Telling the Story

27 April 2017

This year our big theme was ‘Telling the Story’ and we looked at it in a variety of ways.

Rev Dr Graham Adams led our Bible Studies which prepared us to be shaken open by voice of the poor, the earth and the other. Rev Peter Thomas led our worship using a variety of story-telling styles and our main speaker Nick Page gave us a narrative thread through the Old and New Testaments. Nick got us thinking about how we present the Bible as more than a ‘nutty fairy tale’ and traced how it arrived into our hands from the early Church.

We also had a lecture from Rev Dr David Cornick about the radical side of the Reformation following on from the 500th anniversary of Luther nailing his 95 thesis to the door and Rev Dr Janet Wootton showed us the resources linking into the 100th anniversary of the ordination of Constance Coltman; the first woman to be ordained.

Workshops explored how we share the Christian faith in the workplace, community, school and art gallery and Baz Gasgoine gave us an insight into what it is like to be a chaplain to a major football club.

All that makes it sound rather exhausting but as well as there being plenty to get our brains working there was also time to relax in beautiful surroundings, enjoy excellent catering and chat to friends old and new. Keith Bradley led an afternoon walk which included wildlife-spotting.

Many thanks to this year’s organisers - particularly to Tracy who led the work with the children and got them writing newspaper articles far better than this one!

Next year we’ll be back at Cliff College and the theme will be ‘HOPE’.