ABOUT SONLIGHT

Our saying was, “Sonlight is not just about music and never has been.”

The music was the vehicle for discussion. There was a different theme each year. The youth and graduates of the program submitted secular rock songs that reflected the theme (many more than could be used). I selected twenty-five songs from 200+ submissions – songs that best taught the spiritual principles we wanted to explore that year. Among the themes we covered:

Making faith street sensible 
The brevity of life 
Taking the road less traveled
Bridging gaps of race, nationality, and income 
Understanding AIDS 
Sexual, physical, and emotional abuse in the home 
Drugs, alcohol, and eating disorders and how youth make relationships with substances
Homosexuality
Natural “highs” 
How Jesus’ teaching gives flight to life – not weight 
The essence of believing – what is it?
Communication
Change
The power of relationship (with self, stranger, family, friends, and God)
Perspective - and how it affects the way we view everything. 
Taking risks – utilizing our God-given adolescent risk quotient for good
What we can learn of God and life from Nature

The lyrics would guide us into topics, questions and projects. We had special guests that included Vietnam veterans, family therapists, high school guidance counselors, Dr. Paul Doering (reknowned pharmaceutical professor- on drugs), educators, activists, environmentalists, actors from the Hippodrome State Theatre to perform monologues and sketches, panel discussions with the elderly, and sometimes with our parents. In 1998 we were privileged to meet with Sister Helen PreJean (of Dead Man Walking). These are the experiences that so many say they remember. 

The power of this ministry is that it is ongoing and memorable; far beyond the four years spent in the program, and that is partly due the music used. One will likely still hear the Sonlight songs ten and twenty years after leaving high school…sitting in a car with a spouse or child, when a song comes on the radio. Many grads have written to say, it takes them back to all the discussions on that song, and in so doing, touches them once again. Most songs covered by the choir are considered classic rock, and the beauty of that is that classics are played well past their time. As the songs live on, so can the lesson learned. So… the music continues to minister and teach, years after graduation from the program. 

The focus and spiritual exploration became the heart of this program. Kids would say, “I came for the music. I stayed for the focus”. Weekly gems excavated from a Beatles song or Dave Matthews often became service projects and natural spin-off activities for the choir. The tour at the end of the year was an outgrowth of the theme. It affected where we went, what we did, what we sang. The evening concerts were made up of favorite songs from that year. And, each morning creative students from the focus team led devotions and discussions on the theme from different angles. Along the way we would have stops that complimented the tour theme. For example- experiencing a maze on our “Perspective “ tour, or hiking around Walden Pond during our “Nature” tour. The communion service then at tour’s end was the culmination of the experiences shared, the fellowship and the theme. 

Sonlight was a ministry and philosophy that came out of the very “gut” of my soul. It was wrapped around everything I believed in, and everything I didn’t believe in! My understanding of young people evolved considerably over the 17 years. I always knew I had the “church” background, Biblical perspective, and interest in ministry, but it took the youth to teach me what was most important – who they are and how they think. I have learned to see “the star” from where they are. And where they are is not where we are or were)! I am impressed with the depth of spiritual interest I find in young people but equally impressed with the disinterest they have in the church. Sonlight (as part of the church) effectively met them “where they are”, and for that reason was very successful. 
There is a lesson there for all of us who seek to minister in our times. 

Click here for a A SKETCH OF THE ACTIVITES AND WORK OF SONLIGHT, 1984 – 2001