I have decided to share some thoughts about some of the stuff that I did at Greenbelt as being a good post-modernist I think all of life can be treated as "a text" and therefore can be read and so if I "read" it then it should feature in this blog...
First up was Blesséd an alt worship / fresh expression group described in the programme as "outrageously incarnational, rabidly Anglocatholic and wildly inclusive" who were offering Eucharist@home in the Big Top. I find Blesséd a fascinating group as I strongly believe that a highly sacramental approach should work as a fresh expression and yet on the basis of this service I have serious doubts (to a lesser extent this is also true of their offering at last years Greenbelt).
The geography of the space clearly didn't do them any favours - the altar was up on the stage and behind a very solid crowd control barrier (think Laudian altar rails writ large) - but they didn't do themselves many favours either - as while the acolytes, crucifer, and thurifier came down into the main space for the entry procession the dozen or so Priests who were to concelebrate the mass didn't. I can see no practical reason for this abnormal deviation from processional etiquette.
Another issue I found problematic was while there were some beautiful words spoken about brokenness and the gathering of the broken around the altar I struggled to connect the highly choreographed presentation with the pain and confusion we were being told was so central. This is partly the decontextualising of action that occurs when worship is taken to festival and offered as a company of strangers rather than as an outpouring of community life. Linked to this was one thing I found especially puzzling, which they did last year and again this year, is have sections of the liturgy prerecorded. Some of it was, or at least had been made to sound like, that of a child but most of it was Fr Simon Ruddel the principle celebrant. I don't know what they thought this brought, but exchanging a the voice of a real person stood in the room for the disembodied prerecording of them certainly didn't help foster a feeling of connectedness.
As a final point of Blesséd, we were given pots of bubbles as we arrived and asked to blow them during the confession - the interpretation of this was not completely clear - were we to see that as the words of confession were spoken and we expelled air from our lungs into the bubbles so we also expelled our sinfulness? But then the Big Tent slowly filling with beautiful bubbles was metaphorically filling with sin and that just doesn't seem to be the right metaphor at all.
After Blesséd I when over to see Show of Hands and really enjoyed their upbeat folky sound with just a little bit of politics sprinkled in.
Outerspace a group that comes together to provide stuff at Greenbelt about being a Gay Christian and the first session this year was about finding a Spiritual home - it took the form of a panel discussion with four of the members of the group sharing their personal experience of Church and how being gay had changed their relationship with it. For 3 of the 4 this involved them going on a journey to a different type of Church or beyond the boundaries of Church, for the other one it seemed while he had stayed put his home Church had been on a journey (with the metaphors of death and resurrection coming to mind). It is always a privilege to hear people speak so openly on what are personal even intimate aspects of their lives. One thing that was interesting was that all 4 (two non-alined Evangelicals and two Roman Catholics) had had fairly intense experiences of Christianity within the home as well as at Church growing up - all mentioned "family prayers" for example. So while I grow up in a Vicarage it was one in which the very idea of "family prayers" was treated with a mix of suspicion and ridicule, where we never said grace, and Morning Worship on Radio 4 was the only thing switched off more quickly than the Archers. Maybe this is the natural effect of having the Church next door - any praying that needed doing could be done quite easily there. I think this isn't a question of right or wrong but understanding the seedbed of your faith tells you a lot about how to make it grow.
I think I should of course mention that the text most heavily read during Greenbelt was the Jesus Arms where not only do I love the beer but all the beautiful people with whom I talked such profound rubbish :)
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