Some might dread the traffic caused by Download Festival, but for the Chaplaincy Team, the festival can be an important step on someone’s spiritual journey.
The rock festival takes place each June at Donington Park, and since 2021, nearby churches have put together a team of chaplains to offer spiritual and emotional support to some of the 100,000 people who attend.
This year, the chaplaincy team consisted of 40 lay and ordained volunteers from multiple denominations, led by Revd Andrew Race and Revd Matt Green from St Edward’s Church, Castle Donington, and Revd Roy Monks and Pat Cooke-Rogers from Castle Donington Community Church.
Volunteer chaplains came from across Leicestershire and beyond, including London, Cambridge, Devon and Cumbria – some drawn by their love of rock and heavy metal music, but all of them sharing an even greater love for people and making opportunities to share the Christian message with them.
Revd Andrew Race admits many people ask: ‘What are chaplains doing at a heavy metal festival?’ Part of the answer, he says, is because that’s where people are. As Revd Dr Tim Sudworth, who joined the chaplaincy team from the Diocese of London, explained in an interview on BBC Radio Leicester: “There’s a new movement in churches to not wait for people to come to church but to go where people are, and at a music festival like Download, 100,000 people are there, so that’s where we as Christians should be.”
The banner on the Chaplaincy Tent explained they were there, ‘to welcome, to listen and to pray’ and, as well as offering a safe space for festival-goers in the Tent, the team spent much of the time walking around the site, talking to people who were attending or working at the festival. The weekend culminated in a celebration of Holy Communion on the Sunday morning. 
“Many of the prayer requests this year were to do with bereavement, or people searching and asking for guidance,” says Revd Andrew. “There were prayers for healing, with several answered. And one person that we know of gave their life to Christ.
“It is a remarkable privilege to be present among so many people in their ‘happy place,’ to pray with them when invited, to engage in a range of deeply authentic conversations – some of them heart-breaking – and to encourage and bless people.”