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Reuters
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Reuters
World News

Church preaches about Coldplay to entice young music fans

by Sophie Drew

In a bid to get young music fans listening to the gospel, a church in London has combined their sermons with Coldplay's greatest hits. 

St Paul's Hammersmith welcomed congregations to engage with a new Bible plan titled "Higher Power: What Coldplay and theology have in common."

The sermons were twinned with a Coldplay song, many of which relay similar sentiments to the Bible. 

Rev Pete Wynter from St Paul's Hammersmith, told Premier:  "Some of the band, I think, have got something of Christianity in their background, even if they're not necessarily pursuing that right now, and many of their songs kind of overlap. 

"So Higher Power, obviously, was the name of the series, which is a song that they'll be singing in Wembley. 

"As you listen to the lyrics, it's about recognising that we're broken; that we can't do it on our own, but what we need is something more and something of a higher power.

"...As I listened to the lyrics, it talks really about being filled with the Holy Spirit, and this sense of electricity, and this sense of kind of coming alive. 

"There's something new that comes and happens. So Higher Power was really about that, but then a number of their other songs actually have some deep layers in them from biblical narratives, which we explored in the series.

This initiative is another in a long list of creative ways that churches are attempting to boost dwindling congregation numbers. 

Rev Wynter would like to see church leaders continue to think outside the box. He said: "Generally speaking, we have to do better with engaging with the emerging generation.

"Our church is right next to the Apollo in Hammersmith. There were queues and queues of young people there. 

"I was just so delighted that, as a church, we're there with big banners. 

"This series - Higher Power: What Coldplay have in common with theology - It's engaging with people who love to go to gigs, love to engage with music, and we have to find ways, creative ways of telling them the realities of how things really are from a gospel point of view. 

"So absolutely, I think it's a really great thing to do, and we will do something similar in the future. 

"Probably not this, not the series on Coldplay too quickly, otherwise, people will think I'm too addicted to their music, but I think it's really important we grapple with ways of engaging the next generation."

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