This week a national tour has commenced looking to equip the Church to engage with modern society’s increasing interest with spirituality. The tour will be led by Church Army’s Researcher in Evangelism to Post-Christian Culture, Steve Hollinghurst, and the Chaplain for Evangelism at Coventry Cathedral, Yvonne Richmond.
The tour entitled ‘Equipping your Church in a Spiritual Age’ will travel across 12 different venues in the UK throughout October and November hoping to respond to society’s modern obsession with spirituality.
This coming weekend from 30 September till 2 October, Hollinghurst will speak for the first time at the 10th Mind, Body, Spirit Festival being held in Manchester’s G-Mex Centre. The Church Army expert will give a presentation directed at ‘Discovering Meditation with the Christian Mystics’.
Hollinghurst has in the past experienced great success in training and equipping churches to engage with the spiritually seeking communities, and was even a key member of ‘Elemental’ at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, where he led many spiritual explorers in fellowship and guidance.
The Church Army researcher, who is also an ordained Anglican minister, commented that “Spiritual shopping” is really in at the moment. He continued, “For me it is about connecting with the large group of people who are actively seeking some satisfaction and meaning from the spiritual things in life, and to provide them with a safe space where they can explore spirituality within the Christian tradition and hopefully be moved on in a journey with Christ from wherever they are starting.
“I never felt either fulfilled or in a real relationship with God through the teaching and rituals I experienced in Church. When I turned my back on church I didn’t turn my back on God, but wanted to see if I could find Him through another route other than Christianity. I quickly found that I replaced one set of rituals with another, albeit different set, but things still lacked meaning for me.
“One day, I felt God calling me back to Christianity and read through the whole of the Gospel of Luke at one sitting and fell in love with the person of Jesus and knew He was what I was looking for. Over a period of about two years I shifted from my occultism to full, Christian commitment and eventually became ordained. This background gives me a valuable insight into those who seek enlightenment through alternative spiritualities and this is why I know the church has to take this issue seriously.”
Hollinghurst points out that statistics are revealing that increasingly New Age ideas or modern Paganism are quickly becoming major influences on the mainstream of the UK culture, and this is an area that needs to be seriously addressed.For me, it is this upsurge in spirituality amongst people with no church backgrounds that is both the main opportunity and challenge today’s church needs to face if it is to have a future tomorrow.
Steve Hollinghurst, Church Army
