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Why is it so important for celebrities to let us know that they are online?

This show off behaviour by our Nigerian celebrities is definitely fuelling the criticism directed at the online prayer session.

Should we be worried that these online religious activities are replacing the traditional ones?
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According to the Gospel singer, the purpose of this challenge was to glorify God's name like Paul and Silas did while they were in prison (Acts 16:25-26).

As the number of people grew, so did the calibre of viewers, turning it into the hottest thing online right now.

Now, it has become common to see celebrities commenting every five seconds.

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Most have started taking snapshots to share on their pages, which makes it look like celebrities are ticking some attendance sheet that we don't know about.

With this recent behaviour, one might wonder if this innocent challenge hasn't turned into a 'virtual cool spot' (as my colleague put it) for celebrities to show off their PR-oriented Christianity.

Popular OAP and critic, Daddy Freeze, is one of the people questioning this behaviour.

Reacting to it, he said, “Maybe I’m wrong, but I assume this was set up to praise God, not to be a celebrity hangout, where people are busy staying awake to munch comments and see which celebrity is ‘liking’ and ‘commenting’

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Our ‘intentions’ are more substantial than our ‘deeds’, so let me ask you, what’s your intention; do you go there to praise God or to read and munch celebrity comments?–Let’s raise the praise and keep the prayers going. God sees your heart, not your Instagram comments!"

Abroad, celebrities are often heard saying that they like their privacy.

In a bid to keep this privacy, they visit pages without making their presence known.

Things are clearly different here with our famous people taking the spotlight from what this challenge is really about and turning into a media circus.

Why can't people just go online, praise God for one hour, then go to bed? Why do people, celebrities, in particular, feel the need to let everyone know that they tuned into the current cool thing?

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Writing this brings this verse to mind. Matthew 6:1 - “Beware of practising your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven."

On its own, the praise challenge is a great thing, but with this kind of behaviour like this, I can understand why people keep criticising the #HallelujahChallenge.

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