Louder Than The Music

LTTM reporter Philip Aldis spent a long weekend at David's Tent - a 72 hour non-stop worship event based in the UK. In this special blog, Philip gives his insight on a weekend of worship.

72 hours of non stop worship is the promise that David’s Tent makes, with guest artists from across the globe and worship teams from local churches leading out in passionate worship. I’d never been, and the last music festival I went to was about 15 years ago, without children. So you could judge I was a brave man to take my non-camping wife and four children to a field in Sussex over August Bank Holiday Weekend. And in no way should my bravery be underestimated by the fact that we Glamped: “We’ll put up with, not put up, a tent thank you” was the family position statement.

From a personal perspective, to see my 4 children aged 9 to 17, immersed in worship (quite literally we were down the front, head in the bass bin style) and seeing your worship “heroes” - and by that I mean people who demonstrate how to do it so we can do it too was a fantastic opportunity. No words can really describe the energy of the Bethel boys and girls (complete with English festival-weather-defying wellies) and the breath-grabbing Mr & Mrs Helser. To say they were all passionate and energetic would be a hideous understatement, and it left us all reaching for our well-worn Worship Manuals, and realising we needed to buy the freshly updated 2016 edition. Sandwiched between the zoned-off flag wavers, dancers and prophetic painters you felt absolutely surrounded by worship,



The worship team from Peterborough-based Kingsgate moved into new geographical and spiritual territories on Saturday afternoon. The Bright Expression grabbed us by the hand and encouraged us to worship with tunes ranging from Jesus Culture, Coldplay and their own beauties from their debut Bone by Bone album. Sunday afternoon was wet but Mr Clottey got us dried off and jumping with deck-led worship. Apologies if I haven’t mentioned you or your favourites, it all merged into one each set sensitively being handed over from band to band, the next up laying out their gear whilst the preceding artist closed theirs, so the worship and focus was seamless. No big stage “layyyydies and gentlemen” announcements: even Johnny Bird puts his own guitar pedals out you know.

There were lighter moments too: words will never capture the Saturday night party atmosphere of Sean Feucht that we stumbled into. Did we really sing “He’s got the whole world in his hands”? Yes, we did, but with some poignant modern day amendments. Did he really conduct entirely fairly I must say - a stage dive off between UK representatives grabbed from the crowd? (Wales won). And in these days of high-tech synced performances, a main stage power outage on a Saturday afternoon would stall most musicians and worship moments. But not David’s Tent or Joe Martin with his acoustic-based set that was bouncing along. Joe kept cool, the drummer kept playing, we kept in the worship zone, whilst the stage manager no doubt kept frantically checking cables and wondering just who’d unplugged that sound mixer cable for their kettle.

After hours it all quietens down even Sean Feucht - to the opposite end of the big tent, screened off into a curtained intimate worship zone. Here there were late night to early moments a-plenty of scripture based spontaneous unplugged worship flying free without projected word screens. But don’t imagine it was drab and quiet. Yes, there were reflective moments, but I was definitely caught up in a few 5 am where-did-that-come-from feet moving moments. I certainly didn’t anticipate singing Toy Story’s “You got a friend in me” led by the wonderfully smiley Cat Davis (cello player by day with Rivers and Robots, leader of worship in the later hours) accompanied by an unknown worshipper on I think grass-blade trumpet. I’m not suggesting we immediately add it to our Sunday morning set list, but it was just right for that moment. You had to be there, and I was only there as that final late night coffee had prompted me to leave my sleeping bag at 4am.



If you needed to dip out of the main tent sessions, upto late at night you could find fine coffee, a good selection of take-away vans (they provided our family lunches and dinners including good vegan options). There were daytime sessions to get prayed for, be prophesised over or learn prophetic painting skills. Breakout opportunities were there for workshops and to Q&A Jeremy Riddle and Martin Smith: including, with perfect comedy timing “Martin: Did you feel the mountains tremble?”, as well as the chance for my wife to grab a selfie with Amanda Cook. And the comfy size and feel of the site and event meant that it was ideal for walking around, giving opportunities to find friends of old, day-tripping mates or even bump into people you’ve just seen leading you in worship and thanking them for doing so.

As I looked behind me each night at the crowd lost in worship, I was left with an overwhelming sense of the future of worship is safe, well and unstoppable. David’s Tent promised 72 hours of worship. It went beyond that into the weeks that have followed.

Yes, the weekend provided moments, but more importantly it’s given momentum.

Philip Aldis