Submission to Driscol's Blog

I just submitted an article to http://theresurgence.com

This is Mark Driscoll's website. Recently they posted an article about the hardcore music scene. These are exactly the kids we have play at MERCYhouse. Here's the link:

http://theresurgence.com/ab_blog_2007-10-03_angry_white_kids

Here is what I wrote:

Hey, my name is Nate Cartel. I am an associate Pastor if a church in Amherst, Ma, home of Umass, Amherst College, Hampshire College and a quick drive to Smith and Mt. Holyoke girls colleges. For about 1 year now we have been reaching out to the community, colleges, and to the hardcore kids in the area. We host concerts at our building every Saturday night. We have FSU bands, as well as local, national an international tours calling us begging to have a show in our church building. It has been the best and most frustrating ministry I could imagine.

As you said, these kids are angry- they are angry at life, at society, at religion, at their parents, at each other. And at first they were angry with us. As I said, we have been hosting shows for a full year, plus a few weeks, and at first we wondered if we should be. They would steal our stuff, vandalize our building, and even defecate on our church volunteers cars. But we prayed and prayed, and it seemed like we needed to just love them.

Well, after 6 months everything that was stolen had been brought back. They began to police each other at out building, stopping kids from vandalizing, and the kid who pooped- everyone banned him from shows. They have come to call MERCYhouse their home, and two of them have come to know Jesus, joined our worship band, and are getting baptized this month. One of them was voted best male artist in the Pioneer Valley for four years in a row. He now plays guitar and sings Sundays at our services.

These kids are some of the hardest people I have come across. They have been let down by everyone, except each other- or so they believe. They are tribal to the extreme. I knew most of them with in the first month of shows, but they didn’t acknowledge me for months. Now, though, they invite me to their MMA gym and other shows they are playing.

If you want to meet an FSU band I invite you to come and hang out with these awesome kids. They are open to Jesus, just not religion. They know that they are broken, and truthfully, they are mad at a lot of the same things that the Church is mad at- injustice, poverty, hypocrisy. We need all the soldiers we can get to infiltrate their ranks and show them how to be warriors for Jesus.

These kids are revolting against the idea of the metro-sexual girly man. What they don’t realize is that their idea of masculinity is just as broken. They need Christian men to be men around them. Strong, God fearing men. But the girl who go to the shows are just as broken, thinking that it is okay for the guys to use them as objects and call them names I can not repeat. I want to thank Anthony for bring up this sub-culture, but anyone looking to bring them Jesus needs to know it is a long haul game. They have no memory of church, and are by nature suspicious. However, when we baptize Eric and Ali next month, I can’t imagine a more fulfilling joy.

Hopefully it makes it on his site.