Heat Berder

Those little lights in the landscape were emitted from Gisburn’s increasingly famous Beat Herder music festival. Just a few miles away from the chapel, its beats could be heard from our cemetery; within its wooden barriers, thousands of young people danced, ate, drank, smoked and, curiously, enjoyed the services at a ‘witch tent’.

The evangelical Christianity of Salem Chapel cannot rival this by the measure of numbers. I had our young people round for supper the week after, and although they filled my parlour, they seldom fill our chapel. What can the churches do to attract more people, and not just the young? We cannot compete in terms of music and drugs, nor in the fashionable clothing and achingly woke views these events are pleased to express. But we do have Jesus Christ: Jesus in all His love and mercy. Jesus with all His tenderness and compassion. Jesus with all His righteous zeal and hallowed beauty. When the booze wears off, the cannabis leaves the system and the amps get unplugged, there is nothing left but fields of litter, muddied clothes and banging heads. But the Lord Jesus remains, patiently drawing people, young and old, to saving faith; gently calling people to seek redemption and their sins’ forgiveness. Eternal life will outlive youth; Christ’s Kingdom will outlast the festivals and blues of this dying world.