Taken U2 to Church

A minister will be swapping traditional hymns for tracks by rock band U2 at a communion service with a difference this weekend.

The Rev Nick Cook will perform as Bono for Leicestershire’s first U2charist, at St Hugh’s Church, Market Harborough, on Saturday.

The band – with Dick Callan as guitarist The Edge, Trevor Roach as bass player Adam Clayton and Alex Ulyett as drummer Larry Mullen Jr – will be performing seven of U2’s biggest hits, including One, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride (In The Name Of Love) and Where The Streets Have No Name.

Nick, who is minister of Harborough Baptist Church, said it was a first for the county.

“Well, I’ve never done anything like this before,” he said.

“It will be a fairly normal communion service, but whereas we’d normally have hymns, this will be interspersed with some classic U2 songs.

“I’ll be doing my Bono impression, although I’m not like him as a singer. He can sing slightly higher, so we’ve had to take a couple of songs down a notch.

“We haven’t talked about how we’re going to dress yet.

“I think we’ll be fairly casual but I’m not going to go out and buy the big shades.”

The first U2charist service took place in the United States, where a minister inspired by the spiritual content of some of U2’s hits got permission from the band to use their songs for worship without copyright charges.

The idea is to make the traditional service more appealing to a wider audience, particularly younger people.

The service in Market Harborough is expected to attract more than 100 people. Money raised will go to Christian Aid.

The event also aims to raise awareness of the Millennium Development Goals – eight objectives set by world leaders at the start of the millennium with the aim of halving the number of people living in poverty across the world by 2015.

The service has been organised by Nick and the Rev Andrew Quigley, from Harborough Anglican team, along with Christian Aid.

Andrew said: “There’s a lot of spiritual content in U2’s music and Bono is known for speaking out on issues such as poverty and raising funds.

“We thought bringing in the live music would make it appealing to younger people and maybe, for people who already support the service, it will perhaps help them see it in a fresh way.

“We want people to come because they like the music, we want people to come because they care about the issues, we want people to hear the church speak about values in different and perhaps challenging words.”

Christian Aid spokeswoman Sue Richardson said: “The service is at the end of our annual Christian Aid Week, when we ask volunteers to collect door to door in their communities to fund our work with the poor overseas.”

The U2charist takes place at St Hugh’s Church, in Northampton Road, Market Harborough, at 8pm on Saturday.

No Longer Christian Band

Bringing U2 into a conversation with a group of Christians can be a dangerous occupation. Once up held as the prime examples of Christians in the music business, many people now view the band as arrogant and egotistical, having long since abandoned their early religious fervour.

In fact, many churches will point to U2 as evidence of the fact that the music industry is too full of corruption and depravity for even the most committed believers to hold out against, almost as mothers used to frighten their children into good behaviour with stories of the hobgoblins that awaited the ill-behaved child! Viewing U2 on the surface this can be understandable, but a deeper look at what the band are doing portrays a very different story.

Without a doubt U2 have changed a lot since their early albums. Many believe that U2 no longer possess the Christian beliefs which so obviously underpinned these albums, and in many respects amidst the images which U2 have created their beliefs can be difficult to unearth.

Often such use of artistic subterfuge is deeply frowned upon by Christian fundamentalists who argue that the gospel message should be perfectly clear; however, this is ignoring the fact that much of the Bible is itself written in artistic prose, rich in hidden meanings and multi-faceted nuances, whilst several books merely contain poetry - the most artistic of all writing forms.

Jesus himself taught in parables, using the images of the day to bring across truths about God, and most of the time leaving the people scratching their heads and wondering what he meant.

U2 Faith Future

“The Lord is in the House tonight” Going to Church that’s what going to a U2 concert felt like for a few of the fans this past tour. Faith, Love and Hope rising beyond the 50 thousand screaming fans; all in one single space in hopes to see something magical beyond the walls that held them inside.

U2 is a band on a mission, and a strong sense of integrity and purpose is the foundation for their music, lyrics, and relationships. They’ve sold somewhere between 100 million and 150 million records (CD’s) winning 17 Grammy Awards and of course inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. U2 survival in a industry where longevity is measured in months, the band has stuck together and racked up years’ worth of smash hits and signature songs.

So where do the boys from Ireland go now? The most successful tour ever and yet the album was considered to be lacking, rushed and not filling for some hard core U2 fans.  U2 has always been able to reinvent their music to fit the times.  Its not often you can follow a band thru your life and still believe in the music. U2 has grown up with their audience and its very possible their new music will continue to have us follow.

U2 Beyond Words

Formed in 1976, formed a Mount Temple Comprehensive School with limited music skills Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry set out to change the world with their music or did they? The early references to the band pointed to their limited musical skills.

Early on the band was deeply rooted into post punk and eventually grew to include influences from many genres of pop music. Signed to Island Records they released Boy – and broke thru as an international act. Along came 1987 and the breakthrough CD “The Joshua Tree” was released and that was the same year CD’s became the must have musical media.  

U2 integrated dance, industrial, and alternative rock influences into their sound and performances, and embraced a more ironic and self-deprecating image. Similar experimentation continued for the remainder of the 1990s with mixed levels of success.

U2 regained critical and commercial favor after there 2000 record All That You Can’t Leave Behind. On it and the group’s subsequent releases, they adopted a more conventional sound while maintaining influences from their earlier musical explorations.  

Has success changed U2 or have we changed into accepting faith on our sleeves and dipping our toes into the book of faith driven by the musical tunes of U2? Often you hear references of U2’s dabble into faith, love, marriage and hope yet they never labeled a Christian band. Why is that?

What is it that makes music Christian? Does it have to be written specifically for the church, for liturgical or devotional purposes, to fall into that category? Must it refer to Scripture, quoting directly or alluding by imagery? Should its explicit purpose be to evangelize? Will it sound a certain way, stick to certain conventions, or squeeze unlikely paradigms into a Christian shape?

There certainly is “Christian music” that does a few or all of these things. Some of it is deliciously uplifting, and some of it is incomparably dreadful. But perhaps all these questions reflect the wrong approach to Christian music entirely.

Perhaps the better way is to ask the question not so much of the art as of the artist. That would make Christian music the work of Christian composers, regardless of what it sounds like and what, in each particular instance, it says. If we follow that definition, then we will find the most wildly successful creators of Christian music in the past two decades — not hymn writers, and not Amy Grant, but the four Irishmen who are collectively known as U2.

Can you name any other pop contemporary musicians that have been able to introduce so many bible references without a label the book of Psalms is weaved throughout most of U2’s work.

Bono did come out and speak about his faith in an essay “My mother was Protestant, my father Catholic; anywhere other than Ireland that would be unremarkable.” “I had a foot in both camps, so my Goliath became religion itself; I began to see religion as the perversion of faith.”

Curiously enough, the religious brutality was never enough to knock the faith out of him, and Bono’s lyrics remain unalterably Christian in their coloring, even though his religion — the practice of his faith — has since shifted to rock-n-roll.

So what if within the music comes a little faith, hope and love for your fellow man, does the world not need a little love? Share your comment and views.

Tebow, Bono and Faith

 ‘It’s not just something that happens when you’re at church’ – Tim Tebow 

Tim Tebow and Bono have faith in common, faith in a higher power (God). Both men use their platforms to express their views of faith in that higher power. U2 songs have expressed faith, religion, love, sex, lost and hop for many years. Bono has taken the hit many times about whether the band is a Christian band and if they are pretending to be faithful. This makes them veterans in the category of bring religion to work.  How many times have you seen Bono take a knee for the big man up stairs? Bono and Tebow share passion that which drives results. Tim has had this passion for sometime which has extended beyond football. As a Florida Gator he made the promise.

“I promise you one thing. A lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season. You will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season. You will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season.” Tim Tebow 

Tim has leadership qualities and because of his faith, he is able to understand how to motivate his team. Bono in the same token has leadership qualities to use his passion to make a difference in the world. 

The passion is the attraction to the Denver team today. U2 fans have passion for Bono, Larry, Adam and The Edge.  Why do we mock those with passion; it’s fear, fear that you could be doing better than me, fear that if I drive my passion that I will be held accountable for doing something with that passion.  Lets turn 2012 into passion believing in something greater than yourself is not a bad idea, heck if you had all the answers you would still need passion to share your vision.   Cheer on Tim Tebow’s passion for life and lets wish him a “Beautiful Day” next Saturday night.