What does the United Reformed Church have in store for this year’s Greenbelt arts festival, after last year’s success? And what does Greenbelt have in store for us?

The United Reformed Church is packing its tent, its folding chair and a rather fetching sun hat, because it’s off to Greenbelt again. After the success of last year’s event, where the URC led a programme of events on the theme of ‘Scrap the Church?’, the denomination is partnering the arts festival as associate partners for a second year.

This time, the theme of the URC’s involvement is ‘More than welcome’. Jesus invited all people to the feast, but do they all find themselves welcome in church? How good are we at including everyone? How can we be more like the inclusive feast Jesus promised – and how would that change us? Who’s missing from our conversations, our communities, our churches? The theme was chosen to connect with the URC’s year of Feasts and Festivals as well as Greenbelt’s overall theme of The Common Good.

Events arranged so far by the URC team include a family-friendly treasure hunt around the beautiful grounds for hampers of knitted food – created especially by 58 squads of knitters and crocheters across the Church. The hunt’s base will be at the team’s ‘takeaway’ stall, where festivalgoers can discuss welcome and poverty issues and find out more about the denomination. The artist and URC minister Elizabeth Gray-King will explore the theme of welcome through art, and another artist, Nic Walters, will create an outsized colourful banqueting table and benches, to be used for events and conversations as well as food. …

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This is an extract from the June 2017 edition of Reform

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