This is the second crack I’ve had at posting on this – one day I’ll learn to save drafts. But it’s been really obvious over the past little while the degree to which the obsession with celebrity has become so deeply ingrained into the Australian culture. The deaths of two Australian “icons” – Steve Irwin and more recently Peter Brock, have been proven powerful insights into the depth of emotional attachment people have to iconic public figures.

While I’m not sure that media coverage can necessarily be taken as a completely reliable barometer for cultural trends, the media saturation of these two deaths demonstrate at least in some ways, the level of public interest. We all know it’s there, and we all know that it’s rubbish, but we live in a society that values fame, and specifically famous people, above almost anything else. But the real reason that this issue requires a blog post is not as a critique of the culture in Australia, but the way this plays out in our churches. Like it or not, church is as overcome with celebrity fever as anyone, we just dress it up nicely.

To keep me humble we’ll keep the finger pointed close to home (well, that and it was a comment from Bec on this that triggered my thinking). Vineyard is a wonderful movement to be a part of. And the founder (roughly anyway) John Wimber was a very wise, godly, gifted and anointed man. But there is undoubtedly a concerning trend in vineyards to use Wimber’s sayings/methods/theologies as the definitive authority on how church should function. Wimber, or worse – the idea of Wimber has become on an equal level to that of the Word. It’s never a conscious thing (at least I hope it’s not), but it seeps into peoples default thinking process. You no longer ask what God is wanting in a situation, or how God might be telling you to act, and instead want to replicate what Wimber might have done.

Vineyard is certainly not alone. Every denomination or movement has their own heroes, and few manage to separate out the ability to learn from people without turning them into idols on at least some level. But we need to remember that we are part of the Kingdom of God first, and anything else needs to be a very distant second.

(This is nothing like the post the first time around – but I guess that’s the way things go. )