1999-2010

Thursday, December 24, 2009

The death of Derek Loux is America's Christmas Eve tragedy


Word on Christmas Eve morning of the death of a young, charismatic Christian music star is news. The death of Christian music star Derek Loux is the American Christmas tragedy of the season.

Derek Loux was on his way home to Grandview, Missouri from a ministry conference in Colorado yesterday morning when the SUV he was in skidded out of control on black ice on a snowy Highway 80 near Cozad, Nebraska. He died from his injuries.


Loux was a pleasant enough singer who touched the Contemporary Christian charts a couple of years back with an album called Paper Religion. He worked the Christian evangelical industry as a director of and preacher for something called the International House of Prayer (yes, also known as IHOP) in Kansas City, Missouri. If the story stopped there it would be just another ironic chuckle from the 2009 Celebrity Death Reaper on the way to taking sportscaster George Michael-- but it doesn't stop there.


Derek Loux's IHOP ministry was focused on promoting the adoption of disadvantaged and special needs children. He started something called The Josiah Fund to raise money to build a group home for orphaned kids in hopes of encouraging fellow Christians to take them in. And he his wife Renee walked the walk. Their family includes ten children, eight adopted-- three with special needs.


We didn't know anything about Derek Loux before we got into the Tabloid Baby office this morning and agreed to make his The Death of The Day. Then we looked into his family website, and saw the posting earlier this month about bringing his kids to Southern California to visit Universal Studios and Disneyland. We realized this death and life warranted much more.


Ten kids will face Christmas without the man they called Papa.

We suspect we will all be hearing a lot more about the life and work of Derek Loux.



(What's Derek Loux's backstory? What led him on this path? If you, email us here.)

1 comment:

harris family journeys said...

Derek Loux's death is indeed a horrible tragedy. Derek was a wonderful man who not only talked the talk he walked the walk. Derek and his wife adopted five children in 2009 for a total of ten children. Two of the adopted children have Down syndrome and they along with another special child were adopted through Reece's Rainbow (www.reecesrainbow.com). Derek and his wife were a wonderful example of true goodness. Please pray for Renee and their ten children as they struggle to make sense of this tragedy.