Christian comedian highlights conference tonight
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“I don’t know where the title Christian comedian came from,” Pierce says. “I’m a stand-up comedian. That’s what I do for a living, and I happen to be a born-again Christian. That’s something the entertainment world finds downright scary.”
Pierce will be one of the featured speakers tonight at Warren County Middle School in a women’s conference called Beauty for Ashes. The conference is a benefit for Healing Hearts of Tennessee.
Pierce will speak tonight beginning at 7 p.m. Christian singer Stephanie McKenna is the featured guest Saturday for the two-day conference.
Pierce began her interest in comedy during a six-year stint at Nashville’s Opryland theme park.
“I was a theater arts major at Austin Peay University and went to the park to pay my college bills. I wound up in a show called Country Music, USA and didn’t know a thing about country music.”
Pierce said in order to stay employed at Opryland, she relied on her wit instead of her dancing and knowledge of country music. It wasn’t long before she found she could have audiences rolling with laughter.
More important to Pierce is the fact her shtick — sidesplitting stories about real life, from babyhood to motherhood to grannyhood — is as pure as Ivory soap. Pierce is more than happy to be the “queen of clean” because her comedy serves a larger purpose.
“The punch line is not the bottom line,” she says. “You have to end up somewhere that counts. All my projects have Christian content. They all talk about what I’m learning about God and his love.”
Cost of the two-day conference, which includes lunch on Saturday, is $25 in advance or $30 at the door. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling Healing Hearts today at 474-4673.