by Eddie Pipkin
Image by Julien Tromeur from Pixabay
I was at the Friday night NASCAR truck race at Daytona International Speedway last weekend – always an evening of high-speed thrills and great people watching – but one of my favorite parts of the evening was watching the amateur “hype man” in the stands. All night long he kept the crowd motivated, lifting everybody’s spirits with his antics, cheers, and calls for folks to get on their feet. There were a lot of cautions for crashes during the race, and too many of those interruptions can sap a fan’s enthusiasm, but the hype man in our section of the bleachers never let the energy drag. It got me thinking how every church, large or small, can benefit from a good hype artist.
I wrote hype artist in the closing sentence of that last paragraph (not hype man), because there is certainly nothing to preclude women from fulfilling this role. Basically, the need is for someone with personality, flair, and an engaging public persona to reinforce the message and get people excited.
Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of hype man, in case you are unfamiliar with the c