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For ELCA pastor Tom Gehring, life and faith would be incomplete without “songs to dance to that make you feel human.”
A chaplain serving people in the Chicago area who are affected by HIV, Gehring moonlights as DJ Happy Accidents, both online and at such live events as proms, weddings and even an Epiphany-themed house party.
“I grew up in the Midwestern ELCA, which is very white, very northern European, stoic and reserved, but the human experience is also an embodied one, an emotional one,” Gehring said. “Moving my body in dance and connecting to the emotional energy of songs is a way to tap into both my faith and own self-expression.”
Gehring, whose parents and sister are also ordained in the ELCA, spent his childhood in the Dakotas and Iowa before graduating from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.
Amid those geographic variables, music was a constant.
“Music has always been a love and a passion,” Gehring said. “A connection to music in terms of specific times of year and specific moods is something I grew up with. [It evoked] an emotional response in me. I remember my dad saying, ‘I love to see how the gears in your head are turning when you’re listening to a song; you’re always analyzing.’ I was analyzing, but I also loved the way it made me feel.”
Gehring encountered his first DJ at the reception for a wedding his father had performed, and he recalls his pleasure and amazement when he learned that someone was being paid to play music for everyone. Working his way into the booth with the DJ was Gehring’s typical move.
“Just watching what [they] did, learning what goes into selecting a track,” he said. “They’d get a kick out of this kid who wasn’t causing any problems but just taking in the craft.”
A percussionist in middle school, high school and college, Gehring began to curate music playlists while in seminary. His first call, in September 2020, took him to Montana during the prevaccine stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the world around him largely shut down, Gehring went looking for a new hobby.
“When Christmas rolled around, I thought I could probably find a decent deal on a basic DJ controller,” he said. “I did, and I bought it for myself as a present. It was a really basic Pioneer DJ controller, and I started learning how to DJ. I had dabbled before, but living out there, pretty isolated, this was a way to connect with my own self-expression and also connect with friends and strangers.”
Spiritual significance
Gehring began livestreaming his DJ sets, first for friends on Zoom, then on a Twitch channel. A dozen of his recorded live sets—collecting house, disco, funk, pop and hyperpop—can be found on SoundCloud.
“With the rise of social media DJs, much of it has been about the performer, but that’s not my style,” Gehring said. “For me it’s ‘How do I craft an experience where somebody can feel a very real emotion?’”
Once or twice a year, DJ Happy Accidents—the name is borrowed from TV painting instructor Bob Ross—will host his own party at an affordable venue. He performs on Twitch a few times a month and does paid gigs for weddings, community events and other gatherings.
“Very rarely have I met people who love their friends as much as Tom loves his friends,” said Elle Dowd, an ELCA pastor in suburban Chicago who has celebrated both her 35th birthday and an Epiphany house party with DJ Happy Accidents on the decks. “He passionately, earnestly loves the people he loves. He’s very creative. There’s some overlap between Tom’s creativity in DJing and in his ministry, and in both places, it comes from tenderness and passion.”
“There’s some overlap between Tom’s creativity in DJing and in his ministry, and in both places, it comes from tenderness and passion.”
Last fall, when St. Luke Lutheran Church of Logan Square celebrated its 125th anniversary during a period of extensive Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Chicago, Gehring brought needed light and levity, said Erin Coleman Branchaud, the congregation’s pastor.
“Tom DJ’d the party, and it was great,” she said. “Tom and others there commented on how meaningful it was to have joy and dancing and move our bodies together during a time when a lot of stuff was so heavy and hard. It had real spiritual significance.
“For a lot of people, dancing is embarrassing or vulnerable or [an infrequent] thing, and the way Tom is, he gives others permission to have fun. He’s genuinely enjoying the music and delighting in it, and it’s contagious.”
Gehring cites a biblical scene that he’s only too happy to emulate in his own way: The king of Israel shedding his royal garments and celebrating with abandon as the Ark of the Covenant arrives in Jerusalem.
“King David was so enthralled by the love of the Lord that he danced through the streets of his city,” Gehring said. “What’s stopping me from expressing my faith in a similar way? I get caught up in the joy and feeling and expression of living with music—only I do it with more clothes on than King David did.”
