'The church has left the building': Pentecost Festival hits London

More than a year in the making, Share Jesus International's highly anticipated first ever Pentecost Festival - two full days of Christian worship, teaching, comedy, dance, debate, social action and more -finally hit central London on Friday.

The Festival realises the vision of the late Rob Frost to put on a festival that "Jesus would want to come to", and aims to take the church and the message of Jesus' love out into the streets and straight to the people in a completely unprecedented way, hence its motto, "The church has left the building".

"I'm very passionate about taking our worship onto the streets and our prayer into bars and cafes and our Bible reading into the public space, on the Underground," enthuses Share Jesus director, Andy Frost. "We shouldn't be a hidden, invisible church. We should be the visible church, out on the streets."

"Pentecost Festival is an opportunity for the church to discover afresh how it can engage with the world, hear what God is guiding the church to do, and learn how we can leave our buildings behind.

"It's about getting out of our buildings. We can be tucked away in our buildings having a great time but then we forget the world outside. It's about how we reconnect with the world," explains Andy.

The packed programme offers Londoners everything from a current affairs debate with former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe, to a pop opera re-telling of the story of Esther, to a closer look at Dawkins' "God Delusion", or learning how to lindy hop, jitterbug and boogie woogie whilst at the same time hearing from Christian Aid about the impact of climate change on the poor.

Other events, meanwhile, are focusing in on issues painfully close to the heart of Londoners and how the church should tackle them. Most poignantly what the church can do to address the all too frequent incidences of gun and knife crime among the city's young people, as well as other social ills blighting the capital like lingering racism and drug abuse.

Says Frost, "Hopefully for the church it will be a prophetic call to engage with new things and see what difference that can make. The church is already doing great things but it's about how we can continue to grow in that."