Greenbelt
As many of my friends have blogged, it is really hard to sum up Greenbelt 2006. We camped. We got pretty wet. We stayed up late. We went to a load of talks and a heard various kinds of music.
Strongest memories are of the grace of Shane Claiborne who is a fantastic speaker and also a gentleman. We spoke to a few of the 'star' speakers of GB but Shane went well beyond the call of duty and ate with us. And another thing - he makes his own clothes.
We also spent some time with Dave Andrews who some of you may know that I am a groupie of, and the guys involved in the organisation Servants of Asia's Urban Poor. Dave spoke passionately and convened some interesting seminars on radical christianity. Craig and the guys from Servants are - well, just amazing.
Dave is promoting the concept of a Plan B. Plan A is where you treat others as they treat you. So, if they attack your Twin Towers, you flatten their country.
Plan B - or as Dave calls it, Plan Be - is to live the Beatitudes as if they actually mean something more than words on a bit of paper.
So Shane taught us something about being normal whilst living in an extraordinary way. Dave taught us something about straining forwards to the ideal we continue to dream of - and refusing to be satisfied until we reach it. Interestingly, Dave and Shane have never met, even though they were both at Greenbelt - and are saying similar things. I wonder why that is.
On a negative note, I think that our involvement in the Generous project may be at an end. We've been 'in' since the beginning and have been inspired to change our lifestyle in various ways. This has included thinking about our purchasing, creating a business and so on. I don't want to underestimate the importance of this group on our thinking over the last two years. It was a great moment to see our children's T-shirts being worn by someone at a Generous event when two years ago there was no Freedom Clothing Project or Generous project.
But I feel that we are called to something deeper, something more radical, something less sparkly but more invasive in our lifestyles. I think this might be involved in Dave's Plan Be initiative, but I don't really know.
Strongest memories are of the grace of Shane Claiborne who is a fantastic speaker and also a gentleman. We spoke to a few of the 'star' speakers of GB but Shane went well beyond the call of duty and ate with us. And another thing - he makes his own clothes.
We also spent some time with Dave Andrews who some of you may know that I am a groupie of, and the guys involved in the organisation Servants of Asia's Urban Poor. Dave spoke passionately and convened some interesting seminars on radical christianity. Craig and the guys from Servants are - well, just amazing.
Dave is promoting the concept of a Plan B. Plan A is where you treat others as they treat you. So, if they attack your Twin Towers, you flatten their country.
Plan B - or as Dave calls it, Plan Be - is to live the Beatitudes as if they actually mean something more than words on a bit of paper.
So Shane taught us something about being normal whilst living in an extraordinary way. Dave taught us something about straining forwards to the ideal we continue to dream of - and refusing to be satisfied until we reach it. Interestingly, Dave and Shane have never met, even though they were both at Greenbelt - and are saying similar things. I wonder why that is.
On a negative note, I think that our involvement in the Generous project may be at an end. We've been 'in' since the beginning and have been inspired to change our lifestyle in various ways. This has included thinking about our purchasing, creating a business and so on. I don't want to underestimate the importance of this group on our thinking over the last two years. It was a great moment to see our children's T-shirts being worn by someone at a Generous event when two years ago there was no Freedom Clothing Project or Generous project.
But I feel that we are called to something deeper, something more radical, something less sparkly but more invasive in our lifestyles. I think this might be involved in Dave's Plan Be initiative, but I don't really know.
posted by Joe at 11:48 AM
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