Paul Greene: ‘Jesus Freak’ “It’s a passion for Jesus, and it takes over your life” by Jessis Schut    Fran Greene wasn’t happy when her son Paul dropped out of school and decided to give professional modeling a shot.    After all, it’s a long way from a close-knit Christian home in Wetaskwin to the fashion houses and modeling scene in Milan, Italy. More than miles separate the two locales.    “ We were really upset,” she remembers. “He seemed to be dropping everything that was important to us. And the lifestyle of models has a very bad reputation.”    Greene himself admits that his relationship with God was distant when he was discovered by agent Kelly Streit dancing on top of a speaker in a bar.    Streit persuaded him to try modeling, and within a very short time, Greene was on his way to Toronto.    As it turns out, modeling was the avenue God used to turn Greene back to Himself.    “I didn’t take my Bible with me to Toronto or to Milan,”says Greene. “But that’s where I met another model, Jenny Coates, from Red Deer, who was a powerful witness to me. She just blew me away, the way she was living. She bought me a Bible, and got me into a Bible study group, and that group just loved me into the Kingdom.    “Actually, it’s all God’s doing, He’s raising up a community of Christian models for himself.”    Greene was chosen by top men’s wear designer Tommy Hilfiger to be their poster model, and now his face can be seen almost everywhere, from the inside cover of Gentleman’s Quarterly to a huge billboard in New York City’s Times Square.    Being in the limelight can tempt a person into sin, something Greene combats through prayer and lifestyle choices.    “I’m a Jesus Freak! I want to be a salty salt in the modeling world,” he says.    “I want to draw people into an intimacy with God like I have now.”    That new passion led him to witness to his boss and mentor, Kelly Streit, and to introduce Streit to other Christian models. Eventually Streit, too, became a Christian.    Says Streit about Greene, “He’s a real warrior for God. He witnesses wherever he is, he’ll take his guitar out when he’s in a taxi in New York and sing to the cabby. Or he’ll play on the platform of the subways, and hand out tracts. When he appeared on Late Night with David Letterman he even sang for the crew on the set, and gave people an opportunity to know where he stands.”    “I’ll never get tired of God’s miracles in this business,” says Greene,”and He’s doing lots of them.”    In order to stay in touch with the real world, Greene has signed up for a two-week volunteer stint at Camp Caroline for the last two summers.    “God can’t use a proud-hearted person,”says Greene. “I pray for humility every day, and that’s what camp is all about. It’s about cleaning up after a kid has an accident. It’s about being real, and being in the real world, and giving. The seed I plant here can bear fruit some day in a young kid’s life. These two weeks are crucial. I love these kids.”    Greene’s mom has changed her view of Paul’s choices now.    “We’re so thankful that Paul became a model,” she says.    “The more people there are in the business, the better it is because they can be a salt and light. The world needs them.”

Modeling Christ Christ and modeling - an unlikely partnership but Christian models are powerful witnesses for Christ. by Jessie Schut    “Modeling is Satan’s playground.” That’s what 17 year old Angi Blumer of Sherwood Park was told when she expressed her dream to become a model someday.    The world of modeling does seem far removed from the meekness and pureness of heart that Jesus extols in his Sermon on the Mount.    And doesn’t the Bible say that God looks at the inward heart, rather than the outward appearance? So can Christians really have a place in the modeling and fashion industry?    Modeling agent Kelly Streit of Calgary, who has discovered some of fashion’s top models, answers the question emphatically.    “Absolutely! Christians can be in modeling, just like they can be in other professions.”    Streit would go even further. He’d say the fashion industry desperately needs Christians. In fact, he’s living proof of how Christians can impact the world of modeling.    Speaking in an imitation Scottish accent, Streit announces, “It’s a great day!” And he means it, now that Christ is in his life.    But a year and a half ago, the super agent for world famous models wasn’t having many great days, even though he was at the apex of his career.    He’d been named one of MacLean magazine’s top 100 Canadians in 1993. His models Tricia Helfer and Kim Renneberg commanded huge fees, and he was contemplating a move to the Big Apple. Unfortunately, the rest of his life wasn’t on track.    While he knew who Christ was, Streit left what he’d learned about Him behind when he began developing his career in fashion. He set up a modeling agency in Red Deer which expanded into Calgary and soon became phenomenally successful. He was jet-setting around the world, hob-nobbing with the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Madonna.    But at the same time, a number of Christians were infiltrating his life. Models Jenny Coates, Paul Greene and Arlynd Fletcher, all from Northern Alberta, were praying for him constantly, and began challenging him to reconsider Jesus’ claim on his life.    “I kept telling them to forget it, but they kept witnessing to me, not by words so much as by the person, and I did some very mean things. Now I look at people and realize everyone is worthy of my respect.”    Today he considers himself a “believable, talking to unbelievable,” and a missionary model doing what he can to make sure Christ’s light burns brightly in the fashion industry, like a lighthouse drawing shipwrecked travelers to a safe haven.    Streit’s witness has also given others in the industry more courage to stand up for their beliefs.    “It’s amazing what is happening,” he says. “More and more Christians are becoming a presence in this industry. During the Milan shooting season, the whole seventh floor of the models’ dormitory was known as the ‘Christian floor.’ Models prayed and had Bible studies together. Other models were drawn to them when they needed a place to be cared for and listened to.”    While many Christians point to the somewhat questionable reputation of the fashion world, Streit tells his models that modeling is a job, not a lifestyle.    “There are still lots of choices you can make,” he says. “A model can tell the agency, ‘I won’t pose for alcohol or cigarette campaigns, I won’t do nudity, etc.’ I support them 100% in their choices. Sure it might sometimes mean you’ll lose out on some job, but in the long run, that’s not going to hurt you.”    As to the accusation that models are prone to vanity, Streit points out, “Vanity is a danger in lots of high-powered professions. There are vain lawyers and doctors and politicians as well as vain models. I’ve seen models who make $10,000 a day stoop down and talk to street people and take a real interest in their lives.”    Streit says there are now times when he has to make tough decisions about his own career. Associates tell him he’s crazy to turn down some of the opportunities that have come his way, but he takes strength from the people who surround him. “There’s an amazing strength in numbers,” he says, pointing out that today most of the people working in his office are Christians.    God has blessed Streit in many other ways. He’s been able to have an influence on up-and-coming models, such as Angi Blumer, the young woman who was told modeling is Satan’s playground. After her mom found out that Streit was a Christian, she gave her daughter one of his modeling courses as a grad gift.    “I took his course, and it was awesome,” says Angi Blumer. “It was almost like a Bible study. Some kids were saying, ‘I thought I came here to learn modeling, not the Bible,’ but Kelly says to them, ‘You need an inner strength if you’re going to make it in the modeling world,’ and so he tells them about where he finds his own strength.”    In a miraculous chain of events, within a month of taking the course, Blumer as in instant demand by German and Japanese scouts for work around the world. Now she is part of a growing group of Alberta Christians who are showing that they can model Christ in “Satan’s playground” and reclaim the territory for Him.     A month in the life of a new Christian Model June 25: Back in May, Angi had taken a modeling course with Mode Model’s Kelly Streit. Now she’s having her test shots done with a professional photographer. She discovers she just loves the camera: posing for it, moving for it, changing her expressions to suit the mood of the shot. It’s great! The photographer tells her that the pictures will be done in about 10 days. June 28: Angi graduates from Strathcona Christian Academy. July 1: Angi has volunteered to counsel kids at Sunnyside Bible Camp at Sylvan Lake. She’s having a blast! July 3: A call comes to the camp for Angi. It’s Misty Johnson, manager of Mode Models in Edmonton, on the line, and she’s excited.    “Angi, I don’t care how you do it, but Kelly called and said you’ve got to be in Calgary tomorrow. There are people who want to see you.”    Angi is in a quandary. She’s really committed to these kids she’s counseling, but on the other hand, this could be her future they’re talking about. She talks it over with her mom, who just happens to be the camp nurse that week. They decide to take a day off camp and check it out. July 4: Angi and her mom arrive at Streit’s modeling agency, only to find Streit excitedly showing agents from Germany and Japan her test shots. They are impressed. They want her... now!    Can she come out to Japan? Can she show up in Germany by the end of the summer? Will she drop everything and start working on her modeling portfolio?    “No offense, Kelly,” says Angi, “but I just came from camp, and my kids are being touched by God’s Spirit. I want to be there, not here.”    Kelly smiles and tells her he knows how hard it will be for her to leave. But, he adds, maybe your new job is in modeling. Maybe this is where God wants you right now. July 5: Angi heads back to Sylvan Lake and finishes her week at camp. July 8: It’s time to work on her portfolio. This involves posing for photographers for dozens of shots, in dozens of different locations, with dozens of different outfits. Meanwhile, word of her sudden success is getting around. Friends of her family at Evangel Assembly, where she’s been attending since her first birthday, begin phoning. They tell her they’re praying for her, and share words of wisdom and advice.    “That’s so totally awesome,” she says. “it just brings tears to my eyes, to think that all these people care about me.” July 25: Angi is the model featured on the front page of the Flair section of the Edmonton Journal. The attractive layout shows her modeling summer dresses. The feature is repeated in several other Southam papers across Canada. July 28: Angi and her younger sister Esther head for Calgary. An Edmonton fashion photographer is chauffeuring them down, and she finds herself telling him about Jesus the whole trip. The experience leaves her pumped. “I’m a Christian! It’s awesome!” she tells herself. July 29: Photographers use Angi as a practice stand-in for top model Trica Helfer. It’s and unheard-of honour for an inexperienced model to get such a prestigious assignment. Angi spends two days flying around the glacier in a helicopter and posing for shots in fashionable winter clothes. July 31: Back in Edmonton, Angi is again involved in fashion shoots, this time for VUE magazine. It looks like she’ll be heading for Germany in the fall, modeling under the protective wing of Jenny Coates. It’s a change from the Bible School in Austria she’d thought she would attend, but she’s committed to her choice now.    Now it’s August, and Angi is putting the world of modeling behind her to spend a week with her family: Mom Adeline, brother Joanathan,19, sister Esther, 14, and brother Joel, 12, meet at the family cabin at Alberta Beach. She wishes her dad, now at home in heaven, could be there, too. She wonders what the future will hold for her, but she’s at peace, feeling no worry because God’s in control.    She’ll leave the worrying to her mom! 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