Stand Up

 

Program Notes & Delivery Cues

• Thematic Scripture Anchor: Isaiah 46:4 ("Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.")
  
  
• Vocal Pace: Steady, unhurried, and rhythmic. Leave space after setup lines for residents using hearing devices to catch context clues.
  
  
• Target Run Time: 18–22 minutes.
  
  

Segment 1: Morning Checklists & Modern Miracles (Opening)

"Grace and peace to each of you today!

They say that when you reach our chapter in life, getting out of bed in the morning qualifies as a sanctioned athletic event.

My routine starts with an inventory. Before my feet hit the floor, I wiggle my toes to see if they're still down there. I test my knees to see if they're holding a grudge from yesterday. And then I listen. If my joints sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies—snap, crackle, and pop—I know I’m still alive and kicking!

I ran into an old friend in town the other day, and he looked at me and said, 'You're looking good! How's your eyesight holding up?'

I said, 'Well, my distance vision is twenty-twenty. I can spot a deer standing on the ridge two miles away. The trouble is, when I sit down at the dinner table, I can’t find my mashed potatoes without a compass and a prayer.'

He told me, 'I wear bifocals now. Half the time I’m stepping over curbs that aren’t even there, and tripping over steps that are!'

I told him that's just living by faith and not by sight. The apostle Paul understood that perfectly. He just didn't realize how literal it was going to get once we crossed seventy!"

Segment 2: The Sunday Morning Pew Patrol

"You can learn everything you need to know about human nature by observing where people sit on Sunday morning.

Every church has what I call the 'Property Rights Pews.' Nobody holds a legal deed to those wooden benches, but you sit in Sister Beatrice’s spot on the third row from the back, and you will feel the Holy Spirit convicting you through the back of her stare!

We had a visiting family come to church one Sunday morning. Friendly folks, had three kids. They walked right down the center aisle and sat right in the middle of Brother Henderson’s pew. Now, Brother Henderson had occupied that exact cushion every Sunday since the Eisenhower administration.

He walked into the sanctuary, saw them sitting there, and stood at the end of the pew with his arms crossed. The usher walked over, tapped him on the shoulder, and whispered, 'Brother Henderson, there are plenty of open seats down front.'

Brother Henderson leaned in close and whispered right back: 'I didn’t fight the devil all week long just to get moved to the splash zone near the choir!'"

Segment 3: Sunday School Confessions & Biblical Logic

"If you ever need an honest opinion, don't ask a politician or a committee—ask an eight-year-old child in Sunday school.

A pastor visited the third-grade Sunday school class to test their biblical knowledge. He stood up in front of the chalkboard, puffed out his chest, and asked, 'Who broke down the walls of Jericho?'

A little boy in the back named Bobby raised his hand and said, 'Preacher, I don't know who did it, but I swear it wasn't me! I was home sick with a head cold all last weekend!'

The pastor thought the boy was being smart-alecky, so after the service he pulled Bobby's father aside. The father was head of the deacon board. The pastor said, 'Brother, I asked your son Bobby who knocked down the walls of Jericho, and he told me it wasn't him.'

The deacon rubbed his chin, thought about it for a minute, and said, 'Well, Pastor, I’ve known Bobby all his life. He’s an honest boy. If he said he didn’t break down those walls, he didn't do it. But tell you what—the church trustees will cut a check to cover the repair work just to keep the peace!'"

Segment 4: Fast Friends and Memory Lanes

"Three elderly sisters lived together in a two-story farmhouse out in the country. One was ninety-four, one was ninety-two, and the youngest was ninety.

One evening, the ninety-four-year-old drew a hot bath upstairs. She put one foot into the tub, stopped dead in her tracks, leaned over the banister, and yelled downstairs:

'Girls! Was I getting into the bathtub or getting out?'

The ninety-two-year-old was sitting at the bottom of the stairs folding laundry. She called back up:

'Hold on a minute, let me come up and look!'

She took two steps up the staircase, stopped, froze, and yelled:

'Wait a second! Was I going up the stairs or coming down?'

The ninety-year-old sister was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of peppermint tea. She shook her head, chuckled, and said to herself, 'Lord have mercy, I hope I never get that forgetful.'

To keep from tempting fate, she rapped her knuckles twice on the oak kitchen table: Knock! Knock!

Then she looked up at the ceiling and yelled:

'Hold on, both of you! Someone's knocking at the front door—let me go see who it is!'"

Segment 5: Anchored in the Rock (Closing)

"We laugh about our short memories, our sore joints, and our missed steps, but isn't it good to know that what matters most is already anchored?

You know, ships don’t throw their anchor onto the deck when the storm rolls in. If you throw an anchor down onto the wooden floorboards of your own boat, it doesn't do a bit of good when the waves hit. You've got to drop the anchor over the side, down through the deep water, where it can bite into something solid and unmoving underneath.

In this life, our physical strength wears down. The world changes faster than we can track. New gadgets come along every six months that nobody asked for and nobody knows how to turn off.

But our anchor isn't tied to our own strength, our own youth, or our own memory. It’s hooked into the Rock of Ages. Isaiah said that even to our old age and gray hairs, He is the One who will sustain us, carry us, and deliver us.

He didn't bring you through eighty or ninety years of storms just to let go of the rope today.

Keep laughing, keep praying for the generations coming behind you, and never forget whose hands are carrying you through. Thank you all, and may God bless your week!"

Immediate Setup Checklist

• [ ] Microphone Check: Test wireless transmitter battery levels; set receiver volume output to match the venue's house PA without creating high-end sibilance.
  
  
• [ ] Room Layout: Verify that no power cables, sound cords, or speaker stands impede wheelchair turning radii (minimum 60-inch clearance).
  
  
• [ ] Prompter Cards: Place large-format (24pt black font on white cards) note cards on the lectern or side table for quick reference to punchline rhythms.
  
  
• [ ] Water Station: Ensure a spill-proof tumbler with fresh room-temperature water is placed on the podium or side table prior to the opening remarks.

Program Notes & Delivery Cues

• Thematic Scripture Anchor: Psalm 100:1–2 ("Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.")
  
  
• Vocal Pace: Unhurried, measured, and conversational. Emphasize physical character beats—miming looking for items or adjusting spectacles adds visual interest.
  
  
• Target Run Time: 18–22 minutes.
  
  

Segment 1: Physical Inspections & The Speed of Life (Opening)

"It is so good to see all these bright faces today!

You know, the Bible tells us to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. And at my age, whenever I stand up out of an easy chair, my joints make plenty of noise. I'm just hoping the Lord considers all that popping and cracking 'joyful!'

I went in for my annual physical exam last month. The doctor came into the room with a clipboard thicker than the town telephone directory. He looked at my chart, looked at me, tapped his pen, and said, 'Well, the good news is you have the body of a man half your age.'

I got a big grin on my face. I said, 'Really, Doc?'

He said, 'Yes, but unfortunately, he hasn't taken care of himself either.'

I asked him, 'Doc, what's the official diagnosis for getting dizzy when I bend over to tie my shoes?'

He didn't even look up. He said, 'That's called being seventy-five, Norman. Buy slip-ons.'

I told him I’ve started getting those senior moments where you lose your train of thought midway across a room. He told me, 'Don't worry about forgetting where you put your keys. Start worrying when you forget what the keys are for!'

I said, 'Doc, I don't worry about either one. As long as Saint Peter is the one holding the keys to the kingdom, I'm just planning on knocking on the front door!'"

Segment 2: Pews, Pulpits, and Committee Meetings

"If you've spent any time in church life, you know the Lord gave us patience specifically so we could survive church business meetings.

A Baptist church, a Methodist church, and a Presbyterian church all found themselves with the exact same problem: bats in the belfry. The attics were full of them.

The Presbyterian session called an emergency meeting. They decided that bats were a sovereign part of creation, so they formed a study committee. Six months later, the committee submitted a forty-page report, but by then the bats had doubled.

The Baptist deacons got together and voted to handle it directly. They brought in pest control, traps, and smoke bombs. But the bats just flew out the vents, circled the steeple three times, and flew right back in the next evening.

The Methodist pastor took care of the whole thing in twenty minutes. The other two preachers came over and asked, 'How in the world did you get rid of them?'

The Methodist pastor smiled and said, 'Simple! I baptized them, confirmed them, and officially brought them into full church membership. I haven't seen a single one of them back in church since!'"

Segment 3: Sunday School Sayings & Children’s Prayers

"Children have a way of putting theological truth into plain language that cuts straight through the fluff.

A Sunday school teacher asked her class of eight-year-olds to write letters to God explaining what they thought about the Bible. One little boy named Johnny wrote:

'Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in my family, and I can never do it.'

Another little girl wrote:

'Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I actually prayed for was a puppy.'

Then there was the young boy who stayed over at his grandparents' house for the weekend. Bedtime came, and he knelt down beside his bed to say his evening prayers. His grandmother stood in the doorway listening.

The boy prayed in a normal voice: 'Lord, bless Mommy and Daddy, bless Grandma and Grandpa, and keep us safe through the night.' Then, all of a sudden, he threw his head back and yelled at the top of his lungs: 'AND LORD, PLEASE SEND ME A NEW BICYCLE FOR MY BIRTHDAY!'

His grandmother walked in, patting him on the shoulder. She said, 'Honey, God isn't hard of hearing. You don't have to shout.'

The boy opened one eye and whispered, 'God isn't hard of hearing, Grandma... but Grandpas in the next room, and he turned his hearing aid off thirty minutes ago!'"

Segment 4: Memory Wires and Modern Gadgets

"My grand-nephew came over to visit recently and noticed the stack of paper notebooks on my side table. He pulled out one of those little flat computers they call a tablet.

He said, 'Uncle, you don't need all those pens and notebooks. Everything you need is right here in the cloud.'

I looked up out the window. It was blue skies, not a puff of white anywhere. I said, 'Son, if my grocery list is up in a cloud, what happens when it rains? Does my oatmeal get washed down the Greenbrier River?'

He laughed and said, 'No, it’s stored by memory.'

I told him, 'Well then it’s definitely in trouble, because my memory hasn't held onto a grocery list since 1984.'

He tried to teach me about passwords. Every single thing on these machines needs a password. It needs eight letters, three numbers, a capital letter, an exclamation mark, and the maiden name of your third-grade teacher.

I set mine to 'IN THE BEGINNING' because Genesis says that’s where everything started. Next morning, the machine told me: 'Error: Password is too old.'

I thought, well, that makes two of us!"

Segment 5: The Master Weaver (Closing)

"We spend a lot of time wondering about the loose threads in life—the aches, the plans that changed, the things that didn't go the way we mapped them out when we were twenty-five.

There's an old poem that puts it better than I ever could. It says our life is like a tapestry being woven on a great loom. From underneath, all we can see are the dark threads, the tangled knots, and the rough ends that don't seem to make any sense. We look up and wonder why there are so many dark, heavy strands woven in between the bright gold and red ones.

We forget that the Master Weaver is looking down from the top side. He sees the full picture, the pattern, and the purpose. One day, He's going to turn that tapestry over, and we'll see that the dark threads were just as necessary to make the pattern complete as the threads of gold.

Until that morning comes, we have today. We have laughter, we have each other, and we have a God whose mercies are brand new every single sunrise.

Keep smiling, keep loving one another, and remember: growing older isn't a problem to be solved—it's a privilege denied to many. God bless each and every one of you!"

Immediate Setup Checklist

• [ ] Audio: Test wireless lapel or handheld microphone for high-frequency clarity; set EQ to favor mid-range vocals to aid hearing-aid wearers.
  
  
• [ ] Lighting: Position stage lamps so no harsh shadows obscure facial expressions or mouth movements.
  
  
• [ ] Seating Arrangement: Maintain a central 4-foot unobstructed lane for mobility aids; set chairs in a gentle semicircle to enhance communal line-of-sight.
  
  
• [ ] Hydration: Place a stable, weighted water glass within easy reaching distance to accommodate natural comedic pauses.

Program Notes & Delivery Cues

• Tone: Gentle, self-deprecating, warm, and leisurely paced. Allow 2–3 full seconds for punchlines to register.
  
  
• Volume & Diction: Speak clearly into the microphone at a consistent distance; avoid sudden drops in vocal volume at the end of sentences.
  
  
• Target Run Time: 18–22 minutes (allowing room for laughter, nodding, and spontaneous audience comments).
  
  

Segment 1: The Joys of the Calendar (Opening)

"Good morning, everyone! It is wonderful to be with you today.

You know, King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes that there is a time for everything under heaven. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. I figure we’ve all done our fair share of weeping over the years, so today we’re going to focus strictly on the laughing part. Proverbs tells us that a merry heart does good like a medicine. The best part about this medicine? No co-pay, no child-proof safety caps, and nobody comes in at five in the morning to wake you up just to give it to you.

I've reached that special stage of life where my mind makes promises my knees refuse to keep. People ask me, 'Do you run every day?' I say, 'Yes, mostly out of breath, out of patience, and out of memory.'

Just last Tuesday, I walked into the kitchen, stood right in front of the refrigerator, and had no earthly idea why I was there. I stood there looking at a gallon of milk like it had the answers to life's great mysteries. So I did what any good believer does: I bowed my head and prayed. I said, 'Lord, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the kitchen, because I think I was actually looking for my reading glasses.'

I eventually found the glasses, by the way. Right on top of my head. Holding up what's left of my hair."

Segment 2: Pews, Potlucks, and Church Bulletins

"I grew up in the country church, and if there’s one thing church folk know how to do, it’s eat and print bulletins with typos.

I’ll never forget the church potluck dinners. You could tell how sanctified a sister was by the crust on her cobbler. But you had to be careful with the church bulletin announcements. One week our secretary was typing fast, and the bulletin read:

'The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the church basement on Friday afternoon.'

Nobody missed that Friday meeting!

Then there was the notice about our annual summer revival:

'For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.'

And my personal favorite from our choir director:

'The choir will sing "Go Down, Moses," after which the pastor will lead us in a word of prayer for relief.'

You know church folks mean well, but sometimes the execution gets a little sideways. We had an usher who took up the collection every Sunday for forty years. A little boy watched him walk down the aisle with that brass plate, looked up at his mother, and whispered, 'Mom, how much did you pay for your seat? Because I got in for free!'"

Segment 3: Sunday School Wisdom & Great-Grandkids

"Children see the world with absolute theological clarity.

A Sunday school teacher was teaching a class of five-year-olds about Noah and the Ark. She asked, 'Children, do you know what Noah did while he was floating around on that big boat for forty days and forty nights?'

One little boy raised his hand and said, 'He sat there and fished!'

The teacher thought about it and said, 'Well, that sounds reasonable. Did he catch a lot of fish?'

The boy shook his head and said, 'No ma'am. He only had two worms.'

Another teacher was listening to the children recite the 23rd Psalm. You know how hard it can be to memorize King James when you're seven years old. One little girl stood up, smoothed down her Sunday dress, took a deep breath, and proudly declared: 'The Lord is my shepherd, that's all I want!'

And you know something? She didn't get the words right, but she got the theology completely right. That’s really all of it, isn't it?"

Segment 4: Memory, Maturing, and the Modern World

"My doctor told me recently, 'You need to take up a hobby that keeps your brain sharp. Have you considered word puzzles?'

I told him, 'Doctor, every single day of my life is a puzzle. The puzzle is called: Where did I leave my keys, who took my slippers, and what did I walk into the living room to do?'

My grandchildren try to help me keep up with technology. They gave me one of those fancy phones with a voice assistant named Siri. You talk to the phone, and a polite lady talks back to you.

The other day, I couldn't remember where my television remote was. I picked up the phone, pressed the button, and said, 'Lord, help me find the remote.'

The phone made a little chime, and that mechanical voice said, 'I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Who is Lord?'

I looked at that screen and said, 'Honey, if you don't know Who He is, you've got much bigger problems than my lost remote!'"

Segment 5: The Best Is Yet to Come (Closing)

"We laugh about our aches and pains, but there's genuine comfort in knowing who holds our tomorrows.

There's a story told about an elderly Christian woman who was nearing the end of her earthly journey. She sat down with her pastor to plan her memorial service. She picked out her favorite hymns—The Old Rugged Cross, In the Garden, Blessed Assurance. She picked out the scriptures from Romans and John.

Just as the pastor was getting ready to leave, she said, 'Pastor, there’s one more thing. It’s very important. I want to be buried with a dessert fork in my right hand.'

The pastor looked puzzled. He said, 'A fork? Why on earth do you want a fork?'

She smiled real big and said, 'Pastor, in all my eighty-five years attending church dinners and potlucks, whenever the main course was cleared away, someone would lean over and say: Keep your fork... the best is yet to come! They were bringing out the homemade peach pie, the double-chocolate fudge cake, the strawberry shortcake! I want people to look at that fork and remember: for the believer, the best is always yet to come.'

May the Lord bless every one of you, keep a smile on your face, and remind you every morning that you are deeply loved, wonderfully kept, and that your fork is safe in your pocket. Thank you all so very much!"

Immediate Setup Checklist

• [ ] Audio: Secure a lightweight wireless or lapel microphone to maintain hands-free mobility; check batteries 15 minutes before start.
  
  
• [ ] Sightlines: Confirm the performer stands at eye level with seated residents; ensure room lighting illuminates the speaker's face clearly for residents who read lips.
  
  
• [ ] Access: Verify a 4-foot central aisle remains clear for walkers and wheelchairs.
  
  
• [ ] Pacing Buffer: Keep a glass of water on a small side table within arm's reach to pause naturally between segments.