Congratulations, Kris: a missed opportunity?

Kris Allen was named the 2009 American Idol winner tonight on Fox. Every female at our watch party went into immediate hysterics. The men’s responses (mine, Jeff Longing, Karl, and Taylor) were, of course, manly and subdued. Yet, we were all amazed that the Conway Kid had slipped underneath Simon’s radar to snatch the title and well-deserved honors.

Amid the lights, celebrities and general craziness, Kris looked, well, surprised. His first words? “Adam deserves this…”

What?!

Perhaps it’s time to agree with Simon (which I often do) and say that Kris’ humility at this point is not really humility. Rather, it was just, well, weird. I was honestly disappointed with a rather large missed opportunity.

American Idol this year contained no overt Christian messages. There were no outbreaks of worship as in prior years. Yet, in the top three, there were two evangelical worship leaders. Danny Gokey and Kris Allen.

At the apex of Kris’ career, when more people will be watching him than at any time, and when he certainly had the freedom and privilege of saying whatever he wanted to… Adam.

My main question is: Why not bring glory to the One who brought you and your family this far?

Was it stage fright? I mean, you’re one of two. Even if you didn’t think you had a chance, surely you would have considered preparing a statement more meaningful and authentic than “Adam deserves this.” I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and simply say it was a less than inspiring moment. But that’s just my personal opinion.

I like Kris Allen, from what I’ve seen of him. He has a wonderfully bright future, and I’m glad he’s an Arkie. I’m excited for his church and friends back home. And I’m hopeful that he will reach far more people with the message of His Savior with his music in the future than he was able to do on AI. However, for now, I just must say, “Congratulations, Kris.” Sincerely.

Other Items of Interest:

• Fox News 16 in Little Rock reported minutes after the show that AT&T had recorded 38 million votes coming out of Arkansas! With almost 100 million votes cast total, that means that Arkansas carried almost 40% of the vote! We assume that most of those were for Kris.
• My wifey won the t-shirt design for Kris Allen’s fan club!

My Tweets during AI:

• Is AI trying to revive careers of senior adult rockers? Booooooring.
  8:41pm via Twitter
• Adam looks like a leather butterfly. KISS may need wheelchairs.
  8:18pm via Twitter
• Can’t believe I’m watching AI.
  7:36pm via Twitter

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Kris Allen t-shirt winner!

Update (5/14/09): Kris Allen is now in the finals! Go get your t-shirt today!

Kris Allen is an Arkansan who is on this season’s American Idol show. He’s made it to the Top 12, and he’s a great guy. He is a worship leader in his church, and so my wife and kids and Lee Anne James (who comes over every Tuesday to watch AI with them) have been voting for him faithfully.

When Carolyn heard that some of his friends had started a t-shirt design contest, she rushed to her iMac and churned out a t-shirt design one evening. She found out this evening that her design was picked and will be the official Kris Allen t-shirt for his fan club! How cool is that?!

Stop by here and buy one of the shirts. Carolyn gets a free shirt for her efforts. There is no markup of any kind of the shirts, and so no profit is being made off of this. It’s just a fun effort to help promote the talents of a very worthy AI contestant.

Way to go, wifey! And good luck, Kris!

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• Blacksburg Christmas parade
• Review: Switch – How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
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• Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
• Feeling sick, Mike?