'EXCUSE me, hi, maybe when he comes in can you take a picture of me and him. I just really want his autograph, " the panicked tones of a superfan greet me at the back of a building in a laneway behind Westland Row in Dublin. It's a quarter to seven on a Friday evening and we're the first two there.

A couple of seconds later, three giggling teenage girls arrive and lean against the hood of a car folding their arms and twirling driedout hair as the waiting time becomes longer.

A sharp-looking man behind the glass porch of the building's discreet entrance unlocks and locks the doors every time with the studied self-importance of major authority at a minor event. A young African man asks no one in particular, "Were you here last week? What was the topic?" as he pulls ubiquitous iPod headphones out of his ears.

Tonight, the Victory Christian Fellowship is hosting an evening with Shane Lynch, ex of Boyzone and reality TV king (The Games, Celebrity Love Island) and now a cast member of Sky One's Dream Team. In the Boyzone years, Lynch was a mess. Leaving his job as a mechanic to join Louis Walsh's first major international pop success, he fell into a cycle of aggression and alcohol abuse. He started fights with other pop stars, he constantly swore on live television and was banned from appearing on numerous programmes.

Basically, like most young men who find fame, he swigged, swore and shagged his way around the world for a number of years, eventually becoming a person he detested.

Then he found God. Now he travels around Britain telling that exact story and hoping that those who listen will find God too. About a week ago was his first time bringing the good news to his home town of Dublin.

The several plasma screens that hang from the ceiling play a loop with the times of Easter sermons, uplifting music with footage of assorted smiling folks and news of a forthcoming Christian disco entitled RV3. Finally, the lights go down, I think I can even see a smoke machine, the screens light up with a live feed of the stage and its overhanging expensive lighting system, the music starts up and from nowhere materialis, eh, well. . . it looks like a troupe of Christian break dancers. I am so shocked, so appalled with my own embarrassment, that throughout the dodgy dance routines . . . followed by a dodgier rock band with some seriously Van Halen guitar solos and a catalogue of songs that would question how much and in what way these kids really love Jesus ("wrap your arms around me Jesus, I love you") . . . that I sit utterly and completely still. I don't think I've ever been so motionless in my entire life. I feel like some little rodent who has just turned a corner to find a rat-eating cobra sitting there with a knife and fork and freezes in the hope the snake confuses him with a rock and fecks off.

As I sit there thinking how random and cringe-inducing all of this is (as other people get to their feet clapping along and wooping) I wonder, well, why am I embarrassed? What does it matter? This is my own problem, I figure. I can't deal with all this God stuff because I'm uncomfortable with it. Maybe all these heads are alright you narrow-minded toocool-for-school eejit, I say to myself. You danced around a field to the Dublin Gospel Choir at Electric Picnic but you won't give these people a chance. Then a woman comes out and sings 'If I Aint Got You' by Alicia Keys which is my imaginary chosen competitionwinning ballad if I ever get the call for Charity You're A Star (seriously guys, ring me) but changes the word "you" to "Jesus". And I think, "Ah, lads, here. . ."

By the time the dodgy gospel choir is on the stage, we have had to endure some aching MCing and that old lie: "His flight was delayed."

After a Christian magic show (seriously) Shane appears: shaved head, skinny, tattooed to the hilt. He starts with 'Shane The Early Years' . . . from being a child at school where he was a "a bit of a rebel" to the point of riding a horse and then a motorbike to get him there in the morning, to the rather simplistic version of getting in to Boyzone, at which point we are shown a short film of Boyzone singing at the Point. Lynch goes off on endless tangents and then apologizes for them to a crowd that lap up his every word. Eventually he gets to the God bit. His mate Ben from Phats and Small (remember them: "Hey, what's wrong with youf got to turn arouuunnnddd" . . . subliminal Christian message? ) saved him, by acting like someone Lynch wanted to act like. He turned to God and hasn't turned back. Then we watch his Best Bits from the reality series The Games.

All of this is very pleasant. When he says "Jesus" or "I am a son of God" or "Jesus is in my heart", a few Amens are thrown from the crowd. Occasionally, he dips into dodgy territory, saying tarot readers are dark things at work and people who engage with them are "knocking on doors that shouldn't be opened".

When he is questioned about being a Christian man on Celebrity Love Island his response is a muddy interpretation of the word "love" in the title, "It's Celebrity Love Island. God is lovef I went on as a Christian man to show that." If you can get past the Holy Joe rhetoric, Lynch is honest, frank and clearly achingly in love with his God. He talks about the wonder of having Jesus in your heart as an ecstasy nothing else in the world can give you, he talks about his girlfriend (her brother is his pastor and her father a bishop) saying: "I'm in deep." He makes vague references to the fact that maybe he couldn't go out with or hang out with non-Christians.

I put my hand up and ask, "What do your friends and family think about your current, eh, lifestyle." He says that he had lost contact with his family, he had cut them off, they had become sick of his destructive nature. Now, they are just "happy to have their son back", whatever that took.

When he has finally stopped talking, everyone is called on to bow their heads and take Jesus into their hearts. Those who are not Christians are called upon to become Christians there and then by bowing their heads and listening to the prayer. I find it strange . . . is that all it takes? I keep my head up and my eyes open. When it's done, those who said the prayer for the first time tonight on the back of Lynch's celebrity pull are approached by officials who will talk to them after the meeting. Three hours after we arrived, it's still going on. Shane leaves. And as I make my way to the back of the room the superfan has draped herself over Shane who is sitting quietly on one of the spare chairs.

She's finally got her photograph.