about how you've used comedy in that way. You know, especially when you're traveling and presenting at churches and shows. Yes. So I'll tell you a unique story of comedy being used as a respite. I, I get contacted by many different entities, many different people. I never expected I would get contacted by, a lady who had lost her husband, and she was in a really dark time, but she reached out because her husband, who I just passed, hated to be sad, loved comedy. And so she actually hired me to do his funeral. And so I interviewed her for several hours about her husband, and then did a custom set for him at his funeral. And so I never expected to take my, my comedy into a setting like that. But I think that gives a clear picture of how we can use it as, as a service for good. So that was definitely unique. And, I was grateful for the experience and it truly taught me, man, this really can be given back to the Lord and who knows how he'll use it. Yeah, that's an amazing story. I've never heard of a comedian at a funeral. Do you. Know either. That's amazing. Yes, that's so cool. It was interesting. Yeah, yeah. Good. Well, along the same lines, have you had trouble at times balancing the faith and the comedy, especially in churches? Have you gotten any pushback? Anything? Yeah, even from, you know, everyone has different opinions, different thresholds, different all that stuff. So, I try really, really carefully to listen to the Holy Spirit. And I have also what I call a little integrity team. So like sometimes if I'm like, is this okay? Yeah, I run it by some other people. So I just trust that there's grace, you know, there's grace for it. And someone asked me, you know, do you feel like you have to stay in a box with Christian comedy? And I think it's more. There's no box, right? We're kind of Christian comics are kind of building something new. Yeah. And there's not there's not many of us at this point. So, it's exciting to kind of be forging that new path and showing people that comedy can be redemptive. It can be God honoring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. You know, comedy to me is just, I, I don't know how we can get through the day without laughing. I mean, it just brings so much joy and happiness. And I think, you know, humans in general are just funny creatures. I mean, we're funny. We're all we have. That we. Hide that pretty well, right? Our flaws and whatever. But I think there's something healing and there's something, comedy releases shame. Yeah, it normalizes us. Yeah, it humanizes us. And it takes vulnerability. And so leaning into that kind of feels scary. But the minute that we can laugh or crack a joke or whatever, it's like the whole room just takes a collective deep breath like, oh, okay, it's okay, I'm okay. But certainly using it to, to get us through some hard times is really important, too. Yeah. How do you come up with your material? Do you have, like, a routine or is it just come to you naturally? Are you walking through the mall and you're like, that's funny, I got to write that literally. I always have my ears open and eyes open. Yeah, that, never turns off. And so just have a running, notes list on my phone. But another way is, sometimes I'll be doing something random, and it's like the Holy Spirit downloads it to me. Like some of my best jokes have been from the Lord. Like, very directly like that, where I'm not trying to think of it. And so my writing truly is a collaborative process with the Lord. Which sounds crazy, but it's true. It's true. Yeah, yeah. It sounds amazing. Yes, I know Jesus is the funniest guy ever. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of humor in this world. Especially in the church. Yeah. Oh my God. Yes. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So how much how much liberty you do. You have to make fun of the church. You know, Christian people. It goes better than you would. Yeah. I think we're all waiting to laugh at ourselves. And we all kind of hold these, maybe points of tension or points of shame, and then I give people permission to get it out, you know? And that's fun. I kind of like. Pushing the. Challenging just a little bit. And that way, and. Yeah, like I said, going back to the grace, you know, grace. Grace. But I think it's fun to to challenge the church in that way. And I think it's really healthy to sometimes laugh at ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because there's a lot to laugh, you know? Yeah. It's just although. It really does. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I can't take ourselves too seriously I can't. Yeah I don't at least. No I don't either. No especially I'm a mom so you know that. Oh yeah. Yeah yeah. You can write material for me. Yeah yeah. Oh my God, that's crazy. So talk to us a little bit about how our listeners can learn more about your ministry. Your you know, where you mean, like, where do they go. Absolutely. Yeah. So they can follow me on Instagram at TheCarrieMurphy. And they can go to my website, TheCarrieMurphy.com. And they if they want to see my stuff, they can go to K-Love On Demand. I have a nine episode comedy series. Excellent, awesome, awesome. Do you have any tour dates coming up or are you doing. Yeah, yeah. All my calendar. Everything's on my. Website. Yeah. Okay. Great. So this keeps you pretty busy. How often do you do shows? Yeah, I'm. I'm kept pretty busy. Yeah. And if I'm not doing the shows, I'm writing, I write a lot, and, a lot of the times I'll do custom stuff. So if a church hires me, I want to read all about their website, read all about their pastor, and do some, like, personalized stuff. That's great. So, yeah, whatever. The Lord brings my way, I'm open handed to, That's. Yeah, that's. Well, Carrie, it has been a joy getting to know you today. I'm glad that class. Yeah, I know I'm going to be tapped in, and I just would encourage people to check out your website, go to one of your shop. Come find me. Come on, let's be friends. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for bringing joy and laughter into the world. We might say. We need more love and joy, more naturally in the church. Yeah. So so thank you for doing it. Absolutely. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in to this episode of The Covenant Eyes Podcast. Take care. Bye bye.