Churches sing the gospel according to U2 | Chicago Tribune
On Sunday night the front pews of the Lutheran church will be moved to make room for dancing. On the right will stand a band whose lead singer strikingly resembles Bono of U2. And when the opening hymn begins, worshipers will shout the lyrics to the rock song "Pride": "In the name of love! What more in the name of love?"
In a phenomenon that is sweeping churches across the country, Lutheran Church of the Master in Carol Stream is celebrating a U2 Eucharist, also known as a U2charist, in which traditional hymns are replaced with songs by the Irish rock band to engage young people and encourage social activism.
Dammit! I would love to go to this! And I'd love to be able to help put one on at church, but that won't be happening for a while to come. Also, we wouldn't have the room in the present worship space that we have, but maybe after the building of the new program space we could consider doing it.
If you do get a chance to to a U2charist, I’ve got a personal favor to ask — please don’t repeat the Chicago Tribune’s error that Paige Blair developed the concept for it and the first liturgy. As it happens, I did that with the ‘Without Walls’ worship team in 2003 (including coining the term ‘U2charist,’ though I spelled it ‘eU2charist’). We did the first one in Baltimore in 2004 and then did several more, including at the Diocese of Maryland’s clergy conference (from which it spread to many more parishes) before Paige (who is a good friend of mine) did her first U2charist in 2005. I’m glad to say that I was able to help her as she developed her first one by sending her the liturgy for ours, and we also talked about song choices as she was planning.
Thank you for letting me know that, Sarah. I’ve been interested in the idea for some time – but didn’t know about your eU2charist before now.
I keep wishing we could put something on like this, not just with the music of U2, but the prospect of getting permissions is daunting and we don’t really have the resources.