Greenbelt and Soul Survivor, Spring Harvest and New Wine, Kingston and Roots & Branches, festivals and Bible weeks, large and small, now dominate the Christian calendar. Cross Rhythms visited three recently but to kick off Tony Cummings ponders festivals' impact and significance.

Tony Cummings

There is an intriguing last sentence in the entry for Feasts And Festivals, Old Testament in the Evangelical Dictionary Of Theology. "The unity experienced by God's people in the OT during the celebration of feasts and festivals (Ps 133:1) has not found expression in the Christian community, where unity has been more confessionally orientated."

Unity, expressing love and empathy with all those around you, is at the very heart of festivals. To the Old Testament Jews it was their festivals, today so strange to us with their elaborate rituals and mystical symbolism, which bound together the Jews scattered in many places. Today, festivals, even those with seemingly no spiritual dimension, act as a social cohesive. People still talk of the Woodstock Generation and the sense of shared purpose they found in that druggy rock celebration of the '60s. And indeed today, for many thousands of young people who went to Glastonbury, or Reading, or V97, it was the event with its bonhomie and shared experience as much as the individual mega-stars who entertained them, which made the lasting impact.

In Christian circles, festivals and Bible weeks have played a crucial role in challenging that gruesome "confessionally orientated" unity, mentioned in the Evangelical Dictionary Of Theology, a "unity" that is in fact no unity at all. Confessing that we are all one in the body and then continuing to remain isolated and alienated from Christians of different denominations and theological perspectives is a gross distortion of what unity means and a betrayal of a God of love who lay down his life so that we could be joined together. Although some festivals and Bible weeks have simply been means of "rallying the troops" behind a particular denomination or stream, many others have recognised that all believers are called to live in the Kingdom of God, and annual events of teaching, music and celebration are a powerful, God-given tool in enact the Kingdom to thousands of believers. This is certainly a perspective that Chris Cole , the CEO of Cross Rhythms holds.

Spring Harvest, avowedly non-denominational in its approach, has done a huge amount to break down the walls of religious insularity surrounding many Christians and local churches. Greenbelt has been THE instrument in challenging the dualism, dividing sacred from secular, which has clogged many Christians' attitudes. And Soul Survivor has, possibly more than any event before it, caught the mood of militancy among young Christians who are heartily sick of the denominational barriers and theological nit-picking of their elders and passionately want to be unified in a spiritual army that CAN make a difference in our corrupt culture.

The exciting thing about Christian music is that it has potentially numerous dimensions of ministry - to evangelise those who are lost; to bring us into mystical communion with God through worship; to encourage us to keep going in our walk; to speak to the Church or the world with prophetic resonance. It is the multifarious ministry potential of music that Has convinced the team of people at Cross Rhythms of Christian music's spearhead relevance. And the festival is, as it has been for 20 and more years, a pivotal means in disseminating music to the great Christian public. Being denied access to radio, the British CCM scene has relied very heavily on festivals large and small to retain its often fingernail-hold on existence.

If you included the Bible week attendance in your calculations an observer would be amazed to find that Britain's annual Christian festival attendance figure is a third of that achieved in the whole of the USA! But attendance figures can be deceptive. In America Christian music festivals are very much a part of a huge money making industry. For instance, the Atlanta Fest held at Six Flags Over Georgia theme park had a production budget of slightly less than $1 million and still made a substantial profit! In Britain the bulk of the festivals struggle to break-even and their small budgets mean that the bulk of artists play for expenses (or less). This, as has been commented on before in Cross Rhythms, is not an entirely bad thing. Lack of finance has tended to keep the motives of the artists relatively pure and the zeal for ministry amongst many grassroots UK artists would put their wealthy American cousins to shame.

Also, playing for little financial reward in a smallish tent in a field in Britain is a salient reminder to Christian musicians that the marketplace in the UK is still in urgent need of expansion. I had a fascinating conversation recently with an executive of one of Britain's leading Christian record companies. He pointed out that, in his view, the CCM scene was today in a similar place to where it was in the early 1980s. Then there were shoals of album releases, high profile concerts at places like Hammersmith Odeon and the Albert Hall, record attendances at the festivals and even a few artists releasing singles into the secular market. Everybody's mood was optimistic and many predicted the CCM scene was going to explode. It didn't. Instead it trundled into a lengthy period of stagnation.

Today, as that executive pointed out, we're back at the same place. Wembley Stadium, Delirious? in the charts, record attendances at Soul Survivor. But are we in precisely the same place?

There is today, I believe, one major difference from the early '80s. Back then, as subsequent years were to show, some of the CCM artists of the day simply didn't have the character to carry the message of Christ into the larger arena. Marriages broke up, unbridled ambition was revealed, and there were some sad falls. Today, I believe, God has raised up a new generation of young gospel communicators. We need to pray that these will show the character to resist all the temptations that entangles the grubby world of showbiz. Certainly, the signs are that many of this new generation of musicians, their ministries birthed as they are in the Kingdom of God focus of a Soul Survivor or a Cutting Edge, will be better able to resist' the temptations of the Enemy. For I'm increasingly convinced that it is a Kingdom of God spiritual militancy of Britain's current musicianaries rather than a banal wish of a CCM star to become famous which is God's way of seeing Britain's CCM marketplace explode.

One of the expressions of this militancy will be a passion for the name of Jesus. Another will be to resist all traces of selfish ambition. Chris Cole was at a Christian festival recently where he spent time talking to a Christian musician who was consumed with jealousy that it was Delirious? and not he who was making it to the "big time". The idolatrous nature of art clearly makes it possible for a "ministry" to be an elevation of self rather than a service to God. There is sadly still a great deal of empire building going on in Christian circles. Bands, parachurch organisations, even local churches can all be run out of selfish, worldly motives. But clearly God is challenging this. With the recent outpourings of his Holy Spirit in Britain more and more Christians in ministry are discovering the joy in giving their ministry away. A band has to be mature enough to rejoice when another is given a Top 20 hit while they remain "obscure". A festival has to be wise enough to see that "success" isn't ever-increasing attendances, but being true to its call and vision. Envy and competitiveness must be put to death on the cross.

This isn't some kind of shallow, triumphalistic theory that Cross Rhythms believes and indeed even proclaims via our access to the media as long as it doesn't cost us anything. The Cross Rhythms festival in Okehampton has maintained snail-pace but consistent growth since it began. But this year suddenly the Cross Rhythms attendance dipped slightly to 2,800. Yes, that was a disappointment for us. Pain hurts, even in the Kingdom of God. But we were also thrilled to hear that the nearby Kingston festival had achieved a real surge in their attendance through the performance of Delirious?. We are delighted for them, but Chris Cole talking to Brian Mills, the organiser of Kingston, discovered that they were also slightly down on their weekend's attendance. Chris Cole has been passionate in his desire to see the whole CCM scene expand, but knows that this depends on people in the church 'buying' into the expansion of the CCM market as a whole. Running a festival, or running a CCM band, will only achieve anything in the Kingdom if it's rooted to a principle of serving rather than taking any security in a fleshly phantasm of "success". Down the years we've seen our share of parachurch ministries and local churches miss the best the Lord has got for them (and even seen some cease to continue in existence) by falling into the trap of becoming focussed on their work, their vision, their church, their festival. Our earthbound perspectives simply aren't good enough. Chris Cole believes that many festivals experienced less attendance this year because, on a positive note their are more festivals, but unfortunately people are only attending one event. For example, the hugely succesful Champion of the world . which Cross Rhythms fully endorsed, did however take a lot of financial resourcing out of the festival market. His conclusion is that people who believe in what God is doing through CCM at grassroots through the festivals must personally commit to expanding the market

Festivals have, and will continue to have, a huge part to play in the growth of Christian music in Britain. But more excitingly, they have the potential to spread a message of unity and be a birthplace of a vision, a vision that when the music stops playing, we can go home from the tents and crowds and make a difference to our world.