The Christian "Celebrity"

Youth Quake is the name of the youth conference that we had here this past weekend. Briercrest College has been putting on this youth retreat for close to 40 years now. This past weekend, 5000 youth and youth workers invaded my town. Youth Quake includes a main session speaker (usually someone who is well known in north american circles), severl bands with concerts each day and then a massive praise party in the evening on the saturday. I didn't get to see a lot of what was happening outside of the gym, but I was treated like a VIP because of the venue hosting in the gym that i was doing. I met some Christian "Celebrities" this weekend and even got to have lunch with some of them on Saturday. I met a Christian rock band called Thousand Foot Krutch, a musician by the name of John Reuben and his bandmates (i had lunch supper and lunch with them one day, and had to let john into our cardio fitness room so he could use a treadmill. They were the funniest people ever. I had to leave my lunch sitting until after they had left the table because i had been laughing just too much!), and a band called Mute Math. What really struck me was just how normal all of these people were. We spend so much time building them up in our minds and borderline idolizing them. However, what these people are doing is just using the gifts and abilities God gave them to spread his word in just a more public setting. These people have a great time doing what they do, but when it comes to the bottom line, they are doing exactly what they feel God has told them to do. We may think they are more important than us, but ultimately they aren't. God values just as much what we do with our gifts and talents for him. The only thing different would be if we are letting those talents and gifts go to waste. We do need people to be forerunners of the gospel because let's face it, some of us are not so gifted in the public speaking/performing category, and that is perfectly okay. This weekend has just opened my eyes to thinking of these people as no different that you or me, the only difference is that they get to reach so many more people at one time.