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Simba Jemwa, Showbiz Reporter

BRIGHT Light Prophetic Deliverance Ministries’ Prophet Brighton Chikomo could soon be described as a “celebrity pastor” who may end up regularly getting snapped in photos that end up on Zimbabwe celebrity gossip media platforms.

Whether the label “celebrity pastor” means he is a pastor to celebrities or is regarded as a celebrity himself is unclear. It’s also not clear whether or not the prophet is going to lose sleep over this.

Local celebrities like Stunner, Enzo Ishal and the late Soul Jah Love are part of an exclusive crew of other high-profile celebrities often slated for “moral failures,” that have shown them to be fallible humans like everyone else after all.

Young charismatic preacher, Prophet BT Chikomo has come out in defence of these and other celebrities and has begun to attract an expansive following through his charismatic sermons. But the sometimes controversial minister is angling towards being known as a spiritual adviser to A-list celebrities like Sandra Ndebele, who are expected to receive VIP treatment whenever they worship at his Bright Light Prophetic Deliverance Ministries Church.

“I think celebrities have been getting the short end of the stick. Like pastors and politicians, celebrities are not infallible and will make mistakes here and there. What we cannot and should not do is to then crucify them when this happens,” Prophet BT Chikomo told Saturday Leisure during a recent visit to Bulawayo where he was to meet songstress Ndebele.

“I especially worry when the church begins to pass judgement on these people when it should be providing spiritual guidance. And the bible is very clear about this – in Matthew 7:1-5, the bible says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For, in the same way, you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your eye?

“How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

“The Bible makes it clear that we cannot judge these celebrities or anyone else for that matter. As a result, my Ministry is now focusing on helping celebrities spiritually whether they have wronged society or not. They too deserve to be given the same amount of spiritual guidance that everyone else is getting from the church in general,” Prophet Chikomo says.

Is he seeking to elevate his status to ‘celebrity pastor’?

“I think when people say ‘celebrity pastor’ it’s normally coming from people that don’t have a giant worldview to pull from. Why does providing spiritual guidance have to come with a title?” he says.

“But I will allow it because I’m not going to fight people over the titles they choose to give me, but I don’t subscribe to it, and don’t believe it’s true. I know who I am and it’s the furthest thing from a celebrity. But I also understand that there’s a big platform that will come with some of this and I will try to handle it with grace … but it’s just not what I am.”

But Prophet Chikomo admits that he will have to hang out with a lot of celebrities so not all the celebrity talk will be mere wild conjecture.

“Yeah, I will hang out with a lot of people,” he acknowledges.

“Zimbabwe has many celebrities, regular people, random people, famous people, homeless people and if our church is reaching ‘the world,’ I think we should have a really good reflection of that in church.

“We won’t spend an extreme amount of time with celebrities, but we do know people who the world knows as well. And sometimes that comes with flak, comes with extra notoriety, and you just try to handle it the best you can [and] just go ‘We’re living a regular life in an incredible country and sometimes there are people you’re going to recognise in our house, in church and it is what it is.’”

Prophet Chikomo might be keen to emphasise how normal it all is but what does it look like when the person in question is pop star Sandra Ndebele or PSL player Marshal Munetsi? Aren’t such people used to being treated in a certain way?

He says the famous people he knows “want to be regular people” and “are regular people”. But, he says, people can make a situation awkward with a famous person if they act like they’re not and “just overdo trying to treat them like a regular person”.

He likens it to how he’d relate to someone with a special need. For example, if someone was deaf, he says “I’m going to acknowledge that you’re deaf and I’m going to learn sign language because that doesn’t mean you’re different, means you’re special. And I think when someone is famous, I use the same strategy. I’m going to figure out your world, your rhythm, try to figure out what has brought you to this place and try to be the most normal me I can be – which normally produces the normal them as well.

“It’s just life. It’s loving people for who they are,” he says with a shrug.

He also says that spending time with celebrities is less glamorous than most people would think.

“When you hang out with an athlete, they normally have a calendar season that you know. They’re either training, in a game, or not in a game. But with a musician, he or she’s doing music, or on tour doing the music or is recording. So, with them, it can look like sitting in the studio for hours, which I may have to do,” he says.

Prophet Chikomo says people imagine hanging out with a star would be like being in a spaceship or riding around in fancy cars.

“It’s not like that because he’s a prisoner to the culture.” – @RealSimbaJemwa