A Tennessee youth pastor’s mission to evangelize celebrities includes a tale about “God’s perfect timing” and the since-passed “Prince of Darkness.”
Not long after performing a final show in July, Ozzy Osbourne passed away at his home, having long-suffered from Parkinson’s disease and other ailments. While many offered a prayer for the Hall of Fame entertainer, Dylan Novak’s own petition for the repose of Osbourne’s eternal soul came two years after advancing his personal mission to bring the Gospel to “a forgotten mission field.”
Speaking with Fox News Digital, the youth pastor of Henard’s Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Rogersville, Tennessee, who attests to having shared God’s Word with around 2,000 celebrities, explained that he’d encountered Osbourne with the man’s family at a fan event in 2023 where he’d referenced comments made in a 2020 interview with GQ where the musician had explained personal struggles with reading the Bible.
“We don’t always know this side of heaven how that ended up,” said Novak, who provided Osbourne a contemporary translation of the Bible. The immediate response included a smile as the entertainer flipped to the Gospels and expressed, “I can actually understand this.”
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“I pray Ozzy made a decision to accept and follow Christ. As a result of God’s perfect timing, so many people were praying for Ozzy leading up to his passing. So many people came to know Christ as a result,” the pastor told Fox News Digital.
He also shared how the rocker’s son, Jack Osbourne, had approached him at another event weeks later and shared the impact of the gift, detailing how the following day, Osbourne would ask for the bible, read it, discuss with his family, and show it off to visitors.
“We had, no exaggeration, hundreds of people emailing us asking us for Gospel information, saying, ‘Can you send me some of the material that you gave to Ozzy? I’m an old rocker; I rejected Christ years ago. But if Ozzy was willing to look at it, I’m willing to look at it.’ People saying, ‘I want to be saved,’ and that is just so beautiful to see,” recounted Novak.
As for how he’d come to a place where he’d sought to evangelize platinum album artists and Hollywood hitmakers like Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Brendan Fraser, Sydney Sweeney, Post Malone, and Steven Tyler — as well as President Donald Trump — the pastor explained he’d been motivated as a teen to reach out to Margot Kidder after hearing her describe herself as an atheist in an interview.
“Reality hit me one day that these celebrities, these people that we admire, these people that have brought us so much joy through the years with their entertainment work, their souls, just like you, just like me, who are on their way to heaven or hell,” he told Fox News Digital.
Recalling sharing the Gospel with James Taylor, Novak said, “I was joyful because I was doing what the Lord had asked me to do. But I was also burdened because I thought, ‘Wow, this is a forgotten mission field. These people are so known in the world, but they’re forgotten.'”
“I try to always have a letter for each celebrity … so somebody can reach out to me if they have questions, which we have seen a lot recently,” he noted, detailing, “I write [my posts] with the intent that this person is going to see it, because I don’t want them to feel like I’m exploiting them.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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