St Mark meets the Metalheads

This year you brought the gospel to a heavy metal festival.

Anglican vicars who serve as chaplains at secular festivals approached us at New Wine Leaders Conference in February to ask for something substantial to hand out. Your support meant we could give them 11 boxes full of copies of Mark’s Gospel.

Heavy metal fans gratefully received these gospels. At least one of them also received Jesus, and hundreds more requested prayer. 

Revd Tim Sudworth, part of the festival’s chaplaincy team, describes what happened when Mark met the Metalheads:

I physically met ‘Jesus’ twice this summer. At the very least, I met two people dressed as Jesus at Download Festival at Donington Park, just off the M1. Download is not for the fainthearted. Very loud heavy metal music and fancy dress of the most outrageous kind is commonplace, along with drink and drugs. Many attenders will tell you, ‘It’s the only place we feel like we can express ourselves and be accepted.’

Since mid-lockdown, I have been playing with a question that I believe God put on my heart. What would happen to the UK Church if everyone who went to a Christian summer festival went to a secular one and used all the gifts God had given them there? The result has been me attending various festivals as a chaplain, and seeing God move in an amazing way. Lives have changed, thousands have been prayed for, and people have been linked to local churches back where they live. We’ve seen people healed and an amazing openness to hearing about Jesus (the real one, not someone in fancy dress).

At the same time, Christians are saying to me, ‘I can’t believe you went to that festival,’ and ‘How do you pray and minister in such an evil environment?’ In answer to these thoughts, I’ve got two key scriptures which I believe speak right into this, explaining not only why I am there but also why more Christians should be there as well.

Reason one: Paul went to ‘evil’ places

In Acts 17.22–31, Paul was in the Areopagus in Athens. Surrounded by their gods and respecting the fact they were ‘religious’, he spoke into the culture of the Greeks and their belief system in a way that was amazing and proved to be transformative. Instead of ignoring the challenge or running away, he was Christ in their midst and ‘some of the people became followers of Paul and believed’ (verse 34, NIV).

Reason two: Christ’s Spirit is in us

In Luke 8.43–48, Jesus was touchedaby a woman ‘subject to bleeding for twelve years’ (verse 43). In verse 46, we almost miss an aside: ‘Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me’ (NIV). This is an odd statement that leads to many more questions. Does Jesus lose power? Where did the power go? Will he be filled up again?

In the old law, a woman couldn’t enter the temple in worship if she was on her period. The power went from Jesus into her and transformed her so that in the old law she went from unclean to clean and she could worship again. If we believe we have Christ’s Spirit in us, we can do the same wherever we are: we’ll leak holiness. To use a theological phrase, we have contagious holiness.

So where are you going next summer?

It’s true that for some Christians, considering where they’ve come from, going to Download or even into a pub may not be the best route. But we should all be asking where we’re called to serve. And for some of us, next summer, that’s a festival where we can be like Paul and reflect Jesus, being contagious and spreading holiness.

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