Inside Focus 2023
Rev'd Mark Broadway from the Margam Ministry Area tells us of his experience at the Focus Conference Weekend 2023
Can noise and silence co-exist? Or excitement and peace?
These are the contrasts that stirred within my head and heart during the Focus 2023 Conference Weekend.
Focus is the Church Revitalisation Trust (think HTB & The Alpha Course) weekend away. It’s a Christian conference and music festival, with incredible children and youth work, serving something like 8,000 people - and 1,000 under 18s - where I and a few others from the parish ventured for a time of refreshment and encouragement.
Rather than camping with friends from the various large churches in attendance, such as Cardiff’s Citizen Church which went with over 200 people, my family and I pitched our tent (and the Margam Calling Banner) in the ‘community space’ with others who had come unaffiliated.
Known for its loud and lavish worship experiences, Focus this year was a little different. Many of those involved have felt that, although there is nothing sinful in lights or drama, the attention had shifted too far over the years - shifting from worship to entertainment. Now, worship can be entertaining, no matter our churchmanship or musical preferences, yet sometimes we can all be guilty of going for the show, rather than going to encounter Jesus.
Accordingly, the worship experience was subdued compared with previous years - more Old Time Gospel, than Coldplay at the CIA. That having been said, to ‘sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs’ along with thousands of others was nothing short of sensational. Even grumpy-old-me couldn’t fail to be touched by ‘Jesus, we love you; we worship and adore you. Glorify your name in all the Earth’ sung acapella in the Big Top.
The main morning speaker, visiting from Brooklyn, Rich Villodas caught the mood. In his opening talk on Psalm 27:1-4 he enjoined us to ‘behold the beauty of God’.
Looking in some detail at the psalm, Rich showed us how, despite the raging of battle and the clamour of violence and war, yet the psalmist beholds the beauty of God and seeks him in the stillness of his sanctuary. This is a picture of the Christian life; in the midst of challenging circumstances, learning to behold God in his beauty is key to our fulfilment.
Rich offered us some timely keys to help us unlock this door:
a) Befriend Silence - Still the noise; not the noise outside of us, but the noise within us. There were incredible moments of stillness and silence as part of the daily offering of worship, both at the daily Eucharists and Morning Prayer but also during Big Top Worship, where several thousand of us would join together in silent prayer. Silence is a wonderful thing in Church, but it is not found by hushing playing children, but by inviting the Holy Spirit to still the disruptive voices within our hearts.
b) Normalise Boredom - Worship God, not our experience. The Christian life is one of moments of powerful and exciting encounter with God, which are sustained by daily, quiet, steady, disciplined worship - even when we don’t experience any excitement. There was plenty of excitement on offer, especially in the Children’s work, with a Pyjama Party, a Pirate theme, and lots of activities - but there was also teaching and study, and an encouragement to dedicated routines.
c) Remember that God beholds us with eyes of love - The story of the Bible is that of God calling us to return his gaze. In Christ, God views us with perfect and unfaltering love; and it is a love that transforms us into new creations. God’s love is a love that makes us lovely; it is a love that draws us to love God in return. Beholding God is to know ourselves beholden by love.
These keys are part of the toolkit that Focus was keen to impart as they sought to resource the threefold vision of the Church Revitalisation Trust: the evangelisation of the nation, the revitalisation of the Church, and the transformation of society.
I think that these three keys are also important for any Christian, and any Church, seeking to behold the beauty of God wherever we might be.