FUNERAL HOME BIBLE STUDY DRAWS "DEATH METAL" MUSIC FANS

THEN, FEBRUARY 1995: A Bible study that began in a former funeral home was showing rebel American teenagers obsessed with death that there was life worth living in Christ.

Leaders of the Hard Core Bible Study in Minneapolis, Minnesota said that 12 former "death metal" music fans had become Christians through the ministry - which was reaching out to the city's troubled and isolated youth - during the previous year.

The Bible study started with just eight young people who gathered in the disused small funeral home's darkened embalming room - sitting on dusty furniture next to urns containing forgotten cremated remains.

"Many young people came because it was in a funeral home. If it had been in a church, we wouldn't have seen half of them," said Mark Johnson, a licensed pastor who shared the gospel from a table which once held coffins. The unusual venue for the meetings - advertised on posters around the city by organizers Steiger Minneapolis, a ministry of Youth With A Mission - attracted "young people who have not been able to connect with a church because of the way they look," he said.

"Many Christians thought we were some sort of weird cult - we had a lot of explaining to do. Some people thought we were going too far, but these kids need to be reached with the gospel and they felt comfortable coming to the funeral home."

NOW: The weekly Bible study continues, currently drawing up to 50 young people. Since the ex-funeral home was sold the group has "been kicked out of four venues" - including a strip mall where "I think we intimidated your normal mainstream people going shopping", said Johnson. The meeting now takes place in The Foxfire Club, a downtown coffee house and music venue.

The Hard Core Bible Study - whose name reflects both its serious commitment to knowing God, and the youth culture music scene it serves - has become "church" for many who attend. "But we are hopefully a bridge where they can discover that God is real, and eventually move on.

"The way they look and dress right now is for some a phase they are going through and one day they will work for Microsoft or whoever, but right now they are culturally so extreme they have a hard time connecting with things that go on in the average church." Teaching at the Bible study focuses on discipleship, holiness and "the difference between being radical and being rebellious".

A regular speaker in "mainstream" churches, Johnson has been encouraged by the growing desire he has found there to embrace young people from parts of the extreme youth scene. "I think that the Church is discovering that this group of people is larger than maybe they at first believed."

Steiger Minneapolis - part of Steiger International, now an independent ministry - also runs a Jesus Kitchen providing food to young people on the city's streets, and each year takes an evangelism team to The Gathering, a nationwide alternative music festival. Later this year the group is running a four-week training school for those wanting to learn how to work with young people in the alternative youth culture.

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