quote:

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Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
What I'm really interested in is what your thoughts are on these big Christian festivals - as a young con evo I loved Soul Survivor, but couldn't imagine liking it now. So, are they a force for good in the church, a decadance, an irrelevance?

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quote:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:
They are rather like eating out, a good experience occasionally, but a bad/unhealthy thing if you start to insist on it.

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Wow, such a diplomatic and sensitive response. Was hoping for some controversy....

My wife likes to drag me to these events, and wanted to try Salt & Light's Transform next. I'm always akward at these big, loud, largely evangelical conferences, so I made the OP to test the waters to see if there was something similar 'out there', but broadly in the reformed/open Catholic tradition.

But, maybe I should just try Greenbelt or suggest we go on retreat.
 

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Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
I haven't been to Greenbelt in years, keep meaning to go back. A few friends are regulars, and I get the impression that at heart it's similar to when I went in the 80s/90s - primarily a music and arts festival, with an underpinning Christian ethos. So very much festival vs. conference. It's a world apart from Spring Harvest, certainly.

I went to Spring Harvest last year, for the first time in many, many years. It was ... interesting. I found it really helpful, but primarily because I got to spend a (short) week away living with a small number of good friends, talking and sharing about Life in the round. I found the sung worship a bit awkward at times; bearing in mind I used to go largely for that, and that playing in contemporary worship bands is something I do a lot, that was a bit of a disconnect. The one thing that really surprised me was the morning teaching sessions, where the chap doing the studies said things from main stage that I would never, ever have expected to hear at SH - it actually gave me a real lift, and counter-balanced the intro monkey who clearly still equated worship with singing a 4-chord song, preferably in G.

I'm a non-con-evo with eclectic tendencies. I reckon in future I'll find my way back to Greenbelt, maybe try a guided retreat, and try to persuade Mrs Snags to take the odd holiday with friends, rather than escape on our own.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I've not been to Spring Harvest since 1982, which was the year I also started to attend the Dales (or Wales) Bible Weeks. I stuck with those for a bit, but they soon became very 'in-house' a 'holy convocation' for people who thought too highly of their contribution to the overall scheme of things.

I've not been to a major convention or knees-up since the mid-90s, I don't think ... although I did go to hear Billy Bragg at Greenbelt one year and spent the evening there.

I can't say I miss them.

New Wine seems to have eclipsed Spring Harvest as the charismatic Anglican shindig of choice - and our vicar here seems to want to drag as many people to it each year as he can ... even though some still favour Spring Harvest.

On the 'Higher' side of things, there are retreats and pilgrimages rather than the big ra-ra-ra festivals. There also seem to be specialist conventions of one form or another. I know that the Antiochian Orthodox Deanery here (the 'Angliochians') have an annual Deanery conference at Swanwick - I know, I've attended a day of it.

At the risk of sounding patronising, I'd say that things like Spring Harvest and the now largely defunct restorationist Bible Weeks were fine for when I was 'getting started' as an enthusiastic young charismatic evangelical ... but you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming to one of them now.
 

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Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on :
 
For something a bit more eclectic, try this.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
For something a bit more eclectic, try this.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
For something a bit more eclectic, try this.

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Except that the first two speakers are ones who make the rounds of all the other christian festivals.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:

quote:

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
For something a bit more eclectic, try this.

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Except that the first two speakers are ones who make the rounds of all the other christian festivals.

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.....so.....?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Masha:
Out of interest Ramarius, why do you say 'eclectic'?

I've had a look and it all looks pretty 'one note' to me. In fact it looks very similar to New Wine with younger leadership.

Am I missing something?!

---

...only if you don't go Masha
No - you and Chris are right - New Wine light would have been a better description.
 

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Posted by Masha (# 10098) on :
 
Cheers Ramarius - I doubt I'll be booking in though!

I know lots of people who go to these things. My parish go to New Wine every year, I even went with them a couple of times but found it not to my liking. It seemed to really inspire some of the other people though so fair enough.

My main worry is that people then start cherishing hopes of their parish church looking like NW, or like one of the churches of the 'big leaders'.

This is not possible without their budget but also I wonder if it isn't a weird idea of what local church should be like.

I worry that it all becomes about 'the show' and the cranked up atmosphere - but that's not what real life is like. And it shouldn't be. In local churches we are living life as best we can, with each other and the resources we can pool. I think that's a pretty amazing thing to be trying to do in today's world.

I think it's the 'our church doesn't look like X church and I think it should' that I disagree with. Especially coming from the vicar. We are in a totally different context. We should embrace that not pretend to be something we're not.
 

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Posted by tomsk (# 15370) on :
 
Calleva said 'My wife likes to drag me to these events, and wanted to try Salt & Light's Transform next.'

Rev's Colin went to Transform Jesus, which is a cross between this and Spring Harvest.

I was at Spring Harvest the same week as you. I think it's good to go with a group. I liked being immersed for a few days. It's the third time I've been. Each time I really felt like I'd been on a journey and taken something away from it.

It also works for Mrs Tomsk and I as there are good groups for mini and micro-tomsk to go in, and rides etc to entertain them (although micro-tomsk cried all the way around a plane ride).

It's quite possible to feel disengaged from these big jamborees though, and if it's not something that floats your boat anyway this is more likely.

One evening in the main celebration had a time of waiting for the Holy Spirit, which quite a lot of people didn't get along with, although many did (Mike Pilavachi preached). Gamaliel would've loved it
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
My background doesn't include these big contemporary evangelical festivals, but I have been to My former minister practically swears by Greenbelt, and he took a group of us down there a couple of years ago.

Greenbelt sees itself as an inclusive, non-judgemental event. There was lots going on, and I enjoyed it. I appreciated the fact that I was able to choose what to do and what to miss. (Churchy events tend not to include much choice.) I chose well, and found that everything I did was interesting to me. It has a rather intellectual bent. Some accuse it of being rather 'white and middle class', which it is.

I can't speak for the more evangelical festivals, but I imagine that they serve as motivational get-togethers. I wouldn't say that Greenbelt was motivational as such. I think our minister used to go to kind of zone out and reflect rather than to psych himself up. He certainly didn't feel any obligation to apply Greenbelt styles of worship or activity to everyday church life.
 

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Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Masha:
Cheers Ramarius - I doubt I'll be booking in though!

I know lots of people who go to these things. My parish go to New Wine every year, I even went with them a couple of times but found it not to my liking. It seemed to really inspire some of the other people though so fair enough.

My main worry is that people then start cherishing hopes of their parish church looking like NW, or like one of the churches of the 'big leaders'.

This is not possible without their budget but also I wonder if it isn't a weird idea of what local church should be like.

I worry that it all becomes about 'the show' and the cranked up atmosphere - but that's not what real life is like. And it shouldn't be. In local churches we are living life as best we can, with each other and the resources we can pool. I think that's a pretty amazing thing to be trying to do in today's world.

I think it's the 'our church doesn't look like X church and I think it should' that I disagree with. Especially coming from the vicar. We are in a totally different context. We should embrace that not pretend to be something we're not.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've not been to Spring Harvest since 1982 ..

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Ah, so you heard Tony Campolo's famous swear. Did it change your life? (Did me a lot of good, that year. I was vomiting the wider excesses of conevo-ism out of my system and a large slice of passionate social justice ministry hit the spot).

Mind you, I think SH was a lot more rebellious in those far off days at Pontins Prestatyn. Seems very respectable now - or the last time we went.

Soul Survivor was never respectable. You just had to inspect the showers to work that out.

[ 14. April 2012, 09:54: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
 

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Posted by TonyinOxford (# 12657) on :
 
There's also a lot on offer from various Christian communities. I've been going to Iona for about 16 years -- all kinds of alternative and thoughtful, involving worship, and either time to roam about on the Isle or to engage with think/talk groups, depending on the kind of week you choose. The idea of 'building community' by working, cooking, eating, playing ... drinking, even ... with Christians from all kinds of traditions is another way to practice the Gospel. We went with a parish group a couple of years ago and met a group of adults and quite disabled youngsters from the North West who were working on becoming part of L'Arche community. It was a really amazing experience, if a bit scary to start with.
I've never been there but there's the Othona Community in Dorset and in Bradwell on Sea, with a more inter- or multi-faith perspective. Or if you want to stay closer to evo roots there's Lee Abbey too -- but also outside my experience.
(Ramarius' suggestion looks a bit bloke-heavy to me!! )
 

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Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
Festivals? I would rather stick pins in my eyes.

AtB, Pyx_e
 

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Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Masha
My main worry is that people then start cherishing hopes of their parish church looking like NW, or like one of the churches of the 'big leaders'.

This is not possible without their budget but also I wonder if it isn't a weird idea of what local church should be like.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
Part of what I like about Grapevine is that they involve a lot of local speakers who make the point that 'this isn't local church - it's a celebration'

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
In fairness, the churches of the "big leaders" probably did not set out intentionally to become what they later became. It's just something that happened to them in the process of living out the insights which they received.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
I was there. And was, I think, a little underwhelmed* by the whole experience (can I say something like this in Purg? That doesn't count as Hellish, does it?!)

I don't want to start a winge about how they largely ignored Holy Week and Easter Sunday (well, actually I do, but we'll pretend I don't).

What I'm really interested in is what your thoughts are on these big Christian festivals - as a young con evo I loved Soul Survivor, but couldn't imagine liking it now. So, are they a force for good in the church, a decadance, an irrelevance? And are there Roman Catholic/Anglocathlic and liberal equivalents... I mean, I've heard of Greenbelt, that's a fairly liberal one, isn't it? But I've never been. Or do traditional open Catholic Anglicans or liberal Roman Catholics prefer going on retreat to this sort of thing?

*except the bit where a certain Bishop there said he was on Ship. That bit was excellent.

---

I was there the same week as you I guess - Minehead week 2. I've been going to Spring Harvest on and off for around 15 years now, along with occasional trips to Greenbelt and taking groups to Soul Survivor.

Plus points of SH for me:
- The opportunity to gather in a big group of Christians. We come from a small church, to worship in a big setting once a year is enjoyable.
- No pressure. As part of a local church there's rarely a Sunday we're not involved somehow. SH gives us chance to worship, to spend time with God and not doing the Sunday school/creche/whatever.
- Good teaching. You get to hear excellent speakers and well prepared Bible teaching, a higher standard than you would get in a local church.
- A holiday environment. It's not just 'God-stuff', as people who actively like Butlins the location is a plus for us
- Childcare. We have a young child, SH provide childcare so we can have
- Moderate evangelical focus, with a slight Charismatic leaning. Which is pretty much where we are. It avoids dogmatism and is probably in the 'open evangelical' field.

Negative:
- Very middle class.
- Too much selling of their own products
- Could still do with a much broader outlook.

Obviously we see more positives than negatives, else we wouldn't keep going!
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@Barnabas ...

Yes, I was there and I remember Compolo's famous 'swear'.

Did it change my life? Not one jot.

I was pretty new to evangelicalism at the time and so was encouraged by Compolo's input. There was a more radical social 'edge' to Spring Harvest at that time and I fondly imagined that this would catch on within the UK con-evo and charismatic evo scene as a whole.

As things turned out, this element all but disappeared in favour of zoning-out charismatic revivalism and the fond imaginings of the restorationists ...

Mercifully, it didn't disappear entirely and I still see some echoes of it around in some circles. But nowhere near enough.

I'm sure these festivals and so on have their place, but as I'm fond of saying, and as I have probably said before on these Boards:

'It doesn't matter how great or whoopy a time you had at the Festival or convention, you've still got to get up for work on a Monday morning, you've still got to wash your socks, and, once you've been to the lavatory, you've still got to wipe your arse.'
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
I got a laugh out of Chorister a few threads ago, Gamaliel, by recalling one of my favourite quotes from a Spring Harvest preacher. Not quite on the "wipe your arse" level, but heading that way.

From Steve Gaukroger

"Folks in your church will recognise the glaze in your eyes and the somewhat strange spiritual floatiness, and will hope you will return to normal soon. You may explain that "we've been to the mountaintop". No you haven't. Get real! You've been to Butlins."

Mind you, arse-wiping used to be no joke while you were actually at Soul Survivor. Unless you were wise enough to bring your own paper - or save yourself for the nearest Tescos. (Preens at this point).

Pilavaci used to observe that after 3 days at Soul Survivor, the average attender smelled, at best, like a damp dog. Normally a one liner in his prophetic talk about Abba (those who have ears to hear will know what I'm talking about.)

[ 14. April 2012, 13:33: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I was pretty new to evangelicalism at the time and so was encouraged by Compolo's input. There was a more radical social 'edge' to Spring Harvest at that time and I fondly imagined that this would catch on within the UK con-evo and charismatic evo scene as a whole.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
Part of what I like about Grapevine is that they involve a lot of local speakers who make the point that 'this isn't local church - it's a celebration'

---

But that's partly because it's actually a fairly regional festival with the majority of participants from a regional church network (Groundlevel/New Life).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

Chris styles, can you explain how a more affordable event becomes more homogenous? Surely, it should attract a wider range of people if it's a bit cheaper?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
NFIs Stoneleigh Bible Weeks did seem to buck this trend for a while - I never went but they did become pretty large-scale events. It wouldn't be for me to say whether or not they'd served their purpose and needed to be folded up or whether they, too, ran out of steam in the end ...

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I was beginning to think nobody would mention them!

After several teenage years of almost going to Greenbelt in the late 70s, finally went to the very first Ichthus Revival Camp in 1992 and then did Stoneleigh every year from 1993 to its final year in 2001, working in the site office in the final year.

Stoneleigh was a central part of our family's annual trip to the UK during the years when our kids were growing up. As the years went by we also dragged a fair chunk of our church along.

Regular readers will be aware of my current conviction that NFI and restorationism are a complete chimera, but as a family we all have fond memories of the Bible Weeks. It was encouraging (coming from a country with so few protestants) to see so many together in one place at a well-organised event (including big children's meetings) and fun to go camping as a church and have a lot more time to have fellowship together than back home.

It was so far removed both culturally and geographically from our local scene that I don't think there was much danger of it creating unrealistic expectations of day-to-day church and christian life.

I was in the leaders' meeting at which, as far as I can tell, it was decided, ostensibly via prophecy, to halt Stoneleigh and shift to the Brighton conference leaders' format. My reading of the situation is that NF was getting a sense that it had overstayed its welcome at the NAC (the decision came just as permission to use the site in 2002 had been pretty much wrested from the management) and it also wanted to concentrate its focus on leadership.

The change from something that could appeal to whole families to a leadership conference with a youth conference bolted onto the side (essentially meaning that young people away from their family environment were exposed only to church leaders as a model for their future) was something I had misgivings about, and the move coincided with the beginning of the end for me and NFI. I was first overwhelmed by a sense of dissociation sitting on Brighton beach in 2003 when I should have been in one of those meetings.
 

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Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :
 
I have done a few of them and hold a view that in their time they could be useful.

At one time we went to a charismatic church which was linked to some sort of outfit or other (was it Gerald Coates?) and they had a conference in North Wales in April (this was the early 1990s), called ''Breaking The Mould'' - due to the bitter weather and poor chalet construction it was quickly renamed or nicknamed: ''Braving The Cold''.

This one....

http://www.one-event.org.uk/speakers.html

More of the same old same old really. Don't you think?

I remember Jeff Lucas before he was ''big'' on the evangelical celeb circuit. He attended, as a guest speaker an old youth centre where the church I then attended met, in a small South Coast town. He could tell a good story - he was , as all humourists are, an astute observer of the human condition.

I also quite liked his style when he was at Spring Harvest some years later and was getting proud and felt he was a somebody; he pricked his own bubble as the penny sank in that he was quite a well known speaker, but then reflected he was ''famous at Butlins'' for a day or two.

The self deprecation was welcome and genuinely expressed as a lot of these shindigs go big on the speaker and personality. He seemed able to see beyond that razzle dazzle.

Sadly ''ONE 2012'' seems dull and predictable once you get behind the contemporary presentation. The speaker line up are the ''usual suspects'' to an extent.

It sort of seems to be another charismatic - evangelical shbang - but I may be wrong!

Saul the Apostle
 

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Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on :
 
Only did Spring Harvest once. It was the first Bible week the church I was in at the time ever went to. Some asked, in a slightly concerned way, "Is it intense?" We reassure her it was probably quite easy going on the whole.

"No no" she said "Is it in tents(!)." I hate camping.....
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Is it just me? But I tend to think that these things, for all the value that they undoubtedly bring, have a realistic shelf-life of three to five years at best.

They're masterpieces of organisation to a great extent, but once you delve beneath the surface of the razzle-dazzle the gloss begins to dissipate. There's a pressure on the speakers to 'entertain' or to bring the whizz-bang-crash-bang-wallop 'word' ... there're a bit like Party-political conferences in that respect. Remember Kinnock embarrassing himself at the Labour Party conference where he promised 'revival' as it were?

They can be good 'family times' and fellowship times and so on but there ain't really an awful lot of depth to the preaching and the presentation.

I can think of a family here who became involved with our local evangelical/mildly charismatic Anglican parish after years in MOR Anglicanism. They went to New Wine at the vicar's invitation and were blown away by it the first year. Their son was said to have had an 'experience' of some kind ... but this soon wore off in the cold light of day.

They went the second year and started to think, 'Hang on ... some of this stuff seems to be happening on cue ...'

They went a third time and thought, 'Nah, this isn't for us anymore, we've heard and seen it all before ...'

They're in their 40s/early 50s so it probably took them a shorter time to get to the bottom of it all than people in their teens and 20s. It took me a lot longer to realise that it wasn't long before you touched bottom if you dived into the pond expecting it to be deep ...

I would contend that all these Bible Weeks and conventions had effectively said everything they had to say within the first five years of their commencing operations - and from that point on they simply tend to recycle and repackage ...
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I would contend that all these Bible Weeks and conventions had effectively said everything they had to say within the first five years of their commencing operations - and from that point on they simply tend to recycle and repackage ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I would contend that all these Bible Weeks and conventions had effectively said everything they had to say within the first five years of their commencing operations - and from that point on they simply tend to recycle and repackage ...

---

and this tendency increases as they become ever more homogeneous. The direction is set once, and the push is always for more of the same, or the same as last year - turned up to 11.

---

quote:

---

They're masterpieces of organisation to a great extent, but once you delve beneath the surface of the razzle-dazzle the gloss begins to dissipate. There's a pressure on the speakers to 'entertain' or to bring the whizz-bang-crash-bang-wallop 'word' ... there're a bit like Party-political conferences in that respect. Remember Kinnock embarrassing himself at the Labour Party conference where he promised 'revival' as it were?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I would contend that all these Bible Weeks and conventions had effectively said everything they had to say within the first five years of their commencing operations - and from that point on they simply tend to recycle and repackage ...

---

quote:

---

Posted by greenhouse: You seem to be assuming that the conventions only exist to 'say' a particular message. I don't see that this is the case; they generally have a much broader purpose. True they may each have their own style, but thats entirely understandable.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jenn.:
I agree that they will only take you so far, but they are only meant to be a part of our Christian lives, and a very very optional one at that! I find SH helpful and enjoyable. I don't really see where the harm is?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Ok, fair points, Greenhouse, but I still contend that it doesn't take very long to get to the 'bottom' of these events. They will only take you so far.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:
That some people park there for an extended stay and others are put off as they assume they've reached pinnacle and there is nowhere left to go.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Pilavaci used to observe that after 3 days at Soul Survivor, the average attender smelled, at best, like a damp dog. Normally a one liner in his prophetic talk about Abba (those who have ears to hear will know what I'm talking about.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Adrian Plass nailed it with his Let God Break Forth With Songs of Harvest Triumph or whatever-it-was, an accurate amalgam of every Christian festival that existed in the UK at the time.

---

If memory serves, I think it was 'Let God spring forth with royal acts of harvest growth'.
 

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Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :
 
Yes, and watch out for cant (not Immanuel Cant by the way).

A classic bit of twaddle is in the other thread and the prophecy given by Gerald Coates in the mid 1990s - as one example of ''twaddle''.

There is, in the evangelical world, a little sub world, with ''stars'' and ''big speakers'' and all we're doing is aping the world's celebrity culture model.

Now I am not for one minute disrespecting Spring Harvest (I have attended a few times myself) . Indeed it is a useful way of bringing like minded believers together - but watch out for the evangelical stars in their eyes syndrome.

This was why I liked Lucas, who whilst becoming a 'celeb' himself has the ability to see through the hubris and shallowness of it all. His remark about himself being ''big in Butlin's for a week'' says it all really If you take your position too seriously you become an arse and quite unbearable, plus you are not doing what Christ did, making yourself of no reputation, servant leadership etc etc etc.

Has anyone been to Keswick recently? That was THE conference to go to post war I believe?

Saul the Apostle

[ 16. April 2012, 05:53: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Mrs B and I have been to SH a couple of times about 10 years ago. We keep talking about going to New Wine, if nothing else because a lot of our church go there and it's a chance to get to know them in a different setting. But I keep coming back to the same old objection: I only have a limited amount of leave and money and I want to use that all on a proper holiday, not the quasi-holiday represented by this sort of conference.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Me too, Matt ...

@Saul. We're going to be taking my mum-in-law up to the Lake District this summer for a family holiday with my wife's sister and her brood.

My mum-in-law's asking to be taken to The Keswick Convention for a day. I'll be interested to see how that goes.

I heard a service from there on Radio 4 relatively recently - still very conservative evangelical in tone but they use the same worship-songs and choruses now as the charismatic evangelicals, but alongside the more traditional hymns. There wouldn't be any 'liturgy' as such there, beyond the typical hymn-prayer-sandwich approach and I'd imagine that Spring Harvest is actually broader in scope ...

But we'll see.
 

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Posted by pete173 (# 4622) on :
 
Interesting thread. I've kept out of it thus far, as I obviously have an interest (I chair the Board of the charitable company that runs Spring Harvest and the Theme Group that devises the programme).

I think I'd make several observations:

1. There are an awful lot of people commenting on SH who haven't been within the last 5-10 years. We've made a shift of emphasis over that time, and I think some of the comments about hype etc. are redolent of an ethos we no longer inhabit.

2. We're the only event in the UK (to my knowledge) that produce our own syllabus of teaching each year, precisely because we want our guests to focus on specific issues in order to "equip the Church for action". This year it was Church Actually, and it was inspiring to see guests grappling with how to love the Church and to seek afresh a good eccelsiology.

3. We're one of the few events that has no "network" per se. We seek to be there for the whole Church, whereas New Wine is a network based movement. Our guests are 50% CofE, and about 30% Baptists, with the rest being varieties of non-conformists. The ethos is obviously at the evangelical end of the spectrum, but we draw on a tradition of "generous orthodoxy". We've been helped by having Tom Wright, Richard Bauckham and other theologians among our speakers. Our aim is not to duck the major theological issues that confront the Church and to help our guests engage with them.

4. We have some clear values, based on a desire to help Christians be authentic, thinking, missional and charismatic.

5. Yes, Butlins is pricey these days. But there's no where else in the UK where you can get that number of people together and not camping!(6000 - 7000 per week) As someone mentioned, we provide a bursary fund for those who find the cost steep.

6. You need to recall that the people we're most valued by are people in small to medium sized churches who find that the experience of SH inspires and teaches them and gives them good ideas for growing and resourcing their churches - and that our children and young peoples' work gives their kids a great time and the experience of not being "the only Christian young person in the village".

[ 16. April 2012, 13:19: Message edited by: pete173 ]
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jenn.:
I don't really see where the harm is?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by pete173:
6. You need to recall that the people we're most valued by are people in small to medium sized churches who find that the experience of SH inspires and teaches them and gives them good ideas for growing and resourcing their churches - and that our children and young peoples' work gives their kids a great time and the experience of not being "the only Christian young person in the village".

---

I think that's very true. The children from our church party are all accustomed to being the only Christian in the class most of the time. One of the reasons we return regularly is the pressure from them to re-book as soon as the lines open again in June. It always takes us ages to round them all up on the final day and extract them from the little huddles of kids exchanging mobile numbers.
 

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Posted by angelfish (# 8884) on :
 
My husband and I plan to regularly attend one of the big conferences when our children are big enough to enjoy them. We are from a v small church and i know that they will be encouraged by encountering Christianity on a larger scale.

Before the children we went to New Word Alive (the first one after the Steve Chalke PSA debacle with Spring Harvest). We thoroughly enjoyed the fellowship with other Christians, and hearing John Piper's sermons on suffering changed my life. Since then, children were born and all we've managed is a weekend in Eastbourne aimed at worship leaders (as we are). I found this to be tremendously uplifting, followed by a massive spiritual slump that has taken me months to emerge from. Whilst on our high last year, we rebooked for this year and I am apprehensive about returning, given the bashing my faith suffered afterwards.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Do you think, Angelfish, that the spiritual slump was a direct corollary of the uplift of that conference? A kind of big dipper effect?

@Pete173, I think if I were to resume attending any of these conventions and shindigs it would be Spring Harvest rather than the others, with Greenbelt running quite closely too. I'm not dissing them (at least I hope that's not how it's coming across) but I don't particularly feel attracted towards any of them ... perhaps I've been around the block too many times ...

I'm sure they do a good job and have their place, but I'm wary of New Wine and the more charismatic festivals ... at least there is a balance at SH as you say ...
 

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Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
I think it's quite important to re-evaluate both what we expect from these things, what they expect to provide, and what it's reasonable to expect in both directions. I'll freely admit that for a long time my expectations of Spring Harvest were actually pretty immature. But at a tender age, with no chance of being exposed to anything like it anywhere else, it pretty much met them (to its credit!).

It occurred to me recently that when I returned somewhat older, and broader (in many ways!) one thing I hadn't broadened was my approach to SH, so I found it very easy to get cynical about the whole thing. Returning again last year, even older still, I was only really just beginning to shift my perception of the whole thing. So I went cynical but also determined to find value. And I did find a lot of value. And if I go again, I think I'll be less cynical because I've come to realise that my cynicism was at least in part due to me foisting on to SH things that were facile, unreasonable, and unfair. And it's easy to avoid the bits that punch my buttons whilst going to the bits that don't. Mostly

Bizarrely (?) as a yoof I attended both SH and Greenbelt every year, with great joy and gusto - I don't see them as exclusive, just different things for different purposes.

I can't answer for angelfish, obviously, but I've been to the worship conference at Eastbourne a couple of times too (assuming we're talking mission:worship). The first time I went I hadn't been to anything 'big' for years, and I expected to hate the together times but get value out of the seminars, because I was a bitter cynical old git. God had slightly better ideas I came away buzzing from the whole thing, but for the first time ever buzzing with a way to take some of the good stuff back in a manner that would work when translated to a local church context. And it did, albeit with slog and effort and not on the grand scale one would have liked.

I went back the next year, and found it a much harder experience. It was too much the same, both in delivery and content. It was still good, but I'd dived in and been immersed in the refreshing stuff and (at that point) didn't need it again. I think it's fair to say that mission:worship is very much a 'resourcing' event, and probably best gone to every three or four years so that the programme will roll over, and as a leader you'll be ready for a good fillip again.

I do know that one reason I didn't "crash" after my first visit was because whilst I came away fired up, I'd also been around the loop enough times to be aware of the road ahead. And I didn't so much as have a mountain-top experience has get a much-needed clip around the ear with accompanying light-bulb moment.

Maybe with all these things it's an age thing - the years get shorter as we get older, so we need bigger gaps in attending this kind of conference/event/festival/thingy in order to really get (and give) the most ...
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snags:
I do know that one reason I didn't "crash" after my first visit was because whilst I came away fired up, I'd also been around the loop enough times to be aware of the road ahead. And I didn't so much as have a mountain-top experience has get a much-needed clip around the ear with accompanying light-bulb moment.

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quote:

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I don't think I ever crashed as such - except maybe after my first visit to Spring Harvest.

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The closest I came was probably in my late teens. The contrast between regular church and SH, particularly where the music was concerned, was vast, and at that time the more contemporary style of SH was what 'worked' (ugh) for me. So there was a kind of emotional/spiritual high following a (real!) week of go-for-it sung worship and can-do faith stuff, only to come back to the organ struggling to crank out Shine Jesus Shine in an attempt to accomodate the yoof.

Fortunately I was sufficiently mentally agile to know that was going to be the case, and deal with it, albeit grudgingly.

Now that I'm an old git, I've got my mechanisms to try and find a 'way in' whatever the style, so instead tend to find myself hanging back a bit from the full-on emotional stadium singing bits (British Reserve) and connecting in other ways*. Hence attending with cynicism, rather than coming back with it

quote:

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However, having done a whole bunch of different festivals over the years (Royal Week, SH, Faith, Soul Survivor, Grapevine, Greenbelt) I'd have to think long and hard to find anything particular I learnt from any one of them if I were to be honest.

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Likewise**. Not that I ever went to Greenbelt expecting to learn anything; I went to it for the 'secular' Christian music, and the overall experience and exposure to new stuff. However, what I do think I got from all of them wasn't specific learning, but boosts, refreshing, challenges, revitalising and prods along the way. A lot like church really, just a bit more intense and in a setting that is Other which perhaps makes it easier for God to prod my backside with his toe.

Which really comes down to what the big value to me of such things is now: a chance to consciously take yourself out of the every day and do something, anything, that's more deliberately immersed in the God-thing. Even if it's just sitting around talking with friends about why you're not going to any of the seminars.

As far as Spring Harvest is concerned, if you're experience dates from 10-20 years ago, it's definitely a different beast. Last year (at the one I attended) the morning teaching was straight forward, clear, and not afraid to pop the bubbles of some long held evangelical myths and sacred cows. The sung worship was well and sensitively led, if you're into that kind of thing. And the 'official' views, as in what was said from the front, and in seminars, were definitely surprising (in a good way) to me, who had naively assumed it was all still going to be a largely con-evo agenda. I had to stand down a whole heap of righteous indignation, it was most inconvenient




*Note, this is massive shorthand for stuff I'm not even sure I could begin to express. It's neither as arrogant or as shallow as it could sound, honest!

**Actually, that's not true. One thing stuck with me from the teens slot at SH in the mid-80s, which was when I learnt that just because you're a big name and respected on the circuit, it doesn't mean you can't be a totally idiotic prick giving out bad advice from a stage. But the rest of it was good, and that's not a bad thing to learn, so the person concerned still served me well
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Snags:
[QUOTE]
Likewise**. Not that I ever went to Greenbelt expecting to learn anything; I went to it for the 'secular' Christian music, and the overall experience and exposure to new stuff. However, what I do think I got from all of them wasn't specific learning, but boosts, refreshing, challenges, revitalising and prods along the way

---

Yeah, I do think greenbelt tended to suffer less from the downsides - though at least half of the times I went there I was working there, so generally just came home with a feeling of exhaustion.

Though to be honest, I didn't feel any particular long term boost from any of them - it was more like taking a spiritual glucouse tablet.

The last couple of years I've been going to a couple of retreat houses which are less focused on the event as they are opened all the year around. I generally find that the actual experience doesn't feel that 'spiritual' - but I'm usually left with huge amounts of food for thought *after* the event.
 

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Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 
We haven't been to Spring Harvest for the past two years but prior to that we did about eight years on the trot: we went with friends who had children the same ages as ours and that was key for us. We all had a great time and loved the mix of things you can do. In seminars, always a very mixed experience, we employed the "duck'n'dive" technique. Sit on the end of a row and look slightly uneasy. If the session turns out to be good, relax and enjoy. If it turns out you want to escape, pull out your mobile phone, glance at it, look shocked and dash out in a hurry.

We're part of a very lively church and never regarded Spring Harvest as a yearly pep-up to get us through 51 weeks of spiritual aridity; it was just interesting to hear all sorts of different teaching. Tony Campolo and Roger Forster were particular highlights for Mr Nen.

Nendaughter got married at Easter and we did suggest to her and her husband that they had their honeymoon at Butlins but it didn't seem to appeal.
 

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Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Pilavaci used to observe that after 3 days at Soul Survivor, the average attender smelled, at best, like a damp dog. Normally a one liner in his prophetic talk about Abba (those who have ears to hear will know what I'm talking about.)

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I remember hearing that talk - I thought the Dancing Queen thing was a brilliant example of a little prophetic word bringing great joy and release to somebody.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nenya:
we employed the "duck'n'dive" technique. Sit on the end of a row and look slightly uneasy. If the session turns out to be good, relax and enjoy. If it turns out you want to escape, pull out your mobile phone, glance at it, look shocked and dash out in a hurry.

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quote:

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He went and said they had that year different streams which were according to intellect were marked by newspapers. According to him the intelligent option was The Express.

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I think that was quite a while ago? It certainly sounds familiar for a year that I went, and I'm reasonably confident in saying that he mis-represented it somewhat.

One of the things I've always liked about Spring Harvest is that they do try and cater for different styles/expressions (within limits). So in addition to age-based stuff there will be different ways on offer to engage with the common topic of the morning 'study' or teaching passage. IME these range from the very touchy-feely creative all the way through to fairly traditional lecture/preach, with various stops inbetween. I think they're more explicit with the naming now, but back in the day there was a kind of pop-culture reference point, and I remember a year where it was newspapers. I have to say I thought it was a Times or Telegraph for the trad academic side, Grauniad for something a bit more activist, and one of the tabloids for a more all muck in and be experiential vibe. But it's a while ago so I could be wrong. I'd be surprised if the Express was even on the list

Which doesn't mean it's something you'd enjoy, but it does sound like you were possibly sold a skewed viewpoint :/
 

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Posted by The Weeder (# 11321) on :
 
I have no recollection of the Express being on the list! The Intelligent choice was indeed the Grauniad.
I think that was the most stimulating Spring Harvest I attended.

May be I should try it again next year.
 

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Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
I was put off Spring Harvest for life, back in the days when I thought I was going out with a guy. He went and said they had that year different streams which were according to intellect were marked by newspapers. According to him the intelligent option was The Express.

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I remember a newspaper themed year 1994 IIRC. The group of sessions we went to was The Independent. Naturally, I would like to think that was the intelligent option I don't recall what the others were. We did try a group of sessions for leaders, but found there was too much "we leaders" this and "we leaders" that to stomach and didn't last past the first session
 

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Posted by greenhouse (# 4027) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Nenya:
In seminars, always a very mixed experience, we employed the "duck'n'dive" technique. Sit on the end of a row and look slightly uneasy. If the session turns out to be good, relax and enjoy. If it turns out you want to escape, pull out your mobile phone, glance at it, look shocked and dash out in a hurry.

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Worryingly, along with those others on this thread, I too employ the same technique. Which leads me to wonder if everyone in the seminar knows exactly what I'm doing, as they all do it too...
 

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Posted by pete173 (# 4622) on :
 
Yes, we did abolish the stupid newspaper streams a very long time ago now. Rather a lot of living in the past on this thread!

The zones are now focussed on preferred learning styles - Think, Create, Do, etc.

The newspaper thing was objectionable not merely because of its use of Murdoch rags, but also because the "popular" stream was that of the obnoxious Daily Mail. But please judge SH by where we are now, not our mistakes of 15/20 years ago.
 

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Posted by trouty (# 13497) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The Weeder:
I have no recollection of the Express being on the list! The Intelligent choice was indeed the Grauniad.
I think that was the most stimulating Spring Harvest I attended.

May be I should try it again next year.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not sure that 'sacramental Christians' form a sufficiently homogenous group to form their own Festivals, SvitlanaV2.

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quote:

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A British Taize might be a nice idea but I suspect that most 'sacramental Christians' either go on pilgrimages or small, intimate retreats of one form or other or to festivals like Greenbelt if they are quite arty.

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So, in effect, these different festivals and events might as well stay the way they are, because there's already enough variety to cater to different tastes and requirements.

Perhaps the thing to do is to go to a different one each time, so you don't get bored with a diet of choruses, or whatever. I don't suppose it's fair to expect a festival that specialises in modern choruses to start doing something else. It would be like going to Iona and complaining that they should include more gospel music!

Talking of Iona, has anyone on the Ship ever been there? Their music is occasionally sung in Methodist churches, and some women from Iona once came down my way to lead an interesting workshop. I hope to take a trip up to Iona one day.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
When I went to Iona the people you think of as the Iona Community weren't much in evidence - aren't they now mostly somewhere else?

Sacramental Harvest of Old Wine - yes that does have a certain ring to it....
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Chorister:
When I went to Iona the people you think of as the Iona Community weren't much in evidence - aren't they now mostly somewhere else?

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The original idea was that they would be mostly in Glasgow and go to Iona for short periods of spiritual refreshment (if that's the right word). Way back when it started. Maybe they have changed since.
 

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Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
 
I have never been to SH or any other such gathering.

But I have felt the entirely negative aspects of SH.

A group who attended came back to their local Church ( in this case an LEP_) armed with a manifesto which required the clergy of the LEP to sign up to a set of doctrinal positions.

Some of the positions were abhorrent and I refused to sign up.

All hell broke loose. The LEP was hopelessly divided. The Bishop came in to mediate. Not successfully.

It was an experience I never wish to go through again. Nor will I easily forgive the SH advocates who ( no doubt with the best intentions) successfully created havoc in an ecumenical context.

[ 20. April 2012, 19:21: Message edited by: shamwari ]
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
What original idea?

The one of building a theological seminary in the Islands of Scotland?

The one of some sort of training institute in Urban Mission for Church of Scotland ordinands?

The one about giving a place outside the industrial centres of Scotland where churches could rethink what it meant to be church in those setting?

The idea of getting CofS ordinands to spend some time working with their hands alongside people who were labourers?

The community was originally envisaged as only made of Church of Scotland ministers, who'd specialise in working in the inner cities (not just Glasgow even then) and such in Scotland (quite early on there was a commitment to the rural poor as well and the community has provided quite a few of CofS Gaelic speaking ministers). The Abbey would be part training centre and part place for reflection and developing thinking for this group.

As late as the nineteen eighties you could still see the legacy of this origin, the majority of members were male CofS ministers although even then they tended not to be solely working in Urban Priority Areas.

Jengie
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm not sure what you're driving at SvitlanaV2. You seem to be making an assumption that all of us want to go to Christian festivals of one form or another, and that the only option is to find one that fits with our particular churchmanship or ethos.

There are alternatives. Like not going to festivals and conventions at all.

It wouldn't worry me if I didn't go to another Christian residential event ever again. I've got nothing against them, but the way some people talk you'd think they were compulsory, like some kind of Christian version of the Haj (or Hadj). I'd rather have a proper holiday.

I've never been on a retreat, though, in the sense of going to a monastery or something. I might try that some time.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
Gamaliel

On this thread, people are talking about how many festivals they've been to, and how irritating these events have become. I'm just wondering why anyone would go to these events year after year, until they grow sick of them! Moderation in all things, folks!

It's just a different church culture, I suppose.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, I think that's the nub of it, SvitlanaV2. There is something of a 'crowd mentality' within aspects of evangelicalism. When we first moved here and started attending our local parish church, with its evangelical and increasingly wannabe charismatic flavour, we were put under a lot of pressure to sign up for New Wine. We must have refused about five or six times before the vicar and his wife finally gave up asking us to consider going.

As soon as anyone new comes along they try to persuade them to go along too. They see it as part of their ethos and, I suspect, a way to inculcate people into a more charismatic experience and practice.

We're going in the opposite direction so won't play ball.
 

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Posted by Edward Green (# 46) on :
 
Greenbelt has an Anglican Sacramental aspect - you can go to Mass daily (even avoiding the Sunday morning) and participate in other things and hear plenty of speakers on the Apostolical side of Luther. Blessed, The Goth Eucharist and Visions all have an Anglo-Catholic flavour to them.

There is of course Walsingham too.

Anglo-Catholicism used to be able to muster big conferences, but these days is old and crotchety and needs to get over itself and be renewed. An Anglo-Catholic SH would involve moaning that father/mother didn't wear a maniple at mass and how the bar wasn't serving the right brand of gin (Plymouth).

I sometimes wonder if the real reason Stoneleigh stopped was that they wanted to avoid people harking back to how amazing it was in '92
 

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Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
Iona and the "modern" organisation is wonderful IMO - I love going to Iona. You aren't normally allowed to camp there, a lot of you. But they do have hotels and staying in the organisation. We also have often used the Iona hymns in CofE.
 

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Posted by The Weeder (# 11321) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by trouty:

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Weeder:
I have no recollection of the Express being on the list! The Intelligent choice was indeed the Grauniad.
I think that was the most stimulating Spring Harvest I attended.

May be I should try it again next year.

---

I'd have said that the Guardian was the smug,self-satisfied option myself. But I don't go to these sort of things anyway.

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quote:

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Originally posted by shamwari:
I have never been to SH or any other such gathering.

But I have felt the entirely negative aspects of SH.

A group who attended came back to their local Church ( in this case an LEP_) armed with a manifesto which required the clergy of the LEP to sign up to a set of doctrinal positions.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
My guess would be, Greenhouse, that SH attracts the more conservatively inclined and that these would be the ones concocting the particular doctrinal statements presented to the LEP. It would not necessarily represent the views of the SH committee nor all those who attend the event itself - but I think it's fair to say that SH isn't going to attract dyed-in-the-wool liberals by and large ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jude:
I've been to Spring Harvest a few times and really enjoyed it. However, I have only been in the past few years and probably wouldn't have liked it if I had gone in the old evangelical days. I like being able to go to different groups after the Bible study in the morning. I like the variety of seminars. I love going to the Alternative Worship, because the Big Top is not my thing. The Butlin's facilities and the beach are a great bonus. I like to go to the Sun And Moon and hear the gossip there.

In other words, I love Spring Harvest. But although the young kids' stuff seems like fun and the adults have loads of different ways to discover about God, I'm not too sure about the youth program, which is where mine will be next year. I don't think that the evangelical message is quite right. They've come back to their home church saying that you won't get to heaven unless you believe in Jesus (?!)

Because of this, I don't want to go to Spring Harvest for a few years, until they've grown up, which could mean that I miss out on some excellent lectures. i.e. Rob Parsons.

I'm confused ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Now I'm confused. I'd have thought anyone who went to SH would be going around saying that you can't get to heaven unless you believe in Jesus. That's one of the things that makes evangelicalism evangelicalism.

I'm not sure that SH is any less evangelical than it used to be. They may have added a few more bells-and-whistles and 'alternative' slots but I'd have thought the central ethos of it was pretty much mainstream evangelicalism. It used to occupy the middle-ground of UK evangelicalism at one stage - ie. not as charismatic as the restorationist Bible Weeks but more charismatic than many of the churches the regulars attended when not at SH or similar conferences ...

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I agree. SH falls firmly into what now seems to be called Open Evangelicalism. Definitely evangelical but happy to accept that we don't know all the answers, may and do get it wrong, and other traditions have plenty to teach us.

In terms of charismatic emphasis SH falls somewhere between Keswick (which I understand to be strongly conservative, possibly cessationist) and New Wine (heavily charistmatic). Spring Harvest is 'lightly charismatic'; there is an evening session on 'receiving from the Holy Spirit' and this year one of the evening Big Top talks was on the Holy Spirit, but beyond that you'd really have to go looking for anything strongly charismatic. There are certainly none of the wackier excesses of the charismatic movement in evidence.
 

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Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
I don't find NWine very charismatic - we normally sing in English not all sorts of different languages nowadays, although in the past we sang in whatever "charismatic" Spirit we all had.
 

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Posted by Masha (# 10098) on :
 
That's interesting daisymay, because I've been a few times over the last few years and I found it quite 'deep end' charismatic.

Clearly this is a case where mileage varies! I went with my open evo parish church. For several years before that I was part of a very conservative and 'charismatic' group (despite being neither - I was popular, as you can imagine).

For what it's worth though I'm not from that end of the church so it may be that it just looks 'different' to me.
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
I would be surprised if the default position of SH was terribly 'open'; maybe some of the 'fringe' meetings perhaps but the guys who go from our gaffe haven't come back complaining that it's gone all liberal (as they would see it ) in the last few years...
 

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Posted by greenhouse (# 4027) on :
 
For want of a better source, to quote Wikipedia: Open Evangelical refers to a particular Christian school of thought or Churchmanship, primarily in the United Kingdom (especially in the Church of England). Open evangelicals describe their position as combining a traditional evangelical emphasis on the nature of scriptural authority, the teaching of the ecumenical creeds and other traditional doctrinal teachings, with an approach towards culture and other theological points of view which tends to be more inclusive than that taken by other evangelicals. Some open evangelicals aim to take a middle position between conservative and charismatic evangelicals, while others would combine conservative theological emphases with more liberal social positions.

From what I've seen, this sums up the position of Spring Harvest in recent years pretty well.

This year Les Isaacs (of Street Pastors) spoke in the Big Top on working together among churches of all traditions. He spoke on social action being more important than our doctrinal differences. He reflected on what Pentecostals can learn from High Anglicans, and vice-versa. He said how he'd received post criticising him for working with Catholics.

Last year I heard Andrew Marin speaking one morning; he returned for some weeks this year. The previous year (I think) a series on extending the conversation discussed big issues in the church, one of the series considered homosexuality, and homosexual Christians attending Spring Harvest (and yes, there were some) were invited to speak and put their views across.

There will be other examples, these are just a few off the top of my head.

I don't dispute that SH is an evangelical conference, it doesn't claim to be anything else. But I do feel it's prepared to acknowledge that evangelicals may be wrong on some issues, and that the wider church has much to teach us.

[ 24. April 2012, 10:24: Message edited by: greenhouse ]
 

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Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
 
I have only just managed to catch up with comments on my comment about the negative aspects of SH.

I did not mean to say that SH was entirely negative. But that it has/had negative aspects and I had experienced these.

Where the A4 sheet of paper originated at SH I know not. But the group returned claiming that they had been 'encouraged' to require of their ministers that they sign up to a doctrinal position.

That one of the ministers in the LEP agreed with them caused the problem.

Anyway, water under the bridge now and from what I read above SH seems to be less doctrinairre.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
I would be surprised if the default position of SH was terribly 'open';

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quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jude:
I've been to Spring Harvest a few times and really enjoyed it. However, I have only been in the past few years and probably wouldn't have liked it if I had gone in the old evangelical days. I like being able to go to different groups after the Bible study in the morning. I like the variety of seminars. I love going to the Alternative Worship, because the Big Top is not my thing. The Butlin's facilities and the beach are a great bonus. I like to go to the Sun And Moon and hear the gossip there.

In other words, I love Spring Harvest. But although the young kids' stuff seems like fun and the adults have loads of different ways to discover about God, I'm not too sure about the youth program, which is where mine will be next year. I don't think that the evangelical message is quite right. They've come back to their home church saying that you won't get to heaven unless you believe in Jesus (?!)

Because of this, I don't want to go to Spring Harvest for a few years, until they've grown up, which could mean that I miss out on some excellent lectures. i.e. Rob Parsons.

I'm confused ...

---

Maybe it's time for your children to learn that Christians don't always agree. Furthermore, this could be an opportunity for them to stand up for their beliefs. I once heard an Anglican vicar say that talking about religion with someone who holds different beliefs can be a very good way of clarifying what you yourself believe. Children need to learn how to be discerning and thoughtful, and the only way they'll do that is if they meet people who believe different things.

If your church has more inclusive teachings about who goes to heaven, then why should your children come back from their trip believing something very different? Why would they accept the beliefs of strangers but not the beliefs of their own preachers? One problem, I think, is that more liberal churches tend not to discuss these issues very much, leaving their congregations susceptible to the arguments used by more conservative Christians. The answer isn't to keep liberal churchgoers (young or old) away from conservative ones, but to help all congregations to think more deeply about what they actually believe.

Those are my thoughts, anyway.

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I’d agree with this. Things like SH are great for everyone if they want teaching on topics and issues that simply can’t be covered in most churches on a Sunday. And from the calibre of people who wouldn’t rock up at most churches. They’re also a good opportunity to learn new songs – even if all you learn is that you never want to sing that again! – and find new resources.

For children / young people, they’re a great way to discover, as someone else said, they’re not the only Christian in the village! That’s really important. It’s easy to assume that it’s just you and that church is some evil parental plot.

Unless you’re monitoring your children’s reading, viewing 24-7 and home educating them, you’re not going to be able to protect them from ideas that you don’t agree with. Strikes me as better to give them the tools to engage with them and make their own mind up.

If you accept the idea that we should be able to give a reason for the hope we have, then knowing how to discuss and argue faith / beliefs with others without channelling Stephen Green is an invaluable lesson. Part of that is learning that Christians don’t always agree about things. That the definition of a Christian is wider than someone who believes the same things as me … And that you can disagree with one another and still both be Christian. (Maybe if some grown-ups learnt that, the church might not get itself in such a lather about secondary issues and have more time to deal with the primary ones. But I digress … )

OTH, the teaching that you don’t go to heaven unless you believe in Jesus is pretty mainstream. And at SH, it’s what they told you in all the meetings when I went.

Tubbs
 

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Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on :
 
Confessing that I haven't been to any of the festivals for some twelve years or so now......but... when i did used to go, it was mainly because they gave ME a chance to sit and listen to somethinganything without having child care responsibilities.
Either my own....or sunday school.

I do very clearly remember sitting one year and not being able to recal the last time I had attended worship without having to consider a baby or a toddler...or a host of rampaging children. And being very thankful that the festival in question was on and that my work collegue had invited us.

For me (and I can't comment on anyone else) I have never desired my own church to be like a festival and I have never experienced some massive let down on returning to my own shack afterwards.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@Tubbs, it might be pretty mainstream evangelical to believe that you HAVE to believe in Jesus to go to heaven, but it certainly ain't mainstream across the rest of Christendom where more universalist views are at least entertained, if not openly promulgated.

Then again, I know quite a few evangelicals who would consider the possibility of a 'wider hope' based on Romans 2 but without going the full hog and becoming out-and-out universalists. That's probably my own default position, come to think of it.

@Daisymay - so 'singing in tongues' is the measure of what it means to be charismatic?

I suppose it was, back in the day. As to whether the people engaging in it were singing 'different languages' or simply improvising and harmonising scat-like around a central theme, I'll leave others to decide. My wife's quite musical and she long since came to the conclusion that this is what they were doing - and it's an effect that is very easy to create.

Glossolalia is one thing ... but whether we're genuinely dealing with xenoglossy here - the ability to speak or sing in unlearned languages is a moot point. There have been no scientifically proven instances so far.

That's not to say it couldn't happen ... but I'm rather sceptical of the whole 'tongues' then these days, but hey ... don't let me stop you ...

As for the charismatic-ness of New Wine ... I wonder if it varies from place to place? From what I've heard from people who've attended it sounds fairly full-on to me ... 'prayer tunnels' and that Bethel influenced 'treasure-hunting' malarkey.

That's one reason why you won't find me signing up for a New Wine conference any time soon. I've been through all that revivalist stuff and I've come out the other side ...
 

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Posted by Carrie (# 3360) on :
 
Hi. Having ploughed through this long and fascinating thread, I guess no one has yet come across "Celebrate", the annual Christian conference organised by Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
I went with my family for the first time this year and loved every minute of it and the children are insisting I book up again, next year.
I went to Spring Harvest once, around 1994/5 (with the newspaper streams!). I enjoyed the teaching and worship, but quite honestly found it just a bit too big. And I really missed the sacramental side of things; it helped me begin to understand and value sacraments I grew up with and took for granted - for which I remain grateful to this day!
Celebrate gathers about 1,500 people - mostly but not only RCs; around half are youngsters. I wanted my children to meet other young Christians, see they are not alone and experience true Christian friendship - which they did. The size of the conference, at 1,500, felt substantial but not overwhelming and it was easier to get to know people than I found at SH.
There was Mass every day, an Anglican Communion one day, and lots of other things you see at SH, like radio for those unable to make it to the big hall, a marketplace, seminars... Teaching was Scripture-based, on the theme of the "Highway of Holiness" and its purpose was to inspire us and equip us to live out our normal lives as brighter beacons of Christ's light and love for the world around us.
So getting back to one of the original questions that kicked this thread off, the answer is YES, there is a "Roman Catholic/Anglocathlic and liberal equivalents... "!
Anyone interested, see http://www.celebrateconference.org/. If you're not sure about taking the plunge into a full week at Easter, there are weekends, too.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
That's interesting, Carrie.

Despite the ecumenical tendencies at the beginning of the charismatic renewal within the Protestant denominations, the RC side of things has become largely invisible to the rest of us ...

I'm aware that RCs are 'occasional consumers' (as the sociologist Andrew Walker put it) at Protestant charismatic evangelical gatherings and conferences, but wasn't aware of much traffic in the other direction - interesting to hear that they have an Anglican communion at Celebrate.

I've not really come across the charismatic renewal in the RC church during my 30+ years knocking about in evangelical/charismatic circles - other than the occasional individual.

It's true that some former evangelical charismatics and post-evangelicals head further 'up the candle' and in a more sacramental direction - but I wouldn't say there was a big trend that way. Although I would say that there has been a 'trickling down' of sacramental-lite emphases into some charismatic circles.

If I were a hyper-Reformed cessationist, of course, I'd be seeing all of this as some kind of nefarious Romish plot ...
 

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Posted by pete173 (# 4622) on :
 
Lots of speculation on this thread about what SH thinks it is. Let me help (or not!)

In the programme for this year's event, we defined ourselves by 4 values:
• We want to be authentic Christians – to be those who “get real” within the Church – rooted in a generous orthodoxy, confident in Jesus Christ as the source of who we are
• We want to be thinking Christians – there’s no sense in which the Bible encourages us to teach and live an unintelligent faith
• We want to be missional Christians – if this faith is true, and worth sharing, we have to be those who are sent as Jesus was sent
• We want to be charismatic Christians – living in the power of the Spirit, expressing the life of the Trinity, and thoroughgoingly supernaturalist

Open evangelical would be another shorthand description...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Fair do's, Bishop Pete' ...

That's how I'd understand the SH position and I've not been since the early 1980s.

My question would be whether it actually fulfils that remit ... but then, the same could be asked of any other grouping or convention in terms of their core values too.

On the whole, I'd suggest that you pretty much know what you're going to get with any of these conventions - whether it be Keswick, Greenbelt, New Wine, SH and the new one I've just learned about, Celebrate , the RC charismatic one ...

Which is fine. Just so long as you aren't expecting something different and end up disappointed.
 

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Posted by pete173 (# 4622) on :
 
Yes, well, I think you'd be surprised. We deliberately ring the changes. The Exsultet on Easter Sunday morning. Prayer House for meditative prayer throughout the day. Cafe Church and other alternatives to Big Top Worship. Lectures and debates, not just seminars. A worship stream for sung worship leaders and liturgists to work together on what we think we're doing in Sunday worship. The Talk Zone, run by the agenda of the guests.

Nothing wildly radical compared with Greenbelt, but not exactly predictable with what people on this thread think we're like, born of experiences some years ago. And we go through every piece of guest and speaker feedback and evaluate what's said.

As you say, if you don't like big events, you probably won't attend. But I'd hate people to put us in the "been there, done that" box when they don't actually know what we're up to these days.
 

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Posted by Gill H (# 68) on :
 
Another one who remembers the 'newspaper' year. Was that 'Uncage the Lion'? Some good songs around then. And free Lion bars given out, as I remember.

I remember the 'newspaper' theme being explained not in terms of intelligence or political views, but in terms of the kind of presentation you enjoyed listening to/taking part in. I went to 'TV-AM' which was advertised as 'words and pictures' and involved lots of group work. It certainly wasn't the 'thickie stream', just a more interactive style of seminar.

SH was the place I learned that you could be evangelical and not creationist, or inerrantist. It's also where I rubbed up against lots of different kinds of Christian and spent long hours chatting and widening my views.

I remember when the 'Holy Spirit stuff' was kept to the late night seminars, so as not to frighten the horses.

It's 20 years since I've been, and the last few times I actually avoided the Big Top until the last few days as it wasn't lively enough until everyone had 'warmed up'!

I don't do New Wine, which most of my church does - partly because I'm cautious about some of the bandwagons which get jumped on, but mostly because I Do Not Camp. And we don't have a car, so a B&B is not an option.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Fair enough, Pete173.

Some of that newer stuff sounds more my bag ...

Please don't get me wrong, though. I thoroughly enjoyed SH when I attended in the early '80s and it was a significant time (both years I went) in my early development as a Christian (if I can put it that way).

A lot of the material was genuinely challenging and although there was a bit of froth and bubble coming in, the underlying ethos and impression was very positive.

Incidentally, for all the carping about the negative sides of the big conventions and so on, I've only now remembered and incident that impressed me greatly during a train journey down the Welsh borders towards Cardiff a good while back now.

A Baptist lady got on with her kids having attended SH at Prestatyn and when asked by one of her fellow passengers about where they'd been, she told them about SH and what they'd done there etc etc.

This led into a very positive conversation about life, faith, the church and everything with the people around here. It was a delight to listen in on from a few rows in front. It was non-cheesy, down-to-earth and, I'd still maintain despite my post-evangelicalism, an almost text-book example of how to discuss these things. The woman didn't rely on platitudes nor offer easy answers, she accepted difficult questions and wasn't averse to giving 'don't know's' rather than trying to blag it.

It was clear that she'd had a wonderful time at SH and this translated into her presentation of the Gospel. It was one of the best 'witnessing' conversations - if I can put it like that - that I've heard.

So, well done SH. I think one would have to have been one of the most curmugeonly of Christians (of whatever stripe) not to have been impressed ...
 

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Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gill H:
Another one who remembers the 'newspaper' year. Was that 'Uncage the Lion'? Some good songs around then. And free Lion bars given out, as I remember.

I remember the 'newspaper' theme being explained not in terms of intelligence or political views, but in terms of the kind of presentation you enjoyed listening to/taking part in. I went to 'TV-AM' which was advertised as 'words and pictures' and involved lots of group work. It certainly wasn't the 'thickie stream', just a more interactive style of seminar.

SH was the place I learned that you could be evangelical and not creationist, or inerrantist. It's also where I rubbed up against lots of different kinds of Christian and spent long hours chatting and widening my views.

I remember when the 'Holy Spirit stuff' was kept to the late night seminars, so as not to frighten the horses.

It's 20 years since I've been, and the last few times I actually avoided the Big Top until the last few days as it wasn't lively enough until everyone had 'warmed up'!

I don't do New Wine, which most of my church does - partly because I'm cautious about some of the bandwagons which get jumped on, but mostly because I Do Not Camp. And we don't have a car, so a B&B is not an option.

---

I think that it was "Uncage the Lion" - I still have the songbook.

On the subject of biblical inerrancy, I remember Roger Simpson's seminar on Biblical interpretation, which caused somewhat of a hoo-haa by challenging some evangelical shibolleths.

I also remember the late-night meetings, where us crazy charismatics could strut our stuff away from all the respectable types.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Now I've generated a nice warm feeling in my breast ... I'll revert to curmugeonliness ...

@Gill H (in a rather tongue-in-cheek way) - if the 'liveliness' has to be 'warmed' or 'worked up' to some extent, doesn't that give you pause?

One of the reasons why I don't do 'lively' as much as I used to is because I've grown weary and wary of the means so often used to pump things up to the 'required' level.

Surely if there's some Big Top warm-up acts and platform cues going on to psych people up into 'lively' mode then it calls the reality of the experience into question to some extent.

Don't get me wrong, I don't object to 'lively' per se and I spent years and years doing the happy-clappy stuff, but I do object to emotional manipulation and worship-leading that sets out to elicit a particular response from the crowd.

The problem is, as I see it, that as soon as people've twigged how the mechanics of all this works, the less likely it is that they'll engage as wholeheartedly as they did when they took it all at face-value. At least, that's been my experience.

People have to become acclimatised to lively worship. When I first came across lively choruses and so on at SH in 1981 I thought it was all a bit wet and embarrassing ... and those who raised their hands etc were exhibitionists. Soon, however, I became acclimatised to it and started to do the same and before long I'd become involved with even more 'lively' and charismatic stuff which made SH 1982 appear pretty tame.

From then on I went into restorationist Bible Week overdrive for a few years before broadening out and exploring other traditions and worship styles etc around the mid to late-90s (although I'd always maintained a soft-spot for both Anglican liturgy and the traditional non-conformist hymn-prayer-sandwich).

I think SH is probably as broad and as balanced as can be reasonably expected without bursting the boundaries of evangelicalism per se. Those boundaries themselves are more elastic than they use to be at any rate.

Howbeit, I hope I haven't come across as too negative and carping on this thread. I've got a lot of time for the people who organise and run events like SH.
 

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Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :
 
I was in a small home group meeting recently and someone in the group said to the group: ''how much I am in love with Jesus''. I cringed and felt rather odd that I just couldn't use that sort of language about Jesus (maybe it's a gender thing?). I may love him and accept him as Saviour and Lord, but to say ''I am in love with him'' is for me something I don't feel comfortable with.

In one sense Spring Harvest, like most things, is a result of it's time. the wacky mid 1990s 'prophecy' given by Gerald Coates to R.T.Kendall was of it's time. This was discussed on another thread here on the Ship.

The positives and negatives of Spring Harvest are those, surely, that afflict wider evangelicalism in the UK are they not? I accept the new moves that have been expressed by Bishop Pete and others (sounding good) . Indeed my own experience of SH 10 years or so ago was pretty darned positive - overall.

In the 1970s to the end of the millennium, the common view, seemed to be that charismatic evangelicalism was the way forwards & for some the ONLY way forwards. This strand of faith had big amps and a positive high powered message. It was quite easy to get ''sucked in' to the hype of that period.

Many of us on the Ship are ''recovering charismatics''. We are Christians but we have seen the abuse of the charismatic wing of the church. We are wary of the quest for constantly new experiences and sensationalist manifestations.

By the sound of it SH is aware of these excesses too and steers clear. Good for SH and I wish it well as it seeks to work out what it means to be a Christian in the second decade of the 21st Century.

Saul
 

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Posted by Masha (# 10098) on :
 
Gamaliel: With posts like this people are going to think you're an ex-charismatic who has 'moved on' from such things .

For what it's worth, I know many sound and mature people who are part of the charismatic wing of the church. They don't seem to need to move on anywhere else, they are happy, God-loving and have deep faith.

I'm not keen on the idea that they need to 'grow up' or do something different. They don't. They love God and spread his love wherever they go. And I don't mean that in an 'Aw, look at their simple faith!' kind of way. I'm genuinely in awe and I wish I could do the same.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Thanks Masha, I wonder how people could come to such a conclusion ... ?

I was very conscious when I posted what I have done here that it might sound as if I were berating people like Gill H for remaining charismatics and enjoying lively worship and so on ... without approaching it from a 'second-naivety' stand-point or a more ironic or post-modern position.

It's a tricky position to be in. Because it means that it is hard to question/evaluate these things without sounding smug, curmugeonly or patronising ...

'You'll grow out of it young lady/young man ...'

For the record, I second Saul's comments and good wishes for SH in this new(ish) Millenium.

I'm also happy to accept that there are people who remain committed to the charismatic thing and don't want to shift their position. Fine. A lot of these people are doing excellent work and are far more committed to the work of the Kingdom than I am.

That's not the issue. I'm not doubting that for a second.

All I'm saying is that whilst I do genuinely retain a soft-spot for the people and the underlying intention, this stuff ain't where I'm at any more and it's by means clear where I am heading ... unless I obey the siren calls to cross the Bosphorus or move in a more Mystic direction of some kind ...

I know I bang on about these things on these Boards and it must get wearisome (as the Americans would say). I crave your indulgence though as I'm trying to work these things out in my own mind.

I'd find it very hard to sit through or participate in a full-on charismatic praise-fest these days. That's just the way it is.

YMMV, as they say.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Thinking about it, I'm not sure I'm any less charismatic than I used to be, Masha. It's just expressed in a different way.
 

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Posted by Masha (# 10098) on :
 
I wasn't getting at you I promise!

I know it's difficult to work out where you are going. And you're right, it is hard to question anything, anywhere, in any tradition without sounding as if you feel you've got it all squared away.

I do feel that charismatics and evangelical Christians get a bit of a raw deal (sometimes) from the kind of church I'd call home so I'm at pains to point out that we don't all think that way!

Everyone's mileage varies. I suppose that must be why God chooses to meet with us all in different ways and places, SH and others are all part of that.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sure. In fairness, you will find me defending charismatics and evangelicals in real life, and sometimes here. But generally here is where I work out my post-evangelical salvation in fear and trembling ...



I didn't think you were 'getting' at me, by the way ...
 

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Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :
 
Thread on ''charismatics in recovery'' anyone?

Is it worth a new thread or has it been done to death?

Saul
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Probably been done to death, but if you start one I'd probably join in!



I would be interested in exploring issues like 'The second naivety' and also the vatic and the numinous as they are expressed in other traditions.

I can come across as ex- or anti-charismatic on these boards, but I'm not averse to pneumatology nor the idea of God the Holy Spirit working in and through us fallible, sinful and mixed-up human beings despite our very obvious weaknesses and failings.
 

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Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
At the risk of sounding like an old damp hippy, "Charismatics in Recovery" sounds just a tad prejudicial, and dismissive/condescending to the non-recovering charismatics (poor things)

However, I'm also interested in how for some of us there's a definite movement through different modes of understanding & expression of faith. I have a lot of sympathy for what I think is Gamaliel's position: the 'now' position feeling like a growth & maturing from the 'then' position, with a move from a more ra! ra! Go, team, go! approach to worship/expression to a more contemplative and measured one. I try to fight the urge to view it as a maturing/growing-up though, because that just feeds my already more than plump arrogance and doesn't help when dealing with friends who are a bit more "out there".

I guess on an individual/personal level it's hard to see it as anything other than maturing/growth/progression, rather than just value-neutral change. We're all getting older (despite the One Bad Pig song), and have a natural tendency to look back on the past as youthful follies and enthusiasms (albeit sometimes whistfully). A bit like how Brian McClaren exhorts people not to be smug/pitying about the 'stage' of faith they're at in relation to others, but none-the-less still describes it as a continuum where the further along you are, the more mature/enlightened/advanced you are, which kind of feeds the 'superiority' thing despite the attempt not to.

Between these boards and some current personal relationships, it's something that's often trickling around the back of my mind.
 

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Posted by ianjmatt (# 5683) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by pete173:
Yes, well, I think you'd be surprised. We deliberately ring the changes. The Exsultet on Easter Sunday morning. Prayer House for meditative prayer throughout the day. Cafe Church and other alternatives to Big Top Worship. Lectures and debates, not just seminars. A worship stream for sung worship leaders and liturgists to work together on what we think we're doing in Sunday worship. The Talk Zone, run by the agenda of the guests.

Nothing wildly radical compared with Greenbelt, but not exactly predictable with what people on this thread think we're like, born of experiences some years ago. And we go through every piece of guest and speaker feedback and evaluate what's said.

As you say, if you don't like big events, you probably won't attend. But I'd hate people to put us in the "been there, done that" box when they don't actually know what we're up to these days.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Regionally, a charismatic bash at our diocesan Cathedral has been pulled due to lack of interest. Amongst the understandable disappointment among its supporters, I've detected a slight note of judgementalism insofar that they feel that people really ought to make the effort ...

I'm not so convinced there was a market for the event in the first place as the 'committed' charismatic types would already have their own networks/go to New Wine or attend one or other of the big conferences etc.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
[QBWho'd want to attend a charismatic event at a cathedral?? I thought today's cathedrals were meant to be specialising in offering top quality high church forms of worship. (Or is that something else I've got hopelessly wrong about the CofE?)

But I can understand their disappointment and their judgementalism - I've certainly witnessed both of those things in my resolutely non-charismatic church experience. [/QB]

---

I'm pretty sure there isn't a monolithic plan, many cathedrals have taken advantage of their natural advantages for that enable them to do 'top quality' 'high church' but there's no reason why they shouldn't do top quality anything else if that's what works*. Instead or as well.

Likewise there's no reason why a village can't do high church as best as it can (and many do).

*how you measure what works I've no idea, you'd need a time machine I think. But it would depend on the ['clergy' skills], the congregation, the non-congregation and visitors.

As for the judgemental-ism it cuts all ways. I've been disappointed at evensong turn outs. It's easy to forget people aren't in the same schedules/emotions as you.

[ 29. April 2012, 15:12: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
If I was going to be cynical, SvitlanaV2, I could suggest that the organisers of the called-off event deliberately chose the cathedral as a venue as they wanted to put down a marker ... beating the Germans to the beach as it were ...

My guess would be that, subconsciously perhaps to some extent, by organising a charismatic bash at the cathedral they were wanting to send a message: 'Look, here we are, we charismatics are at the centre of things ...'

But, historically speaking, there've been big charismatic rallies at cathedrals long before now. Guildford Cathedral hosted an inter-church charismatic bash back in the day which drew people from the emerging charismatic renewal and the classic Pentecostals as well as charismatic people from the 'traditional' Protestant Free Churches. This was back in the late '60s I think and there were even Orthodox delegates present, indeed one of the Pentecostal attendees walked out because of that ... it did not compute ...

Durham Cathedral has hosted big charismatic rallies in the past too. Others will have done too, no doubt.

My own feeling is that there's no longer a market for this sort of thing. The charismatics have long since 'networked' themselves into their own connections and conferences.

Cathedral worship could form a separate thread. It isn't always 'high' ... but it does tend to be more traditionally Anglican and regular cathedral attendees go to cathedrals for this reason.

Evangelical and charismatic Anglicans probably don't attend traditional cathedral worship that much ... but some will, by way of a change every now and then.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
My own feeling is that there's no longer a market for this sort of thing. The charismatics have long since 'networked' themselves into their own connections and conferences

---

It didn't need to be particularly cynical - go back a few years and there were plenty of charismatic/high church services being held in various minor cathedrals, the effects of the charismatic movement and the general ecumenicism that was the offshoot of it were still being felt.

These days the two things are rather separate off-course, though the blended approach still continues to linger in some High Anglican circles.

The trajectory of Michael Harper roughly mirrors that of the movement he was part of.
 

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Posted by Saul the Apostle (# 13808) on :
 
Some of you may want to put your specs on and read this.....

http://www.birthpangs.org/articles/background/CharismaticRenewalinBritain.pdf

This sort of gives an overall look at charismatic/pentecostal development in the UK. Written by the Prinicpal of St John's in Nottigham Rev Dr David Hilborn ; I've just read it and the piece sort of puts the wider context in which Spring Harvest exists.

Worth a read IMHO.

I wasn't being flippant about being a ''charismatic in recovery'' either.

I suspect there are a few of us out there, notwithstanding Gamaliel and myself, a number of us have maintained a solid faith in Christianity, yet find typical charismatic ''platform ministry'' glib, shallow and in my case loud (is there a correlation in higher volume and closeness to God?) and , the heart of it, for me, it doesn't focus on Jesus Christ and help foster my ongoing and hopefully deepening 'walk' with him.

This being a ''charismatic in recovery'' can be hard; because the nature of these groups is that they foster ''relationship'' and if you're IN you're OK, but if you're OUT you are sort of sent to the gualag (and Coventry) and sort of seen as some sort of pariah and reprehensible apostate; which I suppose is logical as ''their'' way of Christianity is the pinnacle of Christendom.

Quite frankly it's sh** and quite a long way from true acceptance in Christ; it is a form of power politics; a form of 'groupthink' and directive social psychology which penalises free thinking and wants to ensure conformity and ''honouring'' of the leadership - scary.

Of course I am NOT repeat NOT speaking about ONE actual or specific church here or a specific leader or leaders. Repeat not speaking about one specific church, more the overarching general tendency in British charismatic fellowships across the UK.

I think some brave soul could start a seperate thread at this point

Saul the Apostle

[ 29. April 2012, 17:03: Message edited by: Saul the Apostle ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Well, the late Fr Michael Harper became Orthodox, of course, and the first Dean of the UK & Ireland Antiochian Orthodox Deanery. His widow, Jean, is still involved.

I'm not sure that many charismatics have followed him into Orthodoxy. I've met a few, but I suspect there are no more than a few dozen/hundred at the most in the whole of the UK. Probably more in the US but still relatively small numbers.

I think it is fair to say, though, that the 'higher' end of the charismatic renewal has absorbed some of the mixed-approach models and moved on. The loudness seems to be a feature of the 'lower' end of the spectrum.

I can't speak for Saul, but even as a 'recovering restorationist' I've not experienced the cold-shouldering he's alluding to. People from restorationist (or former restorationist) fellowships do sometimes raise an eyebrow when they find out I'm now in an Anglican setting, but then, I've known Baptists have similar reactions (I was in a Baptist church after my lengthy restorationist period).

On the whole, I'd agree with something ken said on a similar thread a while back, that in his experience charismatics tend to be more ecumenical than other forms of evangelical.

Eclecticism comes with the territory to a certain extent. There's a curiosity and experimentation within the charismatic scene that can be very creative and capable of ecumenical expression.

Shall I start the new thread?

Yes, go on ... I will ... but it won't be a knocking one ...
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Some of you may want to put your specs on and read this.....

http://www.birthpangs.org/articles/background/CharismaticRenewalinBritain.pdf

This sort of gives an overall look at charismatic/pentecostal development in the UK. Written by the Prinicpal of St John's in Nottigham Rev Dr David Hilborn ; I've just read it and the piece sort of puts the wider context in which Spring Harvest exists.

---

quote:

---

This being a ''charismatic in recovery'' can be hard; because the nature of these groups is that they foster ''relationship'' and if you're IN you're OK, but if you're OUT you are sort of sent to the gualag (and Coventry) and sort of seen as some sort of pariah and reprehensible apostate; which I suppose is logical as ''their'' way of Christianity is the pinnacle of Christendom.

Quite frankly it's sh** and quite a long way from true acceptance in Christ; it is a form of power politics; a form of 'groupthink' and directive social psychology which penalises free thinking and wants to ensure conformity and ''honouring'' of the leadership - scary.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I suspect there are a few of us out there, notwithstanding Gamaliel and myself, a number of us have maintained a solid faith in Christianity, yet find typical charismatic ''platform ministry'' glib, shallow and in my case loud (is there a correlation in higher volume and closeness to God?) and , the heart of it, for me, it doesn't focus on Jesus Christ and help foster my ongoing and hopefully deepening 'walk' with him.

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