A Good Thing I Read About The Importance of Mercy and Compassion and Stuff

You could probably guess that I'm not a big fan of celebrity Christians.  I don't mean like Milton Jones and Frank Skinner; I mean the 'big names' like Mark Driscoll, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and themuns.  It's nothing personal, and it's not that I dislike them (ok, some of them I dislike) or their teaching (ibid), it's just that I don't feel all that inclined to follow them on Twitter and hang on their every word.  If they write some good stuff or make a decent Bible study series or something, that's great and I'm all for it.  But, you know, that's where my fandom begins and ends.

And sometimes it worries me when I see teenaged Christians who are big fans of the latest leader or singer or band in the Christian world, because then they often aspire to be like that, and to be honest, that's not really what we need our young people to aspire to be.  Now, I've been promising you a post on my views on Youth Work (sorry, Transfarmer, it will happen, I promise), and this is sort of vaguely related, in that it often makes me uncomfortable to look at the kinds of people we think our young people should be influenced by, because I came across this post (thanks, Soapbox) and she said a lot of things that I wanted to say, and said it better than I would have, so I thought I'd just link to it for now (it's directed at all of us, not just young people, so it's ok to read it even if you're a bit scared of the young people in church because they're all cool and stuff).

Go and read it.

I'll wait.

Back?  Good.  Now, wouldn't it be nice if we lived in ways which showed our young people that THAT's the kind of thing that matters, and not the Big Names and the People With Fans and the Famous?  You know, so they see that they 'worship' just as much on a Sunday morning when they take time to chat with an older person as when they're singing with their arms in the air?  That they serve God as much by picking up a half-eaten biscuit that one of the creche abandoned and throwing it in the bin as the guy at the front does when he preaches his sermon or plays his guitar or looks all relevant?  That it is as important to hold back from sarcasm as it is to be on the prayer ministry team at the cool conference?  And that when they start with the small stuff, they can build the big stuff on, because we're all going to be there supporting them in it?

Because I think that would be nice.