Welcome to our exciting HeartEdge programme for 2022. We hope you will be able to join us, whether at online events or at our in-person events around the world. You can find all our events on our website — and if you're a HeartEdge partner, you can upload your own events through the members' area.
Last year, we launched Living God's Future Now, an online festival of theology and practice. We hosted workshops, webinars, spaces to gather and share ideas, lecture series, and more. This year, we're continuing our programming with a new theme — humbler church, Bigger God.
HeartEdge is fundamentally about a recognition of the activity of the Holy Spirit beyond and outside the church, and about a church that flourishes when it seeks to catch up with what the Spirit is already doing in the world. There was a time when church meant a group that believed it could control access to God – access that only happened in its language on its terms. But God is bigger than that, and the church needs to be humbler than that. Kingdom churches anticipate the way things are with God forever – a culture of creativity, mercy, discovery and grace – and are grateful for the ways God renews the church through those it has despised, rejected, or ignored.
We hope this reflects the lessons we've learnt from the past year: still trying to live God's future now, re-imagining our faith and our calling as a Church in a changing world. Thank you for joining us for the journey — we can't wait to see what this year brings.
Music and Liturgy for Easter: Sat, 19 March, 11:00 – 12:00 GMT. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/music-and-liturgy-for-easter-tickets-275772501977. Andy Salmon (North West Co-ordinator of HeartEdge and Rector of Sacred Trinity Church) will give tips about creative liturgical resources for Easter whilst Andrew Earis (Director of Music at St Martin-in-the-Fields) and the Manchester HeartEdge Choral Scholars will share musical resources to help freshen up your Easter experience. We will be broadcasting on St Martin's digital platform but people are also welcome to come in person.
Theology Group - Sunday, 20 March, 19:00 – 20:00 BST, zoom - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/theology-group-tickets-248745844517. The St Martin-in-the-Fields and HeartEdge Theology Group provides a monthly opportunity to reflect theologically on issues of today and questions of forever with Sam Wells. Each month Sam responds to questions from a member of the congregation of St Martin-in-the-Fields who also chairs the session and encourages your comments and questions. In March the chair will be Jonathan Evens, who will be exploring with Sam the extent to which we can be co-creators with God.
Last year, we launched Living God's Future Now, an online festival of theology and practice. We hosted workshops, webinars, spaces to gather and share ideas, lecture series, and more. This year, we're continuing our programming with a new theme — humbler church, Bigger God.
HeartEdge is fundamentally about a recognition of the activity of the Holy Spirit beyond and outside the church, and about a church that flourishes when it seeks to catch up with what the Spirit is already doing in the world. There was a time when church meant a group that believed it could control access to God – access that only happened in its language on its terms. But God is bigger than that, and the church needs to be humbler than that. Kingdom churches anticipate the way things are with God forever – a culture of creativity, mercy, discovery and grace – and are grateful for the ways God renews the church through those it has despised, rejected, or ignored.
We hope this reflects the lessons we've learnt from the past year: still trying to live God's future now, re-imagining our faith and our calling as a Church in a changing world. Thank you for joining us for the journey — we can't wait to see what this year brings.
Music and Liturgy for Easter: Sat, 19 March, 11:00 – 12:00 GMT. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/music-and-liturgy-for-easter-tickets-275772501977. Andy Salmon (North West Co-ordinator of HeartEdge and Rector of Sacred Trinity Church) will give tips about creative liturgical resources for Easter whilst Andrew Earis (Director of Music at St Martin-in-the-Fields) and the Manchester HeartEdge Choral Scholars will share musical resources to help freshen up your Easter experience. We will be broadcasting on St Martin's digital platform but people are also welcome to come in person.
Theology Group - Sunday, 20 March, 19:00 – 20:00 BST, zoom - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/theology-group-tickets-248745844517. The St Martin-in-the-Fields and HeartEdge Theology Group provides a monthly opportunity to reflect theologically on issues of today and questions of forever with Sam Wells. Each month Sam responds to questions from a member of the congregation of St Martin-in-the-Fields who also chairs the session and encourages your comments and questions. In March the chair will be Jonathan Evens, who will be exploring with Sam the extent to which we can be co-creators with God.
Sermon Preparation with Sally Hitchiner and Sam Wells - 16:30 (GMT) Tuesday 22nd March, livestreamed here. Sam Wells and Sally Hitchiner discuss Sunday's readings and offer practical tips on preaching.
Community of Practitioners workshop - 16:00 (GMT) Wednesday 23rd March, Zoom meeting. Email jonathan.evens@smitf.org to register. This is a space for practitioners, lay and ordained, to reflect on theology and practice. Each week, we alternate between 'Wonderings' and discussion of a work of theology. Book to be read is ‘Improvisation’ by Sam Wells. 'Wonderings' help us to reflect and pray on what has stood out for each of us in the last week. Newcomers are very welcome. This week we reflect on recent experiences using ‘Wonderings'.
How to Thrive Post-Covid: New Frameworks of Discovery - Thursday 24 March, 19:00 – 20:00, Zoom. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-to-thrive-post-covid-new-frameworks-of-discovery-tickets-260228770257. The three steps of design thinking are discovery, ideas, and trying. The process can also be used on existing ideas to see if they’re still working. This workshop will focus on several frameworks that can be useful in discerning what to keep and what to let go of post-Covid. Rather than simply relying on a “gut feeling,” we can use clear frameworks to penetrate the surface of an issue to identify what really matters at its core. This course is taught by the Rev. Lorenzo Lebrija, the founding director of the TryTank Experimental Lab, a joint venture for innovation in the church from Virginia Theological Seminary and General Theological Seminary. He is also the author of the “How to Try” book which came out July 20, 2021 from Church Publishing.
TryTank meet and greet - Thursday 24 March, 20:00 – 21:00, Zoom. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/trytank-meet-and-greet-tickets-262572029007. TryTank is the experimental lab for church innovation. Our work is to look ahead 10 years to where the church might be headed and use that foresight to inform our actions today. If you want to learn more about our work and perhaps partner on an experiment, join a conversation with the Rev. Lorenzo Lebrija, the director of TryTank.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curtis Mayfield - We Gotta Have Peace.
