New spiritualities - what's your opinion?

23 March 2009

Church Army researcher Steve Hollinghurst is featured in the April issue of Inspire magazine, answering questions about the imminent 'Reaching Out in Mind Body and Spirit' conference.

This is the first conference of its kind, and will take place at Church Army's Wilson Carlile College in Sheffield, on 24-26 April. It is specifically designed as a place for Christians to come together, and share insights on how to improve ways of relating their faith to new spiritualities.

In Steve's words: "In our culture there has been a great increase of interest in spirituality, and many people consciously or unconsciously are on a spiritual journey. Few, however, look to the Christian tradition as the place to pursue this spiritual journey; rather they are exploring all sorts of areas of faith and spiritual practice from outside the Christian faith."

Steve sees the initial challenge for Christians is to understand these 'spiritual travellers', as he terms them, relating our own Christian faith journeys to theirs. In fact, Christians have already taken steps to do this, by holding stalls at New Age events, card reading, creation liturgy, and even venues at rock festivals.

Naturally, Steve sees the conference as a fantastic opportunity to take the Gospel into this growing and diverse spiritual community. "I am very excited. It will allow us to come up with ideas on how to contribute to the growth of the kind of Christian communities that can sustain spiritual travellers in their faith journeys, most of whom have at present little or no connection with the Church."

Read the entire article as published by Inspire magazine here.

To see a short film about Steve, follow this link.

For more information about the conference, contact Church Army on 0114 272 7451.

 

Church Army asked for YOUR OPINION on new spirituality, and that poll is now closed.

Please follow this link to see the results of the poll.