Greenbelt

We're back from Greenbelt.

It was good, but it turned out very different for me than I was expecting. First off I had never imagined how long we would have to stand in queues waiting to get Callie into the children's festival. I'm sure last year we just went straight in. This year the queues were enormous. On one morning I queued over 40 mins just to get a ticket to be sure of getting in, so I didn't have to stand in another queue later only to be disappointed!!?? If you add to that the queues to get into the venues you have a lot of waiting around. We also had a lot of mud and some quite heavy rain. Fortunately I managed to not be in queues during any downpours.

I had some lovely times with the children of a friend from way back, who I had only met briefly at Greenbelt last year. Callie quickly made friends with Pearl (5) and Robin (3), and we left with promises to visit each other. That's what Greenbelt's about. Brining people back together.

More by "chance" than judgement I ended up going to talks rather than music. God seems to be saying a lot at the moment about inclusion in the church. How can we be relevant to the people around us, and help them to find God in a way that is meaningful in their everyday lives? How can we get churches together to show the neighbourhood what Jesus meant when he talked about us being one? I really don't think that means having big meetings together to prove that we can literally sing from the same hymn sheet.

I came back with more questions than answers. But perhaps that's what God's about. How else can he make sure we rely on him step by step and don't run off on our own and muck it all up?