it’s taken me a few days to recover from the london mind body spirit festival. it ran for 6 days and whilst i wasn’t on the dekhomai stand every day i was shattered by the end of it. fortunately i’ve managed to get a few days off this week and am just about bouncing back before the ReSource weekend in Reading this weekend (which i’m looking forward to).
taking inspiration from john drane, ben edson and sanctus1, steve hollinghurst, mark berry and others we decided to take the plunge encouraged by colin from edenpeople to book a small stand in partnership with him, cms, grace and moot. the name dekhomai seemed to capture the welcome we hoped to provide for people (the word is greek and means the welcoming place or welcoming a stranger or to receive). the thinking was that if this is a place where spiritual seekers (and shoppers) go, then why not have something representing the christian tradition which has so many riches in terms of spirituality (the christian reflex in these festivals has often been to avoid them). those of us planning the stand were coming from the alternative worship tradition and/or charismatic tradition so we blended the two approaches on the stand. we had some stations – a laptop with the online labyrinth and the lavalamp prayer, images of christ from around the world, a plasma ball meditation, and we offered foot massage, a destiny words table, and free healing with the laying on of hands and anointing with oil…
once the first hour had drifted by and it got busier we pretty much had people visit us non stop – nearly everybody that came was open to being prayer for. some specifically wanted prayer for healing, others had a foot massage and were then open to being prayed for. to be honest the hands on massage, talking and praying with people seemed to interest people more than the stations though the destiny words table was used quite a few times.
so reflections in a random fashion…
it was brilliant to be there
there seemed to be about 70% women at the festival. we need more women on the team if we do it again.
we hardly sold anything – people wanted the free stuff.
people were amazingly open, very happy to talk and very happy to be prayed for. the challenge was that their openness to us meant that you might then see them on the next stand trying something else out! so jesus is in danger of being reduced to another god in the pantheon or a consumer choice among many others.
the blend of alt worship and charismatic was great. for me and many others the gifts of the spirit seemed to make so much more sense in thsi context than in church circles. we needed to trust god to come and speak and lead us.
god was present. i often had a sense of god’s presence when i prayed with people but what was more interesting was how many visitors we had who came in and pretty much said the same thing. they weren’t christians but said things like – god is here; there is a lot of energy in here; can i sample your energy?; ooo – it’s the old holy ghost i sense; when i came round the corner i could sense something different and it’s you guys; it’s very peaceful in here; i’ve been told to come and visit this stand – i’ve heard it’s interesting… and when we had prayed for people they might have shed tears, sensed tngling, healing, heat or peace and so on…
i was surprised how many healers we prayed for. maybe it’s because they are amongst the spiritual seekers as opposed to the shoppers and tourists? but one of the days i was there we prayed for a lot of reike healers in particular – and they were very open to being prayed for. why were they coming to us?
we didn’t have many negative reactions. a few were turned off when they found out we were christians or saw the images of christ but not many.
it was a privilege to pray and bless people and simply to be there.
it did our faith the power of good.
there is a big challenge about what we think is going on when we pray for people and what they might be thinking – there is no theological capital that they bring on the whole.
anyway lots to think about and lots to learn… lots of others have done this before and we have much to learn from them and their experience and wisdom. it’s no surprise but the thought police are always out when you do this kind of thing sniffing heresy on the wind and a slide down a slippery slope. it drives me nuts though i try not to react to it. but better to be stepping out and taking some risks than sitting at home knowing everything, being pure and avoiding the world methinks…
there is a photo album of pics here. gareth has a set on flickr.
Loved this blog. Lots of questions seem to remain but rather than sitting in a dark room waiting until you find the answers you take the questions with you and have a go…absolutely fantastic!! I doubt very much that it was your intention but thank you for encouraging me!! One other thought…You wrote, “their openness to us meant that you might then see them on the next stand trying something else out! so jesus is in danger of being reduced to another god in the pantheon or a consumer choice among many others.” And my question is, why not?! Putting Jesus in the spirituality marketplace gives an opportunity we have almost prevented Him from having before. If Jesus is who He says He is then in competition with other ‘gods’ in an open marketplace, He will win out. Surely this doesn’t degrade Jesus in anyway but actually gives Him the opportunity to prove to each of us and all the other ‘spirituality consumers’ exactly who and what He is?
brilliant!
we have a very similar thing (not so large) that goes on in our community every year…so now you’ve got my idea juices flowing. thanks!
G’on yersel JB… taking Jesus out of our churches and comfort zones and into the real world.
Kudos to you and your people for being brave enough to make this happen. The cons will probably criticise but who cares? Jesus is a controversy that we need to be…
Agree with Phil :: let them taste and see… take Jesus out of the context of christianity and He stands as strong as you would expect from the King of Kings!
Eager also to hear how others like Makeesha get on.
Keep on going, bro… the Lord is using you for mighty things.
Looks like you’re doing some excellent work.
I would echo Phil’s point about Jesus being part of the pantheon of spiritual choice. There is no need to apologise for presenting Jesus as one option among many, isnt that the reality of the situation we face today? Our task as followers of Christ is to show how he makes a difference to our lives and to invite peopel to engage with his and our story whilst we engage with their stories.
This was awesome– it’s amazing how when you present Jesus in a setting outside of the church, how many people are open to it, especially in London. A year ago Patricia King came over from Canada with her ministry, and set up a dream interpretation area– lots of people came up, and some got saved.
Looks like a fantastic success – I wish I could have come along. In this post-Christendom era it’s brilliant to literally set our stall out afresh, and compete with the other spiritual lures on their home turf, rather than peeking out from behind our stone church walls. Since we can take nothing for granted now, as I read this morning “…as aliens and exiles…” [living as Christians in our post-Christian secular society] “…our tone of voice will be as important as anything we say” [Stuart Murray Williams], which looks like something you hit the spot on from your responses.
jonny, good to see you ‘out there’ doing the stuff..we were part of a stand at the aylesbury civic centre last year, we were providing destiny words which was an amazing experience, we also found people to be so open, but also agree with the 70/30 split…any way well done for getting Jesus into peoples minds…
I love the idea of presenting Christianity as a spiritual lifestyle, isn’t this actually true for many of us? We are called to present the relevance of Christ to the world…I see very little difference in what you guys did and those Christians in the first century who opened up Christ to those in a town who had an inscription to “An Unknown God”.
Well done. Thanks for jumping in and loving the people right where they we at. They need it. These people will probably not avail themselves outside of that context.
Bless you.
Tim Wright
Good to see your reflections and impressions. You might like to join in our Thinplaces discussion board where people from Australia and the US and UK who have been in this ministry for a long while chat about issues concerning festivals and reaching alternates etc.
what’s the url?….
The Reiki healers may have come because part of their ‘mythology’ is about it being the way that Jesus healed, according to my mum, who is a registered reiki therapist and a member of her local CofE church.
Jonny
Thinplaces is situated at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thinplaces/
what’s a “destiny words” table? I’m guessing, but it would be good to hear what and how.
thanks.
Thanks for this, it is not unlike our experiences, but you’ve caused me to reflect a bit deeper.