So many people have said, what a terrible year 2016 has been for losing celebrities and, it’s true, it has. However, someone in our family said recently, ‘it wasn’t 2016, it was the 1980’s’. This got me thinking. What they meant was, the choices that some, not all, of these celebrities made thirty years ago could have contributed to their death in 2016. Before we explore further, please let me re-iterate again, I’m not writing this because I want to say, ‘I told you so’ I want us to stop in our tracks and ask ourselves questions like, if I continue on the path I’m on, will I be dead in twenty or thirty years time? Or what about the question which is more likely for the readers of this blog, if I’d have continued on my path of the 1980’s, could I have joined the list of deaths in 2016? I know a lot of us would answer yes to the second question.

I could have named the celebrities, but I felt it better just to list some of the common facts that I found as I researched the stars.

Numerous sexual partners; numerous divorces; accidental overdoses; suicides; more than one marriage; drug abuse; alcohol abuse; prescription drug abuse; arrests; prison sentences; electroconvulsive therapy; bi-polar; depression; Aids.

Of course, there is not space to go into the details of every celebrity that died and I’m not in any position to say categorically that these are the reasons that the long list of celebrities passed from this life to the next, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that some of the choices made in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s even into the 00’s could have contributed to an early exit.

We all know about the many ‘stars’ who are either dead or in prison in their 80’s because of what went on in the 1970’s. Rolf Harris, Jimmy Saville, Stuart Hall. These were our ‘heroes’ men we admired, laughed at and respected. Yet, they were abusing children/young adults! Did the media turn a blind eye because they were famous? Will we ever really know the truth? One thing is for sure; your past always catches up with you. You can’t just do what you like with this life and imagine you won’t get caught.

Recently, John and I watched the movie ‘the Jersey boys’. We’d never seen it before and, although we knew loads of the songs, we hadn’t realised that it was the Four Seasons that were responsible for writing so many fantastic songs! Oh what a night, My eyes adored you, Big girls don’t cry, Walk like a man, Sherry, Can’t take my eyes off you and loads more. So many songs that I’ve danced the night away to, great, feel good songs. The other thing that we weren’t aware of was the disastrous back-stories that were going on. Financial trouble (into the hundreds of thousands), marriage break ups, affairs, a teenage accidental overdose (Frankie Valli’s daughter) Six months before that, his stepdaughter was killed after falling from a fire escape. So many tragedies, yet, all most people knew was the music, exhilarating and feel good music, getting you to do the ‘Peter Kay walk’ to the dance floor kind of music. I found it sobering that there were so many lost souls during their story and felt kind of bad that I was unaware of what was really going on. As is my custom when pondering such things, I began to think about church. What is really going on?

I see lots of dangers, but let’s continue with the celebrity status.

When someone famous becomes a Christian, (their fame doesn’t have to be world wide), they can be famous in their community because of what they’ve achieved in that community: sport, music, charity work etc. even your past life can make you famous, what you were before your conversion. Usually, the church throws you onto a stage to begin to tell the world of their new found faith. There’s usually no time between the biggest decision the person has ever made and their ‘stage’ presence! Why? Because we (most of us who lead churches), think this will be the next big thing, this will be what will make our church grow and, ultimately give us significance because, let’s face it, unless you’ve got numbers, you don’t count for much. Let’s just say it as it is. There is usually no background check, no talking to the family to see how they’re handling the changed person, no finding out whether or not the guy is genuine and is the same ‘nice guy’ at home as he is in church. We just imagine they’ll be able to handle to ‘fame’. Character must come before charisma, but sadly, the church is more attracted to charisma and it believes the world will be too. The more I go on, the more I see that character has to trump charisma or the next big thing will quickly become the last big thing, lots of people will get hurt and we’ll move on. But while ever we’d rather see a crowd, than check a person’s character, we will not get God’s best; it will be counterfeit and won’t last long.

We’ve made some Christian leaders celebrities haven’t we? We give them a platform either because they’ve got a great ‘past’ story and they might just be the ones who fill our church or they’ve built a church of 200 (which let’s face it, is only good this day and age because there aren’t many of them – sad fact). Usually, there are no questions asked, questions like, ‘when was the last time you were on a porn site?’ or ‘when was the last time you drank too much?’ or, which is just as serious, ‘when was the last time you made love to your spouse?’ there seems to be a huge lack of character checks, like those things don’t matter. If you’re reading this, especially if you’re in ministry, ask yourself the question, when was the last time anyone asked you questions like that. If you’re a wife (or husband, for that matter), when did you last ask your partner if they look at porn? Did you know it’s rife?

It’s the same with the stars: Grammys, Oscars, awards, accolades – fantastic, and if they cheat on their partners or do cocaine, so what!?

So, was it really 2016 or could it have been ‘1986’? For the ones who sadly left us this year, I guess it matters not now. But it can serve as a warning or an encouragement for us who are going into 2017 in just a couple of day’s time, to give ourselves the best chance of winning. I hope 2017 will bring for you your hopes and dreams and that it will be a year full of love and life. If you have a tough decision to make because you know you’re on the wrong path, I pray the same for you too. Be encouraged and change your destination. It’s not too late.