Good News and Open Air Holy Communion shared at the Download Heavy Rock Festival Donington Park.
This year some thirty people signed up to be Chaplains at the annual heavy rock festival held at Donington Park in Castle Donington. This ministry now in its third year began after Roy Monks the local Baptist Minister and Senior Chaplain at the nearby East Midlands Airport was asked to a joint management team meeting between the two organisations on Donington Park.
Asking what facilities there might be for Chaplaincy ministry the festival organisers offered an opportunity to come on to the site and with a group of local clergy the small team was welcomed by management and festival goers alike. Building on this Chaplain numbers have increased locally and from across the country with a training day for chaplaincy each year and those called to a ministry of prayer while the event is going on.
The results speak for themselves with so many from the 100,000 attending asking for prayer, help and ministry through the myriad of encounters that took place across the site. This year management gave us a proper tent in the main arena and we were even marked on the site map with a cross. The tent soon became known as " The Jesus Tent" probably because a banner proclaiming " Jesus Light of the World " was positioned over the entrance. Rock fans even took photographs of it and also posed with some of the chaplains.
On the Sunday morning a communion service with a simple gospel message was organised in the open air at the back of the tent with a good number of people attending. This was definitely a first in the 20-year history of Download and a seminal moment on the Donington Park site. We may not be Metallica, the headliners this year, but we certainly made a joyful, helpful and hopeful sound for the Lord.
If this is something you might feel God is calling you to next year, where we have already been promised a bigger tent, then don't hesitate to get in touch . There is still so much more to do in the developing area of vital ministry.
