You know i have never thought about that. The boy is amazing.

Manifestation by anne butler

Some of the new work anne has is currently being exhibited over this weekend. check her website for details and if you get the chance, go see.

1 location
Good venue

The market place was in a good space and the big tables worked well for meals.

The Food was ok.
No coffee after meals seemed strange for a hotel.

Some of the workshop rooms were too small for workshops they hosted.

2 programme
Mixed
The physical programme looked good, perhaps it could be printed on glossy paper?

Ceildh/pub quiz - missed the pub quiz. Not sure it worked.

Optional worship times
Good/fine.
Seemed (understandably) constrained by venue restrictions,

Morning prayers sat am
Informal to the point of seeming unprepared. Took a slightly bizarre turn with invitation to confession of secret sins or headaches part.
In general fine

Rural youthwork workshop
Good/Fine
Some useful questions

Zoo
Best bit of the weekend.

Main sessions sat am,pm sun am
Key note Speaker spoke entertainingly and told nice stories. Not sure his message actually fitted into what the weekend needed to say to the audience.
The band musically were fine, although they only reflected one way of worship.

3 Scottishness
Good to see that workshops were mostly run by Scottish based youth workers but I think my main reflection was the conference didn't feel particularly Scottish. Deep Impact is marketed as Scotland's national youthwork conference, but I felt it lacked a distinct Scottish voice. If it was there which it may have been, I couldn't find it.
The worship sessions seemed to be based on a vineyard churches model of worship, (Californian 70's Jesus people).
The speaker was English and all his examples were English, entertaining and fun but English.
Is there a distinctively Scottish model of worship which could be used? What would that look like?

4 Development
I wonder how different the programme was in form and structure from the first deep impact? Not too much from my hazy recollection. I wonder if there is scope for a radical rethink and reorganising of the programme.
I may have missed it, but there seemed a lack of edge to the conference which is the raison d'être of youthwork?

the weekend conference seemed to go well, and people seemed to enjoy it. I enjoyed parts of it as well and hope this feedback can help the consideration and planning of the group who organise the next one.

On Saturday evening I was challenged by the worship time at Deep Impact. This challenge caused me to question some things. I did this through my twitter feed

On Sunday morning it was brought to my attention by a friend that some people had been offended by my comments.

I would like to apologise for causing offense. I don’t set out to offend or to hurt people and am disappointed that I have done so. I don’t know who was offended so as such I can only offer a public apology.

Sorry.

The comments which I guess were the ones which were offensive have been removed from this site, from Twitter and Facebook, all of which are linked together.

Just wrote a poem

honey…

She stands
Mouth dry
With the bitter taste of iron in her mouth, as if she had just been sucking a cut as a child.

The nervous energy shooting through her veins.
The tingling
The goosebumps

The smile
In perceptively shining showing bravery and joy where there is none.

She is abnormally bright, from her darkness this place is there. She is not there
(but she is)

Sitting at the dentist is nothing,
Yet you cannot help your fear.

She quickens.
In a rush the waft of swimming pool smell fills her. As if she had been holding her nose and her breath too long

Her mouth opens
‘Honey…’

The problem is clear.

greenbelt (posibly the biggest and perhaps the best) Christian Arts Festival in europe is held over a bank holiday which scottish Schools don’t get. this means that the majority of people with children/young people are unable to attend the festival for more than a day. Scotland and the scots have been influential upon greenbelt, both historically and currently. So what to do?

this year at greenbelt a small session called “Scot Belt” occurred. About 40 people turned out to the meeting. the meeting ended with a widely held consesnsus that an event in scotland was viable and desirable. As such could the discussion be taken further and explored further.

On Saturday the first exploration of what this could entail happened. individuals who had been to Greenbelt, people who had been artists and speakers were there, even up to trustee level of Greenbelt. As well as this representatives of Wild Goose Resource Group / The Iona Community and The Carberry Festival were there.

The discussion was good but ultimately nothing was decided. It couldn’t be, a group of random people in a room are undemocratic in so many ways. So the main outcome is that there will be a wider meeting organised soon for all interested peeps. Greenbelt will get info out in good time and it should come virally to all who are interested.  A steering group will be appointed around that meeting and time will be given for fund raising, support gathering, dreaming, visioning, shaping and working out what a Christian arts Festival in Scotland could and should look like.

On a personal note I am happy that The Carberry Festival has been given a good role within this consideration of what it could and should mean for Scotland to have a Christian Arts festival.

A replica of Greenbelt in Scotland?
Something new with the spirit of Greenbelt?

I don’t know but I do think this could be something exciting and unexpected happening soon.

I love the closing liturgy which Kathy Escobar has put up on her site. It is a version of the sermon on the mount by jesus. It just has some of the thoughts and feelings i think in my head, as a spoken response to the original words. As the words are spoken some of these thoughts need to be answered.

http://kathyescobar.com/2008/09/11/blessed-are-the/

After reading marko‘s post about “doing a claibourne” I have been thinking alot about the sermon on the mount.

just the ease of it.

how it hasn’t complicated the simple.

how short it was.

how familiarity has bred out the inherant radicalness of the text.

The version by Kathy, I think makes the text different enough that you can hear it again. Perhaps even do buisness with it again. Who knows, go read it.

***I was at greenbelt so missed the 8 minutes of glorious randomness which londons Olympic 2012 team put together. So here in real time are my thoughts as i watched it on youtube.****

Why does Boris not do his suit jacket up?

Why does Boris salute the Beijing major? he did it twice.

kinda cool and kinda weird cartoon bit.

what is this all about?
the bus
cyclists
hiphop dancers.
the violin music?

slow motion bus entry? that was kinda cool I liked that.

Random road crossing and lollipop lady
Why is the wee girl with the football walking on people to get back to the bus?
I love that opening top bus that rocks

who’s she? is she a random singer or a popular one?
Why is Jimmy Page on a pink raised platform. Oh sorry, the colour changes not always pink.

Is that girl in a ten foot pole going up and down? kinda like a warbling geyser.
Whats’ her name again – the song about bleeding – Leona Lewis thats it.

not exactly a quality version of whole lot of love is it?

beckham, a girl with a ball, a violinist wearing hot pants and a guy playing chello in a skin tight body suit, raising to the sky. That’s random.

Beckham just kicked the ball, that’s exciting! the guy who caught it seems really quite happy about that doesn’t he! Although was he fighting a steward to get it?

The umbrella’s round the bus have cool light effects. Loving the clampet style umbrella thing that was good.

I guess it has set the bar for the actual Olympics themselves in London,  some good, some bizarre, some to ask why?

I like the sound of the rain.
somehow the world is right and everyone is equal when it rains.

if it is raining where you are… Listen

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Nuff said then.

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