Backstage Fan

This past week my wife and I went to yet another the Tom Petty concert. This was my eleventh Tom Petty concert and my wife's twelfth. Although we purchased the cheapest seats available at the concert, through a series of actions and conversations we ended up sitting just off of the side of stage.

Although we have been to several of these concerts, this was by far the closest we have ever sat. We were essentially sitting backstage! We were able to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers walking on and off of stage, we were able to see all of the technicians and stagehands preparing and making changes between sets and between songs. Likewise, we found out things about Tom Petty and the rest of the group that we never knew before - such as Tom's guitar changes and smoking preference between the various songs.

As I wrote, we have been to several of these concerts and we have called ourselves "fans" for many, many years, yet there was so much we saw on Thursday that struck us as new and very interesting.

I couldn't help but think about a book I recently read; "Not A Fan" by Kyle Idleman. One of the points that Idleman makes is that being a fan of Jesus is far different than being a follower of Jesus. Idleman writes how many people know about Jesus but they don't actually know Jesus.

And he asks the question, are you a fan - or are you more.