Hip and Heavenly : Chapel Gathers a Teen Flock by Playing Rock

Matthew (Chik) Chikeles remembers the day he finally tuned out the ultra-violent message in the pop music blasting from his car radio. Rappers extolling rape and violence. Heavy metal bands with sex acts for names.

And on Sunday mornings, the associate pastor at Calvary Chapel in Oceanside winced at the listless looks from teen-agers in his congregation--kids who ignored a religious message geared mainly for the adults in the crowd.

So Chikeles orchestrated a solution to both problems. He started the Rock Church--a weekly outreach concert featuring good old slam-bang rock ‘n’ roll with a not-so-subtle Christian theme.

Seven months after the first Rock Church concert in August, its popularity has soared like a hot song on the record charts. Concerts that once drew 15 critical teen-agers are now attracting 100 or more--young and old alike--who pack the church’s music hall in a business complex in East Oceanside.

“Kids were turning off to the conservative message they were getting in church,” said Chickeles, whose shoulder-length hair and checkered past help him relate to younger parishioners. “You could see their eyes glaze over when the pastor talked of having kids and growing grass in his front yard.

“We needed a hipper message and a medium to reach young people. And I think we’ve found both in the form of guitar riffs and drum solos. It carries the message that God is cool.”

At Calvary Chapel, the concerts became so popular that they were moved from Sunday afternoons to an evening slot to accommodate more teen-agers. Recently, the church’s house band banged out a 45-minute set as more than 70 faithful followers danced in place, clapped their hands, played air guitars and raised their arms in what has become a regular rollicking rock ‘n’ roll revival.

“I like it,” said 13-year-old Michael Bowcutt through a mouthful of braces, dancing with his 7-year-old brother, Matt, in a back row seat. “This is the kind of church your parents don’t have to force you to go to.”

And the word is spreading, church members say. The idea that started in Los Angeles more than a decade ago has reinvigorated itself to reach a modern young audience in search of a religious message delivered in their own language.

In San Diego County, there are now about a half-dozen modern music venues with a religious twist, ranging in fare from thrash rock--featuring a high-energy, machine-gun-rapid beat--to contemporary “heavenly metal” and soft rock.

The concerts are staged anywhere from shady lawns and church meeting rooms to downtown theaters--but each scene is essentially the same. Teens decked in leather and chains. Gaggles of girls in black lipstick and tight blue jeans. Kids bearing skateboards and wearing T-shirts saying things like “God Rocks” and “Warriors for Christ.”

The bejeweled band members--most of whom fit the image of their MTV counterparts with long hair and cross-shaped earrings--usually start off each show doing something most rockers would never dream of. They pray before they play, leading audiences like some group of church pastors.

And when the music starts, young rockers can rest assured that, unlike MTV or Top-40 radio, not every song with a catchy beat is going to carry an undercurrent of sex and violence.

Like fidgety concert promoters, curious religious leaders are welcoming the youthful masses with open arms.

“God just got a bad rap with many of these kids,” said assistant pastor Alex Brown, whose nondenominational Calvary Chapel in Vista recently began staging Christian concerts in a downtown theater on Wednesday nights. “They thought that to become involved in the church, you had to become a monk or a priest or a holy-roller.”

The weekly concerts, aimed at a largely Latino audience, feature anything from rap to thrash rock. The church often plays a teaser concert at local high schools to entice teen-agers to attend the regular weeknight event.

But the promotions go further than that, Chickeles says. Often church members will distribute flyers at local teen hangouts and place posters in record and head shops. The message: let kids know there’s an alternative to the blitzkrieg music of groups like AC/DC, Metallica and Mega-Death.

“We’re putting the word out that, even if you’re into thrash or rap, God still loves you,” Brown said. “You can come to our concerts with your skinhead bro’s, your long hair and slinky clothes. We want you just the way you are.”

The Rock Church even welcomes older parishioners to the concerts. For those who don’t enjoy high-decibel music, there’s a mother’s room with volume controls, organizers say.

Once he’s got their attention, Chickeles turns the rock ‘n’ roll into talk of the Rock of Ages. The ex-Marine and former drug user offers youths a streetwise approach to their faith.

Soon, Chickeles will move to Minnesota to help start up a new Rock Church. He’s being replaced by associate pastor Mike Reed, whose down-to-earth sermons between songs are also gathering a strong youthful following.

“The name ‘Rock Church’ doesn’t really stand for rock ‘n’ roll,” he said. “It stands for the rock of believing in God. The music is just a hook to get a message to young people. Church doesn’t have to be a place where a three-piece-suited pastor stares down from some pulpit telling them rock music is the devil’s playground.”

Reed says his weekly concerts are often populated by troubled, sometimes abused teens looking for some kind of mentor. “For many of these kids, rock performers are their God,” he said.

“They emulate them in every way possible. They dress like them. They talk like them. They eat, sleep and dream their music. We’re just trying to show them that, just because you can play a mean guitar, that your message about drugs and violence is (not) worth listening to.”

Instead, Reed says, his Sunday night concerts offer “Christian music with crunch--Amazing Grace like you’ve never heard it before.”

But the Rock Church had a rocky start, organizers say. The first concert--held when the idea for the regular concerts was just taking shape--featured Vengeance and Deliverance, two speed-metal thrash bands popular with young Christian audiences.

But, instead of an expected crowd of 150 youths, more than 1,500 waited outside to pack into the 280-seat music room parishioners call the sanctuary.

“It was a real crack-up,” Chickeles recalled. “There were a lot of non-Christians in the audience who began making trouble for the others.”

There were teens smoking marijuana, smashing beer bottles and snorting crystal meth in the restrooms, he recalled. “The place was packed. When some Christian kids tried to step forward during the show to express their faith, the others started punching and kicking them, calling them ‘Jesus freaks.’

“They even heckled band members who tried to stop the music and deliver religious message. It was a tough way to begin a religious experience. But we knew we had the start of something big on our hands.”

The Rock Church has its critics. Some conservative Calvary Chapel parishioners question whether rock music is the proper way to reach the congregation’s youth.

Reed acknowledges having stage fright when the band played a tryout gig before the entire congregation. But the church decided to give the idea a try.

Church elder Glenn Fuller recalled doubts among some parishioners.

“I told the doubters that maybe it just wasn’t geared for them. They could still attend services in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings just like always. Nobody was forcing them to come back at night and listen to the music.”

On a recent night, the Rock Church band performed without the suggestive hip thrusts employed by many heavy metal rockers--instead standing stiffly onstage like nervous folk singers. But the music was well received anyway, as the crowd sang along to lyrics projected on a screen behind the band.

The concert fare also included a religious skit by an audience member and a videotape on the anti-religious lyrics in much of contemporary rock music.

With his long hair and slender good looks, Eric Wiegers looks like a musician. But the 20-year-old Wiegers was on hand at the Rock Church to catch both the music and the message.

“I went to church with my parents for 18 years,” he said. “For me, it was always too structured. They told you when to sit, when to stand, when to sing songs out of the little books. When I moved out on my own, I thought I’d take a break from church for a while.”

Then he heard about the Rock Church.

“I’ve got more out of coming here for six months than in all the years I went to regular church,” he said. “It’s taught me how to think. Now I can defend my faith if challenged. I couldn’t do that before.”

Nancy Bowcutt stood in the back row with her three children, swaying to the music. The Rock Church has got Sunday night television beat hands down, she said.

“I’ve got kids who are just getting tuned into music, and I don’t want them to get lost in it,” she said. “I don’t want the message to be death and drugs, but that God is wonderful.”

Perhaps the biggest success story at the Rock Church, organizers say, is Wendy. At 14, she has been molested by her father and by other men. She tried to commit suicide and once belonged to a Satanic cult, doing after-school seances to harm classmates she disliked.

Now, Wendy’s back at home with her mother. On Sunday nights, she religiously attends the rock concert she says helped turn her around.

“It’s casual,” she said between sets. “The things we pick up here make sense. And, best of all, you feel like you’re at a real rock concert.”