HeartEdge: West Midlands event & October Mailer

At HeartEdge our passion is growing Kingdom communities - via four C’s - congregations, culture, commercial activity and acts of compassion. This month resources, ideas and theology featured in our Mailer include:

• Partnerships, community meals, Housing Sunday, hospitality and everything 'volunteers'.
• Plus #whoismycleaner campaign and social enterprise
• And Lucy Winkett on the 'need for speed' and living by the hour-hand.

Since February we've been visiting churches to find out about their work and share information, ideas and contacts. Everything from whole-site re-development, to church websites, inclusive liturgy and work with vulnerable people. We've also hosted visits to St Martin in the Fields to explore new ways of working. Contact HeartEdge to host a workshop, sharing session or consultancy day. Call me on 020 7766 1127 or email HeartEdge here.

'With Vulnerable People' (HeartEdge Resource - Ideas and Experience 1) is a new resource full of stories and ideas for churches and projects working with vulnerable people produced by practitioners - including workers with an evening centre for homeless people, an International Group and Soup Kitchen. If you're a HeartEdge member you can receive this by emailing me here.

Our next HeartEdge events are:

• 8 November Bristol St Michaels Centre: HeartEdge Day Gathering - 10am - 3pm - with Sam Wells and guests - click here to book in. 
• 21 November Edinburgh - Greyfriars Kirk: HeartEdge Day Gathering - 10am - 3pm - with Sam Wells and guests - click here to book in.
• 5 February 2018, St Martin-in-the-Fields: Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story, 2.30pm - 4.30pm. How to explore the Christian faith using a 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. Workshop and input from myself and course designer, Alastair McKay to register for the ‘Inspired to Follow’ session contact me on 020 7766 1127 or email HeartEdge here. 

Our West Midlands HeartEdge day happened earlier in October at St Martin in the Bullring: 

• “Each element gave me food for thought and made me reflect and inspired.” 
• “A thought provoking, inspiring day.” 
• “Very well paced, well structured.”

Here is some of the twitter comment on the day to give a flavour of the event and those aspects to which people immediately responded:

• Sam Wells on Stewardship model of Church - “the mission of the #church shrinks to the imagination of a few.” Time for a change? #HeartEdge
• Sam Wells on the Benefactor model of Church... “Funded by a handful of powerful people... in the grip of a limited imagination.” #HeartEdge
• Sam Wells on the Enterprise model - “The Church is the Jewish Head Chef and the Muslim Head of Finance... Being the Church.”
• Asset approach “We combine & organise our assets. Approach the world not with need but green shoots of what we have. Our assets.” #HeartEdge
• #HeartEdge. What to do when the congregation is on its knees? Go where the energy is. Find where it’s released - in quite humble things.
• “Are you winning awards and succeeding in a cause that will finally fail? Or failing in a cause that will finally succeed?” #HeartEdge
• What was it like for Jesus taking on a congregation that no one else applied for?” Occupation, cuts, betrayal... #HeartEdge
• We must remember “we are the early church.” We reinvent church, as have every generation before. Reimagine, reinvent not decline.#HeartEdge
• David Alcock of @ACSLLP introducing the panel session of @HeartEdge_ W. Mids event hearing stories of what works
• More Enterprise Initiatives projects people? “Most important thing is finding your call. What God wants you to be doing.” @lloyd_cooke #HeartEdge
• I’m inspired by #HeartEdge - but my congregation are on their knees... what do I do? Where do I start?”
• Yvonne Gordon @springfield_p on adversity. “Keep your eye on God who is working at every step.” Encouragement #solidarity support #HeartEdge
• “We saw an opportunity...” Bryan Scott on acquiring a building from the council. @springfield_p “The Council always come to us..” #HeartEdge
• “In the church we have isolated ourselves.. Who wouldn’t we partner with? Gently & wisely exploring opportunities..” #Partnership #HeartEdge
• @heartedge_ version of speed dating in W. Mids event @inthebullring - building relationship + sharing experience

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The Innocence Mission - Glow.

Art in the Heart

Birmingham and the West Midlands have quietly been making their mark on the contemporary arts map. Art in the Heart is a celebration of the diverse and exciting exhibitions taking place across the West Midlands during 2013.

From May to December you can see work by amazing artists from Botticelli and Rembrandt to Damien Hirst and Quentin Blake in a variety of venues, from Jacobean and Georgian mansions to contemporary art galleries and even a Planetarium! Running alongside this calendar of exhibitions is a specially commissioned poetry programme, containing a series of public workshops led by Poet in Residence Philip Monks.

The Art in the Heart site gives an easy reference guide to all of the 23 venues taking part and a glimpse of some of the amazing exhibitions you can see.

It highlights the strengths of the region’s world class art collections and its innovative contemporary programmes, many underpinned by national and international partnerships to bring art of the highest quality to the Heart of England.

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The Moody Blues - Dawning Is The Day.

Art in the West Midlands

There is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to art exhibitions in the West Midlands currently:

• Metropolis: Reflections on the modern city is a major showcase of international contemporary artwork jointly collected by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the New Art Gallery, Walsall and developed in partnership with Ikon Gallery, as part of the £1 million Art Fund International initiative. Now shown together for the first time, these works represent an ambitious and nationally-significant new collection for Birmingham, Walsall and the West Midlands. Visions of the modern global city by some of the world's most exciting artists, Metropolis brings together stunning work by 25 contemporary artists of the highest international standing to Birmingham and includes digital projection, painting, sculpture, photography and mixed media installation.
• Caught in the Crossfire: Artistic Responses to Conflict, Peace and Reconcilliation. This exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery takes us on a challenging journey from the home front to the frontline and back again, as seen through the eyes of artists, soldiers and people affected by conflict. Visitors travel through divided lands, debate the role of protest art, explore the aesthetics of violence and machinery of war, and reflect upon the aftermath of war where hope emerges and lives are rebuilt. A section of the exhibition focuses on the work of kennardphillipps made in response to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
• Jacob Epstein and Damien Hirst: Birth, Death and Religion. Though Jacob Epstein died in 1959 – six years before Damien Hirst was born – they both deal with the universal themes of life, birth, death and religion which have been the subject matter of artists for many centuries. The work they both produce around these interrelated concerns highlights the way that artistic practices have changed throughout the 20^th century along with our social attitudes towards them.
• Bellini, Botticelli, Titian… 500 years of Italian Art. This spectacular exhibition at Compton Verney comprises forty of the City of Glasgow’s greatest Italian paintings – the finest and most comprehensive civic collection in the UK, and mostly unseen outside Glasgow. The works are of the highest quality and richness and chronicle a remarkable time span from 1400 - 1900, demonstrating the gradual move from religious to secular subjects. This outstanding exhibition includes landscapes, portraits and devotional works from the Renaissance. It will be followed by Flight and the Artistic Imagination - an exhibition exploring the instinctive human desire to fly from the classical era to the modern day. Starting with the imaginations of Leonardo da Vinci and Francisco Goya and ending with space travel, satellite images and everyday air travel, it is an exciting exploration of creative responses to flight.

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Deacon Blue - The Hipsters.