Speaking Jesus to 90,000 festival music fans

Richard Baxter, Pastor for Outreach, Carey Baptist Church, Reading writes:

Here in Reading, we recently welcomed more than 90,000 music fans to Reading Festival – an annual music event, originally known in the 1960s as the National Jazz Festival. With such an influx each year, we at Carey Baptist Church want to do something to serve some of them and to speak to them of Jesus.

Showing Love, Speaking Jesus is the strapline for our church outreach and we try to do this in all we do. Ordinarily, that would be shown in three main ways at the festival:

1. Giving out a helpful map of the town as festival-goers swarm out of the train station. The map contains a short ’zine-style piece that speaks about the music of one of the headline acts and relates it to the gospel.

2. Running a free refreshment stand very near the festival site. A few years ago, we gave out around 25,000 free drinks! There are occasions here when we can also speak about the love we have freely received that leads us to freely give to others.

3. Chatting to festival-goers about Jesus down by the Thames, where the most conversation happen. As a friend told me: ‘The openness of young, hungover rock fans is always astounding!’

This year, due to uncertainty around Covid, activity was limited. But – praise God – we could still speak about Christ by the river! Gospel opportunities ranged from long philosophical chats to two minutes of sharing an aspect of the gospel while giving out a free pin badge.

We know we’re not in this alone! Frontline evangelism reminds me of the need for the Father to be at work by His Spirit if people are to see Christ rightly, understand Him truly, and come to Him in real repentance and faith.

The majority of those I spoke with this year seemed to be hearing the gospel message as something very new. One or two took offence, a number were apathetic, but many heard about who Christ is and what He has done, and seemed to see that this gospel, if true, really is good news.

Please pray that the Spirit would use the literature given out as people read it; that He will use the badges to remind people what they heard about Christ; and that He would bring back to people’s minds the truths they heard about the gospel.