As part of building a community of reflection related to the blog, I hosted a one-day Festival of Theology last January, and we had a great time of listening, learning, reflection and discussion. We had over 100 people attending, and as a result I am planning a second Festival on Wednesday 17th October again here in Nottingham.
As before, the plan will be to listen to 15- to 20-minutes presentations on a range of subjects, with time for response, interaction and discussion. The day will start with coffee at 10.00 am, with the welcome and first presentation at 10.30. With an hour’s break for lunch, we will plan to finish at 3.30 pm, which should allow for seven presentations.
The presentations will match the areas that the blog explores—the way the Bible is read and understood within the church, aspects of ministry including preaching, questions of contemporary ethics, and mission strategy and effectiveness. If you would like to offer a presentation, please email me with the subject line Festival of Theology or use the contact form, explaining the area you would like to offer a presentation and what you would be wanting to say. To see the range of things we covered previously, do look through the programme for the earlier day. I hope that presentations will be stimulating and provocative—so do feel free to offer something that you think I will disagree with! If there are topics you would like to see covered, please suggest them by commenting below.
There will also be time over coffee and lunch and at the end of the day to meet one another, and I hope it will be a highlight to actually meet in person people that we have been interacting with online. And be assured: we will, once more, have orange balloons!
So put the date in your diary; share with your friends; and think about either offering a presentation yourself or encouraging others to do so! I look forward to seeing you there!
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Huzzah, another FoT!
I really enjoyed the last one, both speaking and attending, and can’t recommend it enough. It’s just such a different format to the usual seminar/stream-based theological exploration at conferences and the like.
I do feel a little guilty that I still haven’t followed through by articulating my presentation into a blog article (I was struggling to write, and work got the better of me, so I gave up and forgot about it) but maybe this’ll inspire me to actually finish. Hah. At least I wasn’t the only one….
I’ll be coming this year again for certain, but at the moment I don’t have any stand-out ideas for a presentation, so I’ll remain a very happy guest. 😉
Mat
I loved the first event, it was fantastically organized and the talks were top notch.
I’d love to see something on how the bible interacts with sSecularism and Post Christian Culture, or the role of art in modern day Christian faith.
I am keen to offer a paper but cannot find your email. Can you let me know what it is please?