#244: Celebrity Culture (Kingdom Marketing Mindset Series)

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Welcome to the Kingdom Marketing Mindset series. My name is Shelley Hitz, and my husband CJ and I are so thrilled that you have joined us for this series. I really believe this is going to be a landmark series for many of you, helping you to get your message to more people, to really be able to do what God has called you to do in a way that is so freeing and that actually works. And so we are excited. And the foundation of this entire series really starts when you start having regular business meetings with God. And I have a free training for you on this that walks you through the steps. I've been doing this regularly myself for the last few years, and it just works. So go get this training for, for free@trainingauthors.com businessmeeting. I guarantee if you start having weekly business meetings with God, your life is going to change, your marketing is going to change, and there's going to be some amazing things that happen. So go get that training@trainingauthors.com businessmeeting and I hope that this series is a blessing to you and your book marketing. Today's topic is celebrity culture. This is a really, really interesting topic that CJ and I have actually been discussing for a while. And, you know, there is a very real aspect of this celebrity culture, even in Christian ministry, in churches.

You know, Christian book marketing, you know, it's all about, like, building these platforms. And so we wanted to talk a little bit about this today. And our pastor, Daniel Grothe, he just published a book with a traditional publisher. And actually, let's give him a little, little shout out, little shout out, Chasing Wisdom.

And if you know, this is a great book, but it was published. Who was the publisher?

Tyndale, I believe.

Tyndale. So he was with a traditional publisher. But in one of his interviews during his book launch, he was quoted saying this. And this really spoke to me. He said, when people try to give you accolades, receive it, but don't fall in love with it. See the difference when people give you accolades, receive it. So sometimes we have this false humility, right? Oh, yeah. You know, and we can get stuck into this false humility. So it's not about false humility. It's about receiving it. But not falling in love with it. And I will tell you that I have at times gotten caught up in that and fallen in love with the feedback and the, you know, the things. All the things. Right. The numbers and growing things and seeing that. And it can become very addictive. And so, you know, sometimes, just to be honest, for me personally, it feels like my heart is walking through a landmine trying to navigate it all, right? Like, trying to, like, figure out, like, okay, God, how do I navigate all of this stuff? Right. And still, like, you know, steward well, what he's given me to steward. We talked about that last week. What is in your hand, you know, stewarding well, what God has given you and yet not getting caught up into it. So I would love to actually just leave social media altogether and all speaking stages and just live my little life, you know, go hiking in Colorado.

Anyone ever feel that way? Like, you just. It would be okay if, like, yeah, I could just leave it all behind and just, you know, some days I just want to hide under the covers of my bed. And yet God's like, Shelley, this is a battle, but it's a battle worth fighting. And so I continue to fight for what God has for me in this area and to be a light to, you know, for his glory, to share and to do the things he's called me to do. And yet not get destroyed in the process, right? Not get led down to that path of destruction that the enemy would love all of us to go down.

Yeah, and you see examples in scripture as well. You know, one example is the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11. You know, these folks had a desire to be famous, and it was a temptation, you know, even from the beginning. And they said in Genesis 11:4, this will make us famous. One other translations say, let's make a name for ourselves. It's such a temptation in our social media world to want to make a name for ourselves. If you really think about it, those who aren't believers and believers, but I specifically think non believers have more of an urgency because they think this is all there is.

Right?

So when you think this is all there is, you certainly want to leave a mark. Like, I gotta leave my mark so people remember my name. And I think there's that urgency. Whereas for us, I think when we begin to grasp that we have a chance to lift up the name of Jesus and leave that kind of legacy.

There's a freedom there. We also see In John chapter 7, Jesus himself, it says that there was this festival getting ready to take place in Jerusalem. But Jesus wanted to kind of avoid the crowds up there. He wasn't quite ready to mix things up, so to speak. And his own brothers, his own brothers who, it says they didn't really believe, they came up to him and said, you can't become famous if you hide like this.

If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world. And it says that Jesus said it wasn't his time, he wasn't going to go up there. Yet later he snuck up there without anybody knowing. It says later in the passage. But again, we see that language of, don't you want to be famous? Don't you want to start this big ministry? Don't you want to have, like, millions of followers?

You want to be king? You know, they wanted to make Jesus their king.

So just examples there. Shelley, you have another one to share here in Genesis.

Yeah. So in Genesis 12, God tells Abram, he. He will bless him and make him famous, and he will be a blessing to others. But in this case, you know, God initiated it.

Yeah.

So see the difference. Like in the celebrity culture, a lot of times, we're encouraged to initiate this thing, right? This, you know, And I'm not saying that we're not to market. I'm not saying that we're not to build a platform. I'm not saying we're not to do these things, but. But let's do it out of the overflow of what God leads us to do in our business meetings with God. Amen. If you're here with us, live chat with us, let us know, what are you thinking? How is this resonating? What are some thoughts coming to your mind? But God initiated this with Abram. And God was the one who made Abram famous. And I've told God I'm willing to leave it all. You know, I'm willing to step away from it all. But if you want to do this, if you want me to be your voice, if you want me to share about you, then I want you to initiate it. I don't want to be scurrying around doing all the marketing things that I've done for years. Right. I don't want. I don't want to waste my time, and I don't want to get caught up in these things. I want to do what God is initiating. And if he chooses to make us famous, C.J. and I, great. If he chooses to keep us with, you know, a few hundred people, great. You know, it's not something that I'm worrying about. I'm not worrying about the numbers. I'm just choosing to serve the people that God has put in my path. Well, just like we talked about last week, what is in your hand, the stewardship, serving and doing the things he's given you to do. Well, whether it's little, whether it's much, and letting him initiate in your business meetings with him.

You know, there was a time, years and years ago, when I got started in youth ministry. Used to work for an organization called Youth for Christ. And I went through a period where I wanted to get on stages. I wanted to speak to the masses, you know, and I want to be the next Billy Graham.

You know, Billy Graham was with Youth for Christ at one point, too.

And, you know, I was always, like, hunting around, looking for a stage to speak. You know, there were always churches or camps or whatever. I wanted to get on stage, and it was about making a name for myself. I thought, I want to be this great speaker. And, you know, you kind of see others doing that, and so you think, well, I want to follow in that path. Not really, like, thinking through things fully.

And I began to wonder over the years, maybe the larger following you have, maybe you almost become a bigger target. You know, maybe you have a target on your back. The. The enemy just knows exactly where you're at.

I started to change my thinking because it just seemed like the Lord wasn't going to open up, you know, the really big doors, you know, in terms of like 5,000 people, you know, speaking at this big conference. A lot of the things that opened up for me were going into small Christian schools that might have 50 kids in their chapel. But you know what the Lord did, he began to show me that this was another form of what I call stealth bomb ministry. I began to look at myself as a stealth bomber. It was like, undercover, so to speak. Like, I almost thought in my head, like, well, the enemy probably doesn't care too much about these small gatherings. He's going after the big dogs, going to do my damage in all of these smaller gatherings. And that's the way I began to think was, man, who needs a big stage? Jesus didn't have this big, you know, I mean, yes, he spoke to gatherings, but he poured into a small group of people that followed him around everywhere. And I thought to myself, man, I have an opportunity to pour into these kids, whether it's 10 kids, 50 kids, 100 kids.

Let God do the rest. Doesn't matter, you know, how big the crowd is. And the Lord had to get me over that hump over the years. We read In Romans, chapter 12, 2 through 5, don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Amen.

Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect because of the privilege and authority God has given me. This is Paul speaking. I give each of you this warning.

Don't think you are better than you really are. I think those are key words right there. I think sometimes we can think we're all that in a bag of chips, you know, we just think, oh, man, without me, man, God would be up a creek, you know, and not true. Not true. God can handle things just fine. He chooses to use us. We are privileged to even be a part of this. And I think it's that humility of knowing our position, knowing we're not God. But he says, he goes on, he says, be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other, man. I think that's key too. At the end there. We all belong to each other now that we're a part of this thing called the church.

And so we serve one another, we look out for one another, we gather one another. We're not just looking up for ourselves. Like, how can I elevate myself in this spot in church so that I'm the one that everybody's looking at? I'm the one everyone's talking about. Instead, we go about our business quietly. Just as many things in our body go about daily business quietly. They perform their functions as they're supposed to, and there's no one trying to get that glory within our bodies. No organ. This is. Oh, I just need to really stand out.

But all the organs working together, all the cells, all of the muscles.

Pam was asking what verses those were.

Yeah, That's Romans, chapter 12, 2 through 5. And I read from the new living translation.

Yeah. And so as he was stating, you know, it's really important to know our identity. And so not thinking too much of ourselves, but also not degrading ourselves either. Right. So there, there can be both sides of the coin. And I was just reading then a little bit later in Genesis 17 today, and God was telling Abraham, I'm going to give you a son through Sarah. And Abraham's response was like, well, you know, why don't you Just give me the blessing through Ishmael. And I felt like he was almost like saying, you know, what I have is good enough. You know, what I have is good enough. Just do it through Ishmael. And he is 90, Sarah's 99. And yet God was like, no, I'm going to give you Isaac. And through him, I'm going to bless him exceedingly. I'm going to multiply him exceedingly. And that word exceedingly in the Hebrew means abundance. And I wonder if sometimes, you know, trying to juggle this celebrity culture, pride, humility, all this stuff, if sometimes instead of trying to elevate ourselves, we're just saying, oh, God, what I have is enough. What I have is enough. You don't have to give me more. You don't have to, you know, and we're like, we're pushing away the blessings. We're blocking the blessings we're not receiving. Receiving all that God has. Because if God initiates it, like he initiated that with Abraham, if God initiates it, it's. It's all about him. It's not about us. Right? We can't take the credit anyways. But sometimes, don't you think we block it because we don't know if we deserve it or, you know, it's like, it's. That's an identity issue, too, of just knowing we are his daughters, we are his sons, and he at times wants to bless us. And as well, in the celebrity culture, I think that sometimes this whole thing about social media and the Internet, all of this explosion of this has really stirred up amongst even Christians. And I struggle with it ongoing. I mean, God is still working on this in my heart, this sense of competition and comparison. So you're always seeing what other people are doing, what stages they're speaking on, what podcast they're interviewed on, what ranking their book is on, you know, how many followers they have. You know, and you're always seeing all these things, and it's really easy to think, oh, wow, I'm not doing that. Oh, do I need to do that? You know, and then it's like thinking that you need to be doing all the things, or, you know, being like, oh, you know, they have this big platform. They must have more favor from God, or they must, you know, have more, you know, just doing, you know, something right. There must be something wrong with me or whatever. And, you know, your mind can go into all these weird things, and God's been really working this out in me in a deeper, deeper way. And it's much more than I can even go into in this video today, in this topic today. But I just wanted to touch on this because ultimately, God has reminded me that there is no competition in the Kingdom of God. We each have our unique assignments and roles, just like what C.J. was talking. We're a body, and we all have different parts. We all have different roles. So. So if I'm the spleen and I'm looking at the heart thinking, wow, the heart's doing much more. It's a bigger organ, it's more important, and I'm starting to get jealous of the heart. Then I'm not doing my role right. I'm not doing the thing that I'm created to do for the body, and the body suffers as a result. And so realizing that there is no competition, God initiates with each of us in a different way. In a different way, you know, speed in a different season. And that's good. We don't need to look like somebody else. And that's. I'm coming to that realization that I can just embrace my own journey. I have other people that have surpassed me many, many, many, many times in the profits that they make for their business. And they've been working a lot less years than I have. They put in a lot less hours than I have.

And.

And yet I'm like, God, thank you. Thank you for what you've given us. Right. Thank you for what you're doing and having a spirit of gratitude instead of, you know, really, like, you know, thinking about what, What. How God is blessing someone else differently than me.

Yeah.

And so, you know, when we talk about this celebrity culture and all of that, you know, it's, you know, a topic that comes to mind is humility. And this is something that, you know, we could talk about for hours. But how many of you know that humility and dying to yourself. It's not a very popular topic in our culture.

To be honest. I don't see many books being published about this. You know, the books are, you know, have your best life ever. You know, it's all about me, me, me. You know, personal development, self help. What is that all about? Self. And yet the kingdom of God is built on this concept of humility and dying to ourselves.

And John 1:8 says, this is what we are, simply a witness to point others to the true light. Jesus, kind of like John the Baptist, right? He was just preparing the way. We're just here to point people to Jesus. We empty ourselves in humility to be filled with Christ, to make him everything. And then it's not about us, you know, then, you know, we don't get all upset when, you know, something happens or when something doesn't happen, or we don't get all excited when, you know, these big things, you know, it's like, whether it's good or bad, God, it's, it's what you're, you know, it's all for you. This is all about you. It's not related to my value to, to my identity. It's not, you know, like a lot of times I think, you know, as a business owner, I feel like our profits are, you know, related to my ability as, as a business owner, you know, and yet it's like, no, this is all about you, God. It's not about me.

And it makes me think of those, those words by John, you know, I must decrease and he must increase. And that's not a popular message in our culture. We want to increase at all costs. We even will see people selling their souls to become, you know, famous for 15 minutes.

One of my favorite quotes of all time regarding the subject of humility is by a man named Andrew Murray, who was a pastor in the 1800s, early 1900s in South Africa. Grab a hold of his books if you can. This particular book is called Humility. It's just a small read. You could probably get it done in a day or two. But Andrew Murray said.

Here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down. Just as water always seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds men abased and empty, his glory and power flow to exalt and to bless. And that, that picture, and we all can picture water finding its way into cracks and just continuing to go lower and lower and lower as long as it's able. And it just makes me think of this quote of us really just.

Becoming lowly in a sense so that God's flowing Holy Spirit power can actually fill us. It takes that becoming low in order to be raised up by the Lord. He hates pride. He can't even be in the presence of pride. I think pride is the root of every sin we see on planet Earth. It's a lifting up of self as God. And so we see that message over and over again. We have to do our best to guard ourselves from that message. Careful, you know, what channels we're looking at and who we're following because it's so easy to get wrapped up and caught up in that lifting up of self, elevating instead of becoming a lowly servant, which is the example Jesus gave us.

Yeah. And that book, Humility by Andrew Murray, it's on available on public domain, so you can find it in an ebook version for free. But. But it's very inexpensive online. And CJ had a copy and he was just like. We were talking about some of these things a few months ago and he's like, shelly, I think you would be interested in this book. And I started reading it, it was just like, ooh, you know, just revelation after revelation after revelation. It was just like, whoa.

Very convicting stuff.

Yeah. I think I'm on my third way, like, reading it again. It's just like, it's something you can't read enough of. Especially when you're constantly in this, you know, celebrity culture, online culture, marketing culture. It's just you cannot hear it enough. And he talks about, like, if we truly understood as believers and followers of Christ, how when we empty ourselves, then God's able to fill us with the best. You know, it's not like we're going to be Jack's lolibers, you know, it's like, then we're available to receive all that God has for us. And if we would just wrap our minds around, like, we wouldn't. We would. He said we would do everything we could, you know, every day to die to ourselves. And so that's become a prayer of mine almost every day of like, God, help me to die to my pride, to die to myself so that I can be filled with you, so that I can be your vessel. And, you know, this does not make sense in the world's way of thinking, in the world's way of marketing. Almost every marketing message that you'll hear. You know, if it's not a kingdom centered marketing thing, it's like, it's about you. It's about more, it's about, you know, all this. And, you know, this whole thing is. It's just flipped upside down, inside out, you know, and it won't always make sense, but Philippians 2, 3, 5 says, don't be selfish and don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

And I want to just leave you with one more quote before we go into our one minute reflection time. And it's by the late Rich Mullins, who was a powerful Christian music artist that died in a car accident in the late 90s. But Rich said this. He says, once we have overcome our own desire to be elevated, our own desire to be recognized, our own desire to be independent, then God can use us as a part of his body to accomplish what the body of Christ was left here to accomplish.

Amen.

And those that knew of Rich Mullins know that he lived that message. He many times wore the same set of clothes. You know, he had just a few pairs of, know, shoes and T shirts. And he was making millions as an artist, but he gave. He gave a lot of it away. Not only that, he put all of his stuff in charge of a board, and they just gave him a very modest salary every year. And toward the end of his life, he was living at least six months out of the year on a Native American reservation in New Mexico, teaching kids music, just living amongst them, pouring his life into them, being Jesus to them. And so these words I know come from. From his heart. You know, he lived that message very humble, very gifted musician, but he shied away from all of that. I got to be famous and make a name for myself.

And, yeah, he still did.

He still remembered, and he really did. I mean, God did, right? When God initiates it, then that's what will last. That's what will continue. And there are some of you, I truly believe that God is calling you up. He's calling you to be a voice. He's calling you to be a blessing to many. And so I just encourage you to, you know, both sides of just, like, not to shy away from that if God's initiating that in your life. But also if God just has you in a season, obscurity, a season of not being known, a season of just doing the next right thing, just being faithful to a little. Be right where you're at and not be, like, comparing and contrasting, right? And feeling like, oh, I'm not doing what I need to be doing because I'm not seeing the results. So sometimes we can be in different seasons and just allow God to initiate. Allow him to lead and guide. And we are going to give you a minute. Ask God what is he saying to you today about this, about the celebrity culture, about humility, about, you know, allowing him to initiate these things in your life. And let us share or share in the comments, you know, afterwards what God spoke to you.

All right? So feel free to share in the comments anything that God spoke to you. And one of the. The pictures that he was given to me as we were just praying in that minute was of.

Podium, right? Like, CJ's a competitive runner. I have ran races before, and it's like they have the 1, 2, 3. Right, right. One is the highest. Two, three. And I feel like for some of you, God is like inviting you up onto that podium in the number one spot and you're like, oh no, oh no, oh no, I can't do that. I'm not good, you know, oh no, no, no. Kind of like Abraham, what I have is good enough and he's inviting you for more. And for some of you, maybe you've been striving like I was like that for years, striving for years of trying to make things happen and go, go, go, go, go, pushing, trying to make it happen. And God's just like, it's just time to rest and you know, when it's, when it's, you know, when it's time, when it's that season, I'll let you know. But for now I have you there at that race to interact with the crowds, to interact, to have divine appointments right there with all the people to be doing things and to be training. Like sometimes some of us are in training right now we're in a training ground for what God has for us in the future, future ministry, to be faithful with a little so then we can be ruler over much like we talked about last week.

So Debbie says, go deep. Finding the bottom of the pool there is where you will find me holding out my hand. That's good. I think sometimes, you know, in our fast paced culture in the go, go, go, you know, it's like we don't have that attention span. God's teaching me right now to focus and I'm in a period where I'm learning some things and I'll probably share some more and more, but it's hard for me to focus for a very long time. And I think going deep, that's where the riches are. Right?

Debbie says we don't. Another Debbie says we don't have to worry about being enough or the best. We just need to say yes and he will elevate us to where he wants us to, to be. Exactly. You know, that's, it's really all about him. Lola says, lord, help me to keep emptying myself so you can fill me with yourself. And I found, I think that God has just shown me like this is a daily process. How many of you feel like, you know, dying to yourself, dying to pride? It's a daily thing.

It's a daily, I mean, the enemy is always right around the corner with new things with. Whether it's false pride or, you know, false humility or, you know, pride or whatever it is. You know, there's always something. And so because I was getting up, you know, kind of frustrated with myself that I was like, I'm still dealing with this. I should. You know, I want it to be one and done. Right. I want to check it off my list. But God's showing me it's like, it's a daily process.

Yeah. You know, just Lola's prayer reminds me of, quote. I'm not sure who said it, but, you know, when we're so full of ourselves, there's. There's no room for God. And I think that it is. It's. It's. It's an emptying.

And allowing, you know, God to fill us with. With what he desires, even giving us his very desires. I think many times that's a huge hurdle because we all have our own, you know, agenda and our own desires, but praying that prayer of Lord, change even my very desires to line up with the bigger picture here of what you're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. And Evangeline says, I am in him, so I need to be content being there. Yeah. I mean, there's. There's a sense of contentment and yet an openness to receive more. Right. So I love that. And Jan says, when you talked about humility, I remember that.

Our Canadian tax, they called my business a hobby. And that definitely brought humility. And it stopped the striving, too. Now I just let God flow through me. And, you know, we all have different seasons and we all have different assignments. There's different purposes and different reasons. And if we, you know, I often jump to conclusions, and it's like, oh, well, then that must mean that I'm not doing. I'm not doing enough or I'm not doing this or da, da, da, da. And God's like, no, there's different purposes for everything. And so I really tried to stop just jumping to a conclusion and just allowing God to be God. Right. Allowing him to lead me and allowing him to do what he's going to do in his timing. And so, cj, why don't you pray for us, and then we'll have a time where those of you that are here live can ask questions about anything and just get some coaching.

Yeah. Father, we thank you again for this time together. We thank you that you've even called us to this business of writing.

Yes.

To be able to bless others through us. To be priestly pension in the hands of the author of life, that you are writing unique stories through each of us. And I just want to pray that Each of us would.

Even just have a desire for humility. It's just not something we hear in our mainstream media or all of our talking head channels to be humble people.

Yeah.

And I just pray that each of us would allow you to be the one that initiates any fame. And if any of us find ourselves famous one day, I pray Lord that we would never ever be hesitant to give you all the glory and the honor for what you are doing, for what you have initiated. I'm reminded of the verse that says that God first loved us and it was you who initiated everything, this whole love affair with you through your son Jesus. And so I just pray that everywhere we walk, we walk.

Humbly and yet.

Also as sons and daughters of the King, knowing that.

We can, through Christ accomplish anything. And so we just give you this time. I pray that you bear much fruit through this, this episode. And we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. I just want to remind you all again that being in this celebrity culture, the online world, social media, it's a battle. But it's a battle worth fighting.

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode in our Kingdom Marketing Mindset series. God has really led us to start teaching marketing differently. So yes, we will still teach you the skill sets and the strategies, we will give you all the case studies, but we are going to be teaching marketing from a Kingdom marketing mindset, encouraging you to hear from God and get those strategies directly from Him. I am just so excited for you to start going through the training that I have been creating for for you in our book launch challenge. If you're tired of the same old messages with book marketing, I encourage you to join us inside Christian Book Academy. I believe it will truly be a breath of fresh air for you and you'll not only get the practical training you need, but you'll get the encouragement to stay connected with God to receive his blueprint and his strategy for your marketing. Join us now@christianbookacademy.com I can't wait to work further with you and help you reach more people with your message. I'll see you on the inside.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you as a Christian writer have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

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