Dylan Novak, youth pastor and founder of Celebrity Evangelist, shared his inspiration for his ministry and what it was like sharing the gospel with Ozzy Osbourne.
According to its website, Celebrity Evangelist, a ministry that has preached the gospel to over 2,000 celebrities, was created “to share the gospel with everyone [Novak] meets, and many of the people I meet are what this world calls celebrities.”
A few of the celebrities Novak spoken with are Michael J. Fox, Tom Cruise, Brian Wilson, George Wendt, Simon Pegg, Liv Tyler, Brad Garrett, Mark Hamill, Ewan McGregor, Harrison Ford, Post Malone, Tiffany Haddish, Mick Foley, Val Kilmer, Ron Howard, Mel Gibson, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Adam Sandler.
Novak told ChurchLeaders what prompted him to start sharing the gospel with celebrities. Watch the full interview here.
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“So I am a huge superhero pop culture nerd and I still am,” he said, sharing that when he was 13 years old, he asked his parents if they would take him to a Comic Con in Knoxville, Tennessee. The convention featured Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in Superman (1978), and Superman II (1980).
Novak saw an interview where Kidder claimed that she was an atheist. “As a 13-year-old, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut because that’s when the reality hit me that she is a soul just like you, just like me, who’s on her way to heaven or hell,” Novak said. “And I knew without a doubt that she was on her way to hell because she didn’t know Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior.
“So I prayed, God, please send somebody to tell her about Jesus before it’s eternally too late,” Novak continued. “And God really convicted my heart. ‘What about you? You’re gonna be right there in front of her.’”
Novak joked that he “played Jonah for a few days” before submitting to God’s calling. “I’m like, all right, God, I’ll take some tracts from my church and I’ll go down there,” he said.
The evangelist recalled that everybody he talked to was receptive, “including Margot,” he said. “And that’s kind of how it was for about seven years. I would go to these autograph shows. I would wait at a backstage door of an artist that I was going to meet and I’d give them a tract as I got an autograph, as I got a photo from them.”
