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A fair amount of time ago, I allowed myself to be convinced by a friend that it was a good idea to spend part of my Easter break at the portion of Spring Harvest (a Christian conference/holiday thing) aimed at students. I hadn’t gone on a similar week away for a while (Soul Survivor two years ago) and I thought it would provide both a holiday and a chance to get all intensive and “Christian” — bible studies, discussions, so on and so forth. Every thing a boy could need, really …
So, about a week before Easter, I found myself on a long train journey to a place in Wales I can’t pronounce, via several others which no one anywhere in the world should try to pronounce. Beautiful scenery, though. Our destination was none other than one of Mr Butlin’s famous holiday camps, furnished with several tin boxes (sorry, mobile homes) and a rather nice indoor swimming pool.
Anyway, enough of the facilities, what of the other stuff? Spring Harvest is produced by and for those of a very consciously “Evangelical” spirituality — so much so that I had to resist wincing every time a speaker or meeting leader referred to “we evangelicals” or similar such phrases. However, I suppose this is at least better than many similar weeks/weekends away which simply behave in the same way with the word “ Christian” — it may have been assumed that all Evangelicals thought similarly, but it was not assumed that all Christians did. This cannot but fail to be a good thing, in my book.
In line with the evangelical turn of mind, the week focussed heavily on the Bible. Every day started with a passage from Mark about the Passion (being the week before Easter) being dissected and preached upon. The next meeting of every morning was a “Biblical Overview”, offering the chance to approach the Bible from a variety of different angles, and providing openings for further reading. After that, each afternoon was filled with a variety of seminars and talks, some devastatingly theoretical, others more practical.
Apart from all this heavy thought and theory, I found the best part of the week simply the fellowship with other Christians. It gave us a chance to discuss what each had understood each day in terms we could understand, exchange ideas and help each other with problems. Did I need to go to North Wales for that? Probably not. I suppose it was a help to have access to so many Christian teachers on such a wide variety of themes. To be honest, although I have kept notes and handouts from the weekend, what will have a greater impact on my life as a Christian will be the realisation that our faith is a revelation of faith, not knowledge. To construct dry statements of dogma from Bible reading often detracts from the building of a community of friends who are together looking to know Christ better, rather than helping us in that mission.
In many ways, the best single event of the week for me came at the end — a prayer and praise meeting held in the rather alarmingly named “Bonga Wonga Beach Hut” (holiday camps — don’t you love them?). There was Bible reading. There was a statement of what we believe as Christians, but this was in no way “dry”. It was part of a prayerful and considerate offering to God of what concerned us on a whole variety of issues — Kosovo, Northern Ireland, evangelism and even more.
I am not a very “charismatic” Christian. I do not believe that the religious “experience” is pre-eminent. I do believe that the Word of God is revealed in Scripture. But my visit to Spring Harvest/Word Alive reminded me that trying fruitlessly to “get all intensive and Christian” is no alternative to building a constructive, prayer-based relationship with fellow worshippers of Jesus that will nourish us and help all of us to grow spiritually. Here’s hoping that I can actually do something about it, then …
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Last modified: 25th November 2005