Now in its third year of being an associate partner of Greenbelt, the United Reformed Church Greenbelt planning team is busy making sure there’s something for everyone to enjoy at Greenbelt 2018.
The Greenbelt Festival has run every year since 1974, and takes place over the August bank holiday weekend (24-27 August) focusing on arts, faith and justice.
Special guests include: Russian protest punk rock group Pussy Riot, New York-based rock band We Are Scientists, electronic afro-funk band Ibibio Sound Machine, poet Dame Carol Ann Duffy, broadcaster June Sarpong, Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis, activist Jack Monroe, and much more. People can also look forward to theatre, comedy, visual arts, worship and spirituality, workshops, sports, and crafts.
For 2018, the URC’s planning team has chosen ‘Pilgrimagination’ as its theme which ties together the denominations current focus on lifelong Christian discipleship; ‘Walking the Way: Living the life of Jesus today’ with Greenbelt’s 2018 theme – ‘Acts of the Imagination’.
Steve Tomkins, editor of Reform magazine and a member of the URC planning team, explained that the theme will be explored through debate, craft, family activities and intentional conversations.
‘We’ve got places to go, things to achieve, changes to make, people to become. Life is a pilgrimage.
‘And where are we going? To a place that isn’t there yet, a destination that has to be believed to be seen. The journey starts with an act of imagination.’
Hannah Jones and Simon Rudiger, URC at Greenbelt project co-ordinators added: ‘Greenbelt is a good place for us to unpack what it means to be Church, and in the context of Walking the Way, what it means to be living the life of Jesus today.’
Steve continued: ‘As Christians who pray for God’s kingdom to come in the communities where we live, we’re wondering: Where do we go from here? What might happen next? What could we achieve? Who might we become?’
The answers to some of these questions can be found in blogs on the Greenbelt website by Steve and Dan Morrell, Immediate-past URC Youth Assembly Moderator.
The team also want to attract more young people to the festival, and grow their involvement. To help achieve this a team of URC Greenbelt youth ambassadors has been recruited.
An army of arts and crafts fans is also needed to help create a ‘garden’ and ‘path’ inside the takeaway tent with creatively made flowers, and leaves of all shapes, sizes, fabrics.
Hannah and Simon explained: ‘We want to grow some more; we want more people of all ages from our churches to attend the festival and engage in our invitation to be creative.’
Steve commented: ‘Join us in a weekend of Pilgrimagination. Picture the place, walk the way.’
To find out more about Greenbelt and to book tickets, visit www.greenbelt.org.uk.
Picture: Jonathon Watkins
