One Perfect Day

By Joel McKerrow

One of my favourite Australian movies that I would recommend to everyone reading this book is one released last year called, ‘One Perfect Day.’ The story is set in Australia around a young man that discovers musical beats wherever he goes. He listens to what we would just hear as noise and hears a beautiful, harmonic symphony. He hears, “Life’s secret symphony.” And it transports him to a world beyond the ‘normal.’ It has spiritual connotations of cultural redemption all over it as he connects with something deeper through hearing this simple, beautiful music. It is such a testament to the idea of ‘finding God in the ordinary’ as already spoken of in chapter 1 and it inspires you to look beyond the face-level in this life.

The story follows as he becomes an expert DJ within the Australian dance/rave scene. On one occasion during the movie he is taken to an outside ‘rave’ out in the middle of the bush/desert somewhere. As the scene opens he is being taken by his friend into this place where there are people milling all around in a massive sought of community. The people are a mixture of artists and new agers dressed in garish clothing and having fun doing whatever they can. It is a community of acceptance where everyone can be himself or herself. The scene is one of a vibrant, artistic, rave festival with a post-modern tribal atmosphere. There is a feeling of celebration, excitement and individuality in the air and its obvious that this place is one you would want to be a member of. You would have to see the movie to understand the feeling.

As the main character is taken through this scene the guy taking him looks around at everything happening all around him and says to the main character, “This is my tribe. This is my tribe…We’re talking real people. They’re not just coming to a party, party, party. They are coming to church, but where church is worth coming to.”

From here the scene cuts to a conversation between a singer and her manager as they get ready for her to perform. He says to her, “They say the youth of today are searching, I say they are not being allowed to search. But when this comes together. The music, the visuals and your voice they are going to get a glimpse of life as it should be.”

A few scenes later the main character has been given a set at the main stage in the festival. It is just on sunrise and he begins his set by playing the sound of crickets that he had recorded and slowed down so it sounds like an angelic choir. The people are all standing around as he had totally cut the music to do this, instead of the smooth transition from one song to the other as the DJ is meant to. Slowly he begins to bring in the sound of a beat and a tune played on a piano. As this happens the people stop looking begin to move with the music. They are transfixed by this beautiful music and as he builds it up louder and louder and brings in some more beats and loops the sound rises to a crescendo. The people by now have almost lost it; the expression on their faces is one of pure ecstasy as they dance to the music. You would mistake the scene for a charismatic church service if you just glanced at it. The people have their hands in the air and appear almost in a trance as they dance with all their might. The scene is very reminiscent of the tribal dance scene in ‘The Matrix Reloaded’. The sunrises exactly as this happens, the DJ pumps it up and up and as I’m watching a shiver runs through my whole body. It is just beautiful, almost…well… transcendent.

My friends, this is exactly the point. These people within this culture feel they have touched something other- worldly, they feel they have touched something transcendent. That they are connecting with the supernatural, with something beyond a level of explainable experience. My question is, after these people have come down from the massive high they are on, if you invited them to your church, do you think they would also feel like they have experienced something transcendent, something out of this world? For most churches the answer would have to be NO.

The point is that these people would never feel they have to go to a church for a spiritual experience, as was said in the movie, they feel they are at church, ‘but where church is worth going to.’ They have had some sought of spiritual experience totally outside the world of the church and it would take a lot to convince them that what the church has is better. I do believe that what we have as the body of Christ is what they are searching for, they just don’t know it. I do also believe that God is directly in the midst of this rave party using this transcendent experience to draw people to his side. For me there is two alternatives for us as the church- 1) We condemn what they have experienced as pagan and we try and get these people into a church so they can hear the true gospel. Or 2) We realise that God is working amongst them in that place and we choose to join him in his redemptive action there helping people to see this God. We do this by incarnating ourselves in that place, meeting these people where they are at and seeking to form a community within this community where the spiritual searching will lead them to our Jesus.