Living God's Future Now: Kingdom Conversations

Living God's Future Now: Kingdom Conversations by Samuel Wells (Canterbury Press, £17.99; 978-1-78622-415-6).

"Arguably the most imaginative and energetic church response to the pandemic has been that of HeartEdge, the interdenominational church renewal movement founded at St Martin in the Fields by Samuel Wells but now extending beyond the UK to Europe, North America and Australia.

From serving thousands of meals on London's streets to becoming, in all but name, an online conference centre and theological college offering hundreds of events, one outstanding feature of its programme has been Samuel Wells' monthly conversations about the future of the Church with leading figures from Britain and America, attended by large online audiences.

This volume offers a distillation of those conversations which, instead of being preoccupied with decline, focus on what Christian presence and practice might look like in the world that is being reshaped by what the pandemic has revealed, and the theology that is needed to sustain such a vision."

HeartEdge is an international and ecumenical movement for renewal of the broad church. It aims to catalyze kingdom communities that use the 4 Cs of compassion, culture, commerce and congregation to connect with the ways in which God is already at work in the wider world and get involved.

The story of how HeartEdge grew through the pandemic (including the monthly Living God's Future Now conversations with Sam Wells and guests) is told in a chapter of  Finding Abundance in Scarcity: Steps towards church transformation. At the Launch of Finding Abundance I said the following about that time:

"Our activity during the pandemic has helped us grow to having over 1,300 partners across the UK and in other countries including The Netherlands, the US, Southern Africa, and Australia. We’ve become more ecumenically diverse and we begun developing a network of hub churches to be a more local embodiment of HeartEdge, with hubs currently in Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Norwich, and Southend.

Through the pandemic we lost our ability to connect with people in their buildings and local communities but we gained an online programme of workshops and seminars that explore the 4 Cs in the context of current challenges. Our events introducing HeartEdge and the 4 Cs and our consultancy days with individual churches and parishes exploring mission had to stop or change but, in their place, came more frequent gatherings to reflect on experience and theology and provide support in the pandemic. We have also shared resources like Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story which uses art from the National Gallery to explore bible stories and, once launched, will do the same the new Being With course. Fundamentally, we are a network which connects churches for the sharing of ideas, resources and approaches. That hasn’t changed because of the pandemic but connections with HeartEdge have become broader and deeper in that time.

Here’s what some of those who have taken part have said:

‘You made it feel really safe space to be real and authentic with whatever we were facing … I didn’t feel any embarrassment. Or shame in kind of turning up, feeling in a complete and utter mess. I don’t feel any pressure to be shiny, or to try and portray a shiny story. Which is different from many church gatherings.’

‘What I really needed was a reflection on our role as a church, especially now. I desperately needed it and that’s what the group was giving me.’

‘Being part of this network is fantastic - to be linked to others wrestling with the same issues of our day is liberating and humbling and it helps me as I don't feel as alone.’

So, our experience in lockdown has been that the connections and networks which a movement like HeartEdge can provide have never been more needed. We have also found that connecting virtually though our ongoing programming and our support or practitioner groups offers the inspiration, ideas, networks and sounding boards that people need in such challenging times."

The theology of HeartEdge has been set out by Sam Wells in A Future That's Bigger Than The Past: Towards the renewal of the Church.

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Don McLean - Genesis (In The Beginning).

Sounding the Seasons: Malcolm Guite

With its new battery under the bonnet my little red Nissan sped up the M11 this evening before beginning an increasingly frantic search for parking in a city built for cyclists. Too late, as a result, for the opening reception I arrived at St Edward King & Martyr Cambridge as Malcolm Guite completed his introduction to Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year and began his reading, also utilising the voices of friends and family, of the "profound and beautiful utterance ... patterned but also refreshingly spontaneous" found in the dozen or so sonnets selected from the series that, interspersed with music inspired by the verse, formed the substance of this launch event for the book.

In posts here and here Malcolm has told the story of two musical collaborations inspired by this sonnet sequence. He retold parts of those tales tonight before reading the sonnets which inspired compositions  by Steve Bell and J.A.C. Redford to which we then listened. It is surely somewhat unusual for poems to have such an impact prior to their publication. It was his initial posting of the poems on his blog which helped to build a sufficiently responsive audience to convince Canterbury Press that publication was viable, as well as enabling them to be found by Steve Bell.

Cold ketchup smeared fingers held greasy kebab and chips to my lips as I hurried to retrieve my little red Nissan and return home at a reasonable hour. All well worth it, however, for the experience of allowing Malcolm's images, words, rhythms and rhymes to "fall fresh on the ears, enrich and deepen understanding and open up new resonances":

Concentrated meaning, condensed
and tightly held in phrase and image;
depth charges, coiled springs,
exploding at the sound of speech.
Sprung rhythms sounding
the seasons, scattering ideas,
inspiring musicians and opening up
the lives of emotive readers.
Stories intersperse music and verse.
An object lesson - a parable -
in the bringing to birth
of yearning for learning,
keening for the dawn
of unfound wisdom finding me.

As I flagged up for those at the Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches Advent Service, Advent begins the journey that we undertake each year through the Christian calendar. This is why Sounding the Seasons has been launched and begins in Advent. Why not make it the companion you take on your journey through the Christian Year this year? 

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Malcolm Guite - The Role of Poetry in Christian Life.