HeartEdge Mission Model workshops

The Mission Model workshops organised by HeartEdge share a particular mission initiative as well as telling the story of how the idea for the particular initiative was developed. The next three workshops in this series are:


Inspired to Follow Workshop - Thursday 14th February, 2.00pm, St Martin-in-the-Fields

How to explore the Christian faith using a more open-ended approach? How to engage a more visually-focused culture? ‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’ is one resource developed by St Martin-in-the-Fields.

The discipleship course uses fine art paintings from the National Gallery, a Biblical story and a short theological reflection to help people explore the Christian faith today. Learn about the genesis of ‘Inspired to Follow’ and discuss its use with Revd Jonathan Evens, St Martin-in-the-Fields.

This is an opportunity to experience one of the sessions of ‘Inspired to Follow’ and to learn how to make the most of the resource. This has been scheduled with those planning to use the resource during Lent in mind, as we know that many of you have used the resource for Lent Courses previously.

The workshop runs from 2.00-4.30pm, in the Austen Williams Room, at St Martin’s. It will be led by Jonathan Evens, who is experienced in delivering the resource. The workshop is being offered by the HeartEdge network, and is free to HeartEdge members. If you’re not yet a member of the Network, the cost is £10 per person. We are restricted to 24 participants, so do book soon.

If you would like to attend the workshop, please register at https://tickets.myiknowchurch.co.uk/gb/ODYyLTk/t. If you have any queries please contact Jonathan Evens, who coordinates HeartEdge, at jonathan.evens@smitf.org or phone 020 7766 1127.


Nazareth Community Workshop - Wednesday 27th February, 2.30pm, St Martin-in-the-Fields

The Nazareth Community was established at St Martin-in-the-Fields in March 2018, now with over fifty members, from the congregation and other churches.

The workshop will be led by Revd Richard Carter, and is an opportunity to learn about the life of the community, and to consider how it could be applied in your own contexts. The afternoon will mirror the Saturday morning sharing time, and will begin in the church.

The session will include: Welcome and introduction; Prayer & silence; Talk; Q&A; Refreshments; Small groups; and Close. There is the option to stay on for Bread for the World, at 6.30pm - a key component of the community’s worship.

Tickets are free for HeartEdge members and £10 for others. To register click here.

For more information, contact georgina.illingworth@smitf.org.


HeartEdge Workshop: Beach Hut Advent Calendar - Tuesday 19th March

The Beach Hut Advent Calendar was created in Brighton in 2008 to encourage people to connect with the Christian roots of Advent and explore spirituality through creativity. The workshop will reveal the journey of the Beach huts and some of the stories from the last 11 years, and will consider what can be transferred to your own setting.

The scheme was initiated, devised and curated by Beyond which was born in Brighton with a mission to create arts events, which inspire people to connect with Christianity.

Since then 264 art installations have been created by beach hut owners, professional artists, schools, churches and other community groups, helping people to understand some of the themes of advent and bringing light to the darkness of the Brighton and Hove seafront every night in December. This has inspired others to create their own versions of this mission event across the UK and internationally.

The workshop will give insight into the development of the Advent Calendar and explore principles which can be applied to your own setting.

Details: Led by Revd Martin Poole, of St Luke’s Prestonville, Brighton, and Revd Jonathan Evens, of the HeartEdge network.

2-4:30pm, Tuesday 19th March 2019

Austen William Room, 6 St Martin’s Lane, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, WC2N 4JH

Tickets are free to HeartEdge members, £10 otherwise, at: https://tickets.myiknowchurch.co.uk/gb/ODYyLTEw/t

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Steve Bell & Malcolm Guite - Descent.

Guido Guidi, Per Strada & Windows on the world

My Windows on the world photographic series uses framing devices to create a view through to something beyond. I take these photos as a way of suggesting the existence of the divine glimpsed between the lines or on the periphery of our vision.

The Italian photographer Guido Guidi has a similar vision and practice. His métier is close observation of ordinary things - the peripheral, the overlooked and ordinary: He explains:

"It is a way of bowing down before things. And that is the religious aspect, a respect for things, for the blade of grass and wanting to give back by means of a precise photograph, where the execution of the detail is perfect, absolute, with no grain. The photograph must be absolute, transparent and cannot be corrected and reviewed later. As Didi-Huberman says, for the ancient painters of the 1400s, the act of imitagere or copying nature was in itself an act of devotion. Not necessarily mastery or technical virtuosity but an act of devotion towards things, the “things which are nothing” as Pasolini says.” 

For Guidi, as Charlotte Higgins has remarked, ‘his work is not about the decisive moment but the “provisional moment” – the idea that this moment is one of a procession of many.’ 

Very often, his images ‘show some kind of aperture – a doorway, a window, the arches of a portico, even the edge of the lens itself.’ A photograph is a frame, he says, ‘and if you put a frame in the picture, you are suggesting that this is not the whole world, that there is something outside.’ 

As with his close observation of the peripheral and provisional, this device has a religious aspect as these photos direct our attention to what is beyond.

Guidi's work can be seen Guido Guidi: Per Strada at Large Glass until 21 December.

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Ringo Starr - Photograph.

Beyond: Art from the Edge

BEYOND is an opportunity for people to explore spirituality through a variety of creative approaches.

The aims of BEYOND are:

• To help people to a deeper understanding of spirituality through the arts and other creative activities.
• To explore non-traditional ways of being Christian.
• To be a resource for church people who wish to further explore their relationship with God.

Using art, poetry, philosophy and theology, BEYOND curates provocative spaces in order to inspire and stimulate discussion.The installations and events create environments for questions and grappling with ideas about God without signing up to an established line of dogmatic thought.

6th May sees the launch of their ART FROM THE EDGE exhibition as part of the Brighton Artists Open House festival. The sub-title to this evening event is 'a spiritual private view', and it will be a chance to view the art along with some reflections and meditations inspired by this work and the situations of the artists involved.

ART FROM THE EDGE is an exhibition featuring work from and about the marginalised of society. St Luke's Prestonville hosts drop-ins for homeless and various recovery groups and the artworks on display will be work created by people from these groups or by artists working with them. This exhibition will be an eclectic mix of styles and formats and will give a glimpse into the world of those in our society who are often seen as being excluded or unable to contribute.

The image above is a pointillist sketch in ballpoint pen created by Richard Fletcher which will be on display with other examples of his work.

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Michael Kiwanuka - Tell Me A Tale.

Caroline Nina Phillips: Attentiveness to the seen and unseen

Caroline Nina Phillips is an artist who is attentive to obscure and overlooked spaces seeing the geometry of pattern inherent in urban construction and the interplay of light and dark within. These large works are paintings into which one feels one could walk to encounter a world that is both original whilst also being profoundly ordinary:

‘Focusing on less glamorous sections of the city Caroline Nina chooses to paint the more obscure sights and spaces she finds whilst peering through gaps and alleyways into construction sites; gnarled stairwells and decaying, deteriorating buildings.

For Caroline Nina, these real, raw unpolished spaces are impressive finds – neither unpleasant nor threatening but intriguing, charismatic, authentic parts of our world.’

Paintings which work derive from the attentiveness and insight of the artist and reward the attentiveness and contemplation of the viewer. These are such paintings. Their images have been worked and reworked in order to find and to build images which reward our contemplation:

‘Oils are scraped, layered, removed; smeared, worked and reworked again and again- indicative in many ways of the process of building; of time passing; of ageing; deterioration; breaking down and of revival; reconstruction; of turning something old; damaged or worn, into something new.’

In addition to her attention to the found environment, Phillips is also keen to evoke the beyond which is unseen in her images - the sense that there is more around the corner or down the stairwell. Her use of light is often used to draw our sight towards the point at which vision ends and intuition begins:

‘Openings entice as barriers block. Stairwells guide the viewer’s gaze from one implied space to another – beyond the physical boundary of the painting.

Attracted to specific spaces that offer this potential for imagining; Caroline Nina contemplates what can be seen and the possibilities of what remains unseen. Features fascinate and draw her in with their depth and intensity.’

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Bill Fay - City Of Dreams.