Christian music fest getting bigger

Eclectic group of performers will be featured at Revelation Generation.

McClatchy Newspapers

HACKENSACK, N.J. — It started when a Christian couple in Hunterdon County, N.J., set out to provide some contemporary but wholesome music to local kids.

Now, just several years later, Bob and Kim Grom are expecting more than 20,000 people to converge on their farm Labor Day weekend for a concert that some call the Christian Woodstock.

“There’s no drugs, no alcohol — you just get high on Jesus,” Kim Grom said this week in an interview.

In 2005, the Groms, with the help of a team of pastors and volunteers, founded Revelation Generation, a two-day Christian music festival that has quickly become the biggest concert of its kind in the region.

This year’s festival, which takes place Friday and Aug. 30 in Frenchtown, N.J., features an eclectic set of performers that run the gamut from hard rock and heavy metal bands to rap and gospel groups. The festival will have three stages — one for mainstream headliners, another for alternative bands, and another for more acoustic and praise-and-worship acts.

The diversity of styles — from the clean-cut, Grammy-nominated Newsboys to long-haired guitar slingers like As I Lay Dying — reflects an evolving consensus of what constitutes Christian music.

“Culture is constantly changing, and the church’s presentation needs to change with the culture to remain relevant to the generation it is supposed to reach,” said a statement on the festival’s Web site. “The way people dress, their hairstyles, music preferences, musical instruments etc. have absolutely nothing to do with the Gospel or the word of God.”

A Bergen County, N.J., minister who will be contributing technical support for the festival agreed.

“It’s a crossover event, and it will attract kids from every background,” said the Rev. Jeff Boucher, who runs the Allendale, N.J.-based Touch the World Ministries. “Our kids love it, because it is putting so many of the bands they like in one venue right before they go to school.”

Boucher, of Wyckoff, N.J., said one particularly appealing feature is the offstage appearances by performers to discuss their personal faith.

“I think for the kids it ends up being an incredibly important moment,” Boucher said. “The kids look up to them, and when they hear the personal testimony of their faith and how the success they achieved pales in comparison to their faith, that makes a huge impact.”

Ben Morgan, a 14-year-old from Wyckoff, said he’s looking forward to seeing Chris Tomlin, a singer-songwriter and Christian worship leader from Texas.

“Listening to this music, it’s easy to come to God,” Morgan said.

The festival will also present a range of motivational speakers and evangelists, including the actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest of the famed Baldwin acting brothers. An extreme sports demonstration, including skateboards and BMX riders, will also take place.

The festival will have children’s activities and competition-style volleyball nets available for pickup games.

The Groms, who have four children and own a 140-acre horse farm, started the festival to counteract what they felt was the negative and sometimes destructive messages of pop culture.

The idea came to them after they attended a Christian music concert, Creation Festival, in Pennsylvania.

“We thought, ’Why don’t we have a smaller festival along the same lines?”’ Kim Grom said. “You could come up for a day or two.”

The first year, the festival attracted about 2,000 people despite muggy weather and a potential conflict with a concert by Christian superstar Michael W. Smith. The second year, a hurricane disrupted the show, and the Groms refunded about 6,500 people. Last year, with good weather, some 18,000 people attended.

With the festival succeeding far beyond their initial plans, Grom said she can only guess at the impact it is having on kids.

“We don’t know what the impact is,” she said. “We just hope the gospel message will reach into their ears and hearts and allow them to get away from the drug, suicide and death culture that is speaking to our youth.”