The United Reformed Church brought a great splash of colour to the Greenbelt arts festival last weekend (24-27 August).

Members all over the UK had been busy for months knitting, crocheting and sewing creative flowers to turn the URC tent into a garden. Festival goers joined in the creativity, making fork flowers, decorating stones and fashioning peg people to walk through the vibrant display.

These activities were just some of the many ways Greenbelters explored the theme of this year’s URC’s association with Greenbelt: ‘Pilgrimagination’.

Just what does that mean? Life is a pilgrim journey towards fulfilling God’s call to us, and it takes imagination to see and reach the place where we’re going. It takes pilgrimagination.

Eight youth ambassadors were part of the team, running activities in the pilgrimagination tent and leading their own part of Greenbelt’s youth programme, the popular ‘Cake and Debate’ sessions. They also had the opportunity to go off and make the most of being at a four-day festival of music, talks, art and activism.

The URC hosted a series of intentional conversations, inviting festivalgoers to imagine the national Church, their local church and themselves being more engaged. There were treasure hunts, pilgrimage walks and book readings.

Simon Rudiger, one of the project coordinators for the URC’s Greenbelt team, said: ‘Once again, the URC made an unmissable contribution to Greenbelt, offering something that was welcoming, vibrant, colourful, full of life and conversation, and which engaged with all kinds of people in different ways.’

Early bird tickets for Greenbelt 2019, themed ‘Wit and Wisdom’, are now on sale and cost £145 for adults, £115 for those aged 65+ and £50 for children. These deals last until 31 October. Concessions are available.

Pictures: The URC tent area, Debs Brooks, with the Revd Nigel Uden, and the Communion service on the Sunday of the festival