Living God's Future Now - w/c 16 October 2021

'Living God’s Future Now’ is our mini online festival of theology, ideas and practice.

We’ve developed this in response to the pandemic and our changing world. The church is changing too, and - as we improvise and experiment - we can learn and support each other.

This is 'Living God’s Future Now’ - talks, workshops and discussion - hosted by HeartEdge. Created to equip, encourage and energise churches - from leaders to volunteers and enquirers - at the heart and on the edge.

The online programme includes:

• Regular weekly workshops: Sermon Preparation (Tuesdays) and Community of Practitioners (Wednesdays)
• One-off workshops on topics relevant to lockdown such as ‘Growing online communities’ and ‘Grief, Loss & Remembering’

Find earlier Living God’s Future Now sessions at https://www.facebook.com/pg/theHeartEdge/videos/?ref=page_internal.

Regular – Weekly

• Tuesdays: Sermon Preparation Workshop, 16:30 (GMT), livestreamed at https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge/.
• Wednesdays: Community of Practitioners workshop, 16:00 (GMT), Zoom meeting. Email jonathan.evens@smitf.org to register.

W/c 16 October 2021

(Still) Calling from the Edge: Saturday 16 October, 10:00-16:30, zoom. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/still-calling-from-the-edge-tickets-164001249151. (Still) Calling from the Edge is the 10th annual conference on Disability & Church. It's a partnership between St Martin in the Fields and Inclusive Church, hosted online by HeartEdge. In this year's conference we explore call as challenge, lament and vocation. Through art, music, story and theology, in plenary talks, small groups, workshops and liturgy. It's a cry for justice that marks a milestone: 10 years of calling from the edge.

Culture Clinic: Monday 18 October, 11:00-12:00, zoom. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/culture-clinic-tickets-165198654623. Culture Clinic is for anyone and everyone looking to develop their church cultural activity. Stuck? Ideas? Check in for 1:1 support. Culture Clinic is the new monthly offer for anyone and everyone looking for support in developing their church cultural engagement - from setting up a gallery space, developing space gigs, hosting comedy or movie nights. The clinic is monthly 1:1 support with Sarah Rogers - HeartEdge Culture Development coordinator.

Sermon Preparation Workshop: Tuesday 28 September, 16:30-17.30, livestream. Join here: https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge. Discussion of preaching and the lectionary readings for the coming Sunday with Sam Wells and Sally Hitchiner.

Community of Practitioners: Wednesday 6 October, 16:00 BST, Zoom. Join with church leaders (both lay and ordained) worldwide to reflect on theology and practice. Email jonathan.evens@smitf.org for the link. We are reading ‘Jesus and the Disinherited’ by Howard Thurman. As the discourse about race has become more urgent, and more influenced by US models, it’s a good time to look at the work of one of Martin Luther King’s mentors, a voice largely neglected in the US and almost unknown in the UK, to find sources of resistance to racism within the Christian tradition.

How to see the church of the future: Thursday 21 October, 19:00-20:30 (BST), zoom. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fast-foward-tickets-163532577341. Foresight is the ability to think effectively about how the future might be different, so you can prepare for anything, and start to make changes in your own life, in ministry, and in society, for the better. How to see the church of the future is TryTank’s foresight training and is led by Lorenzo Lebrija.

Creation Care Course Week 3: Thursday 21 October, 19:30-21:00, zoom. Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkcu6opz4rEtFamJIs6M2cAlvzTQmJT0a_. This 4-week Creation Care Course is a unique collaboration between Chester Diocese, HeartEdge, Melanesian Mission UK and Southampton University. The environment is God’s gift to everyone. We have a responsibility towards each other to look after God’s Creation. Tackling climate change is a vital part of this responsibility.

Making UK Connections: Voices of the Pacific – Pacific arts & culture – Thursday 21 October - online 20:00 BST / 7am Pacific Time (22/10), zoom. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/making-connections-voices-from-the-indigenous-pacific-tickets-173884562407. A panel of artists and performers talk about Pacific arts and culture plus the impact climate change has had on artist livelihoods in the Pacific.

Transforming Effectiveness: Tuesday 26 October, 10:00 – 11:30 BST. Register here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/transforming-effectiveness-tickets-189299799797. Time to discuss the possible provision of new services for worshipping communities including HR, payroll, bookkeeping and administration. What can you expect from the workshop? We will be using the time to discuss the possible provision of new services for worshipping communities in the following areas. These have been identified from the initial research that took place with hundreds of lay and ordained leaders in the spring of 2021. This is a Church of England workshop, with members of HeartEdge.

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Emmylou Harris - Here I Am.

Pacific Art Festival & Disaster Trade exhibition

St Martin-in-the-Fields is currently hosting two climate-focused exhibitions. 

The Pacific Art Festival is a celebration of Pacific arts and culture in the lead up to COP26, running 9-24 October 2021, produced by Pacific Island Artists Connection and hosted by St Martin-in-the-Fields in London’s Trafalgar Square. This inaugural event brings together communities from Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea who are based in the Pacific region as well as the UK’s large Pacific diaspora. The festival is free and includes an art exhibition curated by the talented Sulu Daunivalu (Director, Museum of Pacific & Oceanic Art, Latvia), heritage arts and products, on-line panel discussions, interactive activities live-streamed with Fijian speakers and performers.

Showcasing both heritage and contemporary arts, including a wide variety of visual art that has never been shown before, the exhibition will take visitors on a journey across the Pacific region whilst highlighting the impact climate change is having on these small island nations and how Pacific communities are fighting back.

Many of the works on display are for sale and this income will directly assist Pacific Islanders who have been so badly affected by the COVID pandemic. A selection of artists showing in the exhibition include Nicolai Michoutouchkine, Irami Buli, John Danger and Robert Kua.

Additionally, see Disaster Trade, an exhibition which focuses on the hidden footprint of UK production overseas. As the UK prepares for COP 26, British politicians are lauding the UK’s success in reducing its carbon footprint. But all is not as it seems. As a new project, Disaster Trade reveals, the true global impact of the British economy is hidden from observers, but no less destructive for it.

Focusing on imports from Cambodia, Sri Lanka and the South Asian “brick belt”, this project exemplifies how British trade shapes the disasters that afflict the UK’s trading partners. Drawing on global quantitative data, personal testimonies and professional photography, it exposes how the UK’s trade in garments, bricks and tea serves to displace emissions and environmental degradation, whilst intensifying the impacts of natural hazards linked to climate change. Explore these issues with this exhibition.

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Karen Peris - A Song Is Way Above The Lawn.