Meltdown 08
The Christian Hard Music Event Of The Year

Meltdown is 19 years old this year

Quinta Christian Centre
Western Rhyn
Nr Oswestry
Shropshire

Friday 7th November - Sunday 9th November

Keep watching this page for further Meltdown 08 News

Meltdown 08

Guest Speaker
Pastor Bob Beeman

Music
Back Pocket Prophet
Ignited
Exoria
A Failed Perfection

......More to be confirmed......

The Quinta Centre

The annual Meltdown retreat has been held at the Quinta centre for the past 16 years. The centre provides accommodation in comfortable small motel style rooms. The largest room accommodates six people. There are a limited number of single, twin, double and family rooms available on a first come first serve basis. Booking early is essential if you want to try and reserve any of these rooms.

If you have never attended Meltdown before you may be unsure what Meltdown is all about. Neil Raybould attended Meltdown in 2006 and again in 2007. He sent us a review of his two visits to Meltdown and we have reproduced his review for you to read. So if you are unsure why not read the review of Meltdown and then decide if you would like to give it a try.
 

Meltdown Review

Is it possible to define and sum up the Meltdown conferences in a few sentences? It’s certainly not easy. Music (hard music in particular) is definitely key to the event, but I don’t think I could describe it is a music festival. The seminars and bible teaching are first-rate, but it doesn’t feel anything like a regular Christian conference. There is a real feeling of unity and acceptance amongst the attendees even though many of us come from extremely diverse backgrounds. Oh yeah, and God shows up. That can’t be bad, can it!

For years I listened to a couple of my mates rave about Meltdown. I basically dismissed it as an excuse for a bunch of Christians to get together and listen to a type of music that I didn’t like, appreciate, understand or relate to. That was great for them but I pretty much dismissed it as irrelevant to me. Be very careful when making assumptions like that, because in my experience God has a sneaky way of proving you wrong. 15 months after experiencing Meltdown for the first time, I have to say, I still don’t totally appreciate, understand or relate to the music (although I am starting to). I like it though. I recognise the spirit of true worship behind it.

So what changed? In September 2006, I was in a pretty broken, messed up place. My marriage had just fallen apart. I had a boring low-paid temporary admin job. With no money, huge debts, no career, and very few possessions, I couldn’t see much of a future for myself and although I’d been a Christian for about 10 years, basically felt like God, if He even existed, had just totally let me down. I‘d pretty much decided I’d had enough of Christianity, and was better off living for myself. Then Brian Bassingthwaite invited me to Meltdown. No, let’s be totally accurate, he tricked me into going to Meltdown. He backed me into a corner whereby I couldn’t really come up with a valid reason not to. If you have friends like that, keep them close, you never know when you might need them. I sort of decided to myself that I would go, and if I came away feeling the same as I did then, that was it, no more God. I think God likes a challenge.

Off I went, fully intending to hate every second of it, feel like I’d completely wasted my weekend and rip huge holes in any kind of teaching or Christian conversation that came my way. Shouldn’t be difficult. It’s basically just a load of crazy people shouting and screaming unintelligible lyrics and acting strange, right? Wrong. I arrived part way through the Saturday morning. The first thing that impacted me was how friendly and accepting everyone was. Not at all what I would have expected from an event centred on ‘hard music’. As mentioned above there is a real community spirit that completely blew me away. The teaching from Pastor Bob was spot on and virtually impossible to argue with. I tried to resist God trying to connect with me in the worship as much as possible, but he was gently working on me throughout the day.

Then came the evening gigs. I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I walked into the Firefly gig with doubts, questions and frustrations about my faith, and came out knowing without a shadow of a doubt that there is God who loves me, wants the best for me and although I’m having a tough time at the moment, He will take care of me and help me to turn thinks around (He has, by the way. I could write pages about the way He has blessed, encouraged and restored me, but for the sake of space, trust me; He has). During that night I saw some seriously heavy bands, leading people in one of the most intimate, passionate and intense times of worship I have ever experienced. Half the time I couldn’t even understand that words that were being screamed and growled, but that wasn’t important. I could just stand there, soak in the atmosphere, and feel the presence of God like never before. I suppose that’s why I believe so strongly in Meltdown. I’m still not really a big fan of Hardcore, Screamcore, Metalcore or any other ‘cores’ (I play in an Indie band, after all), but I am a big fan of Jesus. If He chooses to use Meltdown as a vehicle to meet with, encourage and build up His people, who am I to argue.

God still hadn’t finished with me, though. I went to bed that night with my faith and salvation secure, but with the intention of never setting foot inside a church again if I could help it. Pastor Bob’s sermon the following day dealt with that one. I now recognise that whist The Church has made costly mistakes in past, causing hurt and pain to countless individuals, God has not given up on her. Neither can I.

As I say, God has done so much in my life since then. I went to Meltdown 2007 in a much healthier spiritual state. I still got just as blessed and encouraged by it though. I would recommend it to anyone, regardless of their background or musical tastes. All in all the conference is excellent value for money. For £96 you get two night’s accommodation of a quality standard  and six meals. When you break it down, that’s very reasonable in itself. You also get to attend 4 seminars by renowned Christian speakers at no extra cost. Add to that around 8 gigs, plus excellently led times of worship and you’ve got an absolute bargain. If you see it all as being about a lifestyle or music that you don’t relate to (like I once did), I challenge you, check it out. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Neil Raybould (West Midlands)