New Whine

Ater our return from Ferndown we had a few days at home, before preparing for one of the major events of the summer, the family trip to New Wine - a Christian festival/conference for families.

We had heard reports that the previous week at Shepton Mallet (it runs for 2 weeks there, one at Newark) had not been the best weather-wise. As in it had tipped down pretty much continuously, some camping areas had been flooded and moved to the car park. More than slight drizzle. Upon arrival on Sunday 2nd August we weren't particularly encouraged to find that our camping area had been moved. Previously 'Green 2' we were now to report to 'Yellow 3'. But we drove past 'Green 2' on the way to 'Yellow', and found that our group was camping there anyway, as Yellow had already filled up (and actually over the coming few days looked worse than Green anyway!).

So, having set-up camp we now had time to re-acquaint ourselves with our 43 other friends from Ferndown over the course of the next seven days, which was largely done via the medium of wine, beer, brandy, nuts, crisps and biscuits.

New Wine has two main worship meetings per day. The first choice you have to make is whether you are a Venue One or Venue Two person, as the event is so big that there isn't a marquee big enough to hold everybody in one place (ignoring the vast Big Top that's going up in the field behind for Soul Survivor). Here's a handy guide:

Venue One: like worshipping in an aircraft hangar. I'm sure there was a discarded Vulcan bomber in a corner. Think of a Party Conference with bright colours, rows of cut flowers on the edge of the stage, hosts cheesily nice in nice comfortable polo shirts and safe haircuts. Music is acoustic gee-tars, pianos and muted drum kits. And my favourite - 'Worship Barbie' - a blonde female singer who sings squeakily and jumps randomly. Always spare seats.

Venue Two: More like worshipping in the kitchen that's the best place at the party. No cut flowers, hosts in black and grey with stubble. Music is all electric and the drummer wouldn't know what muffling is! Often a struggle to find either grey hair or a seat, even after all have 'scooched' up to fill empty gaps.

Suffice to say that we bought the CD of the band ('Trent') that was playing in Venue Two!

While the adults do Venues, the children have their own fantastic age-specific groups to attend, and with our children being 9 and 13 we only really had to entertain them for 5 hours in the afternoon, and they're old enough to go and come back themselves. Great!

Unfortunately, theological students are a nightmare at places like this. Over the last year I've learnt to reflect on various situations. This can also be translated as 'criticise'. I'm not sure if I'm pleased with myself that I now look at song lyrics and dissect them, saying things like "this verse doesn't mean anything, it's just a load of thoughts stuck together because they rhyme". Maybe that's good, maybe it's not. Tasha got a bit bored of me wrinkling my nose at things, whether it be leadership style, content or theology of speakers. But the church would be boring if we all did things exactly the same, and New Wine is a place where people can explore their boundaries and influences.

Another side effect of this education is that when speakers refer to the original Greek text of the new Testament I get heads turning towards me asking me to confirm if that's true. I don't know! I translated 5 chapters of John, I didn't memorise the whole flippin' book!!!

The weather was grotty for the first 3 or 4 days. The rain built on the previous week, and mud became sloppier and sloppier, before it finally became sunny on Thursday and things started to dry out, although the ground never became truly solid - there was always a squelch underfoot somewhere.

A return home on Sunday to a roast dinner prepared by our house-sitters, a hot shower and a soft bed was most welcome. As I write this Bethany is preparing to go back to Shepton Mallet tomorrow for 5 days at Soul Survivor. Hopefully the ground has dried further, as the forecast is for more rain.