Christian comedian to perform Friday, May 23 at 7 p.m.

    Christian comedian Mark Lowry has made a career of using his hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder as his material. Now time may have finally caught up to Lowry, who turns 50 this summer.
    “I got my first AARP card in the mail, which is like seeing your name on a tombstone,” Lowry said. “I've dropped the 'H.' I'm not hyper anymore. I don't follow my brain around the room. I sit in the La-Z-Boy and watch it, and I know it will be back eventually. I can take a nap with the best of them, and I used to couldn't. Now when I get off stage, I'm tired.”
    Lowry will perform at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 23, at the Dodge City Civic Center
    The comedian has determined that his ADD and hyperactivity were actually gifts from God in disguise. The comic has never let his afflictions be setbacks and has tried to use them to the best of his ability for the one who gave him the gift in the first place.
    “I didn't know it was a problem because my parents didn't make me feel like I was different,” Lowry said. “My mother was smart enough to know that she needed to channel that energy, so she put me in theater and things like that.
    “It is a gift because I was reading (the apostle) Paul when he was talking about his weaknesses and how he found out that God was great in his weakness, and I think that's where God shows up best is in our weaknesses, not in our strengths.”
    Lowry said his life has been “50 years of chasing one butterfly after another.”
    The channeling actually started not with comedy, but with music. Lowry started out singing with the Houston Music Theater. That led to him occasionally performing on the old Gospel Singing Jubilee television program and eventually the Gaither Vocal Band for 13 years after being asked to join by founder Bill Gaither.
    Lowry also has some short videos on YouTube.com.
    “I want to figure out how to get the message that God loves people,” he said. “YouTube is a way, comedy is a way, music is a way, and they're all fun. But if it quits being fun, then I go and find another way, like writing a book.”
    Lowry said most comedians, including himself, have a very serious undertone to their comedy.
    “George Carlin has an agenda of 'There is no God and nothing makes sense,' but he does it in a funny and intelligent way. Bill Cosby is a storyteller, and that's what I do. I don't consider myself a comedian; I consider myself a storyteller, and the humor is along the way in the story. For me, the agenda is 'God is good, and some people have given him a bad reputation, and I want to fix it.'”
    Lowry said he learned many lessons from Gaither during his time with the Vocal Band, but integrity was the trait he saw his mentor model most often.
    “It's condensing 13 years, and I watched Bill and Gloria Gaither, and their knee-jerk reaction is to take the high road,” Lowry said. “I saw what it was like to take the high road in every business dealing and how they treat people — from the waitress how hands them their food to the President of the United States — it's all the same. I've coined everything to 'Take the high road, there's less traffic.'
    “So many people take the short cuts and the low road; 'What's in it for me.' The secret to Bill and Gloria, especially Bill, is he's made a career into making everybody else famous. In making all of us — I hate to use this word, but I can't think of another one — 'stars', he's become a legend. What he has proven to me is that you can't lose by helping other people win. When everyone wins, you win. He has the track record in proving that he has your best interests at heart.”
    Another trait that Lowry took from his time with the Vocal Band is that he never puts on the same show. Lowry says every audience has a different personality, and he puts together a list of what he feels the concert is supposed to go for that night so he can get the message across to the audience.
    “Stan opens up playing a song, then they hit a track and I and the singers come out with me,” Lowry said. “From that moment on, we mix it up, and no one configuration is the same two days in a row. We know what the first song is going to be, and I think I know what the last song is going to be, but it's an ADD rabbit trail getting there.
    “I have a list next to my stool of every song that we can do that night. Some we did last night, and some we haven't done in months because I saw Bill Gaither do that. I have written out programs before, but I have never kept them. Every concert is like we're sitting on my back porch and we're having a conversation, even though I'm the only one talking. ”
    Lowry said the “Be The Miracle” tour involves Christians trying to become those who make miracles instead of waiting for them to happen.
    He said he got the idea after seeing the bald tires on the car owned by one of his college music teachers. He borrowed the car and got new tires put on it.
    “Southern Baptists don't get a lot of miracles; they all go to the Pentecostals,” Lowry joked.
    In a more serious tone, he added: “I don't know if she ever knew, if she even knew, she had new tires; but if she did, it was a miracle because she wouldn't have known how those tires got there.
    “I never thought about that until we started this tour. I think God can use us to perform miracles in people's lives by doing things behind the scenes like God does in our lives. Most of the things we consider coincidences are really miracles.”