Should Christians Be On Reality TV?

I get it all the time.

When people hear I’m a Christian, and also that I met my wife on The Bachelor, their eyebrows raise in either confusion or disappointment.

“How can a Christian watch a show like The Bachelor,” they ask. Even more to the point, “how could you be on a show like that?”

Here’s my answer.

“Not necessarily” and “definitely.”

People are called to do various jobs. Some are called to be teachers, other preachers, others plumbers. I was an insurance salesman when my sister and her husband secretly submitted my application to go on The Bachelorette. They were were sick of me being single.

When I was actually selected to go on the show, I was taken aback. Is this possibly what God has in store for my life?

Turns out, yep. It was.

Though the show is not known for being a hotbed of Christianity, my dad gave me sage advice before I headed out. “You ooze the gospel, Sean. You don’t even have to mention your faith. You simply live it.”

However, I love God, and I love to talk about Him. On the set of The Bachelorette, I’d quietly do my morning Bible study only to find some of the other guys sitting around asking questions about Jesus.

Later, when I was chosen to be on The Bachelor, I wasn’t going to take advantage of the women in the fantasy suite – even if it was the expected thing to do.

On one hand, I had people in the media making fun of me as “The Virgin Bachelor,” like I’d fallen out of a spaceship – like they’d never seen anyone who had chosen to live by Biblical sexual standards.

On the other, I had Christians saying that I had to be a “fake Christian” because real ones don’t go on shows like that.

I reject both notions.

God does not call us to be on reality TV. However, he does call us to be “salt.” The Gospel Coalition explains it this way:

Tim Keller once described being “the salt of the earth” as a call to go to “spoiling places.” Salt, primarily used as a preservative in the first century, kept food from spoiling. So being salt means going into these spoiling places and preserving life, influencing them for good, and bearing witness to the hope of the gospel.

For some, like it did my sister and her husband, it meant going into a Chinese orphanage… a place that society has forgotten. For others, it might be as simple as being kind to that neighbor who won’t mow his lawn. We’re all called to spread the gospel and to show God’s love wherever God puts us.

I found that The Bachelor and The Bachelorette series gave me an opportunity to show the difference between gospel-less living and the true good news of Jesus. Not by preaching, but because the difference is so obvious that even people at home could tell there’s something going on in my life. Something good. Something amazing.

And it’s not because I’m amazing. In fact, I’ve failed at many things I’ve tried. I’ll fail again. But I know that God won’t fail. His love gives me a steady place to stand, and that’s what I’m doing. In my new book “For the Right Reasons,” I explain how focusing on romance leave us in desperate need of true love.

If you are a Christian who watched the show (shhhh…. I won’t tell anyone) or a Christian who would never turn it on… I hope you pick up a copy of my book to read about how God used this rather unconventional show to bring me a wife, and to teach me – once again—that he orders the steps of a righteous man.

Not a producer, not Chris Harrison, and not even my meddling sister.

Order “For the Right Reasons” TODAY here, or purchase it at bookstores everywhere.

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