Youth concert will feature Phoenix band Stellar Kart
It’s called “outreach.”
Churches reach out to members of their community with an invitation to join the congregation in hopes that what they have to offer will fill a need in their neighbors’ lives.
The same goes for the young people in the community.
The difference is that the outreach has to compete with a myriad of other demands on the attention span of the young.
To that end, Opportunity Presbyterian Church, 202 N. Pines Road, will stage its second Christian youth concert in as many years on July 31, bringing in Phoenix power pop-punk band Stellar Kart to headline.
“When we opened the new church last year we held one of these concerts and it was very well received,” church spokeswoman Karen Snider said. “The kids that attended really enjoyed themselves and we reached a few kids that we might not have otherwise found.”
Stellar Kart has been on tour in support of a new CD titled “All Gas. No Brake.” They’ll follow a performance at Creation West at the George Amphitheater in George, Wash., with the concert here.
Among the band’s preferred venues this summer have been youth camps.
“It’s the best possible venue to meet kids one-on-one,” lead singer Adam Agee writes on the band’s Web site, www.stellarkart.com. “Sure, they might think you’re cool because you play in a band, but they see that you still have your head on straight, that you can be a Christian and still rock.”
The band, made up of four men ranging in age from 20 to 24, grew out of a church youth group. Agee and drummer Jordan Messer were group leaders and bass player Tay Sitera joined in to play weekend music gigs. Lead guitarist Cody Pellerin came aboard three years ago.
The band plays about 100 dates per year and has produced two independent CDs, reaching out to high school students with an eye toward bringing them to God.
“They’re responsive to our music and lyrics because we just came through that period ourselves,” Agee writes “Stellar Kart is definitely geared toward youth group kids because that’s where we got our start.”
The group’s music is geared toward issues important to junior high and high school students, ranging from suicide to a sense of being “unforgiveable.”
“I’ve had friends that died from suicide, so I felt it was an important issue to address in a song,” Messer writes. “So many people are not feeling the love of Christians around them. We wrote ‘Superstar’ to stress how crucial it is for us as a family to reach out to others.”
The song “Second Chances” was written to pass along the message that, no matter how many mistakes a kid makes, God will always provide a second chance.
“There are so many high school and junior high kids living a life with no direction,” Pellerin writes. “If we have the opportunity to help them, that’s great. It fires me up, keeps me grounded to think about how God’s using me to help other people.”
Three local bands will open for Stellar Kart: Meter 12, Catalyst and Oneighty Band.
“We wanted to create an environment where parents could feel comfortable sending their kids,” Snider explained. “We don’t allow moshing, so there’s no way for someone to get hurt. We have plenty of parental supervision, as well.
“We wanted to make sure that parents could feel safe sending their kids to a rock concert here that wouldn’t necessarily feel safe sending them to a concert at the Arena.”
Tickets for the concert are $8 in advance and can be purchased at the church office. Youth groups of 10 or more can get a group discount.