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Category: Fresh Expressions

Sanctum | Sacramental Alt:Worship

Sue Wallace, Eddie Green and I got together yesterday to talk about the future of Sanctum and plan the next annual conference.  This year’s shindig is at College of the Resurrection Mirfield from 30th July to the 1st August.  Tickets will be available in the next week or so.  Put it in your diary!

The Sanctum Logo

Now that I’ve told you about that, I have a few reflections from the day.  From my perspective, the best thing about meeting together in person was having the time to discuss our vision for the future.  “What exactly is Sanctum is for?” is the question I was keen to explore.  We’ve always said we are:

“A network of emerging sacramental  
practitioners and dreamers. 
To worship, recharge,
share ideas, pray and support in mission”.

So we talked about being creative and making space to enable others to be creative in worship.  On a personal level that means a renewed commitment to sharing resources that Ruth and I create.  This year we have planned to record more of the liturgical music we have written in ways that are accessible and freely available.  We also plan to do forms of notation and chord sheets to go with them.  So I will have to look in the next few weeks at how this blog is used.  Perhaps it is time for a redesign?  Importantly, I need to find time for some administration and a commitment to curating resources.

Secondly, I would like to find ways to create space for people to collaborate and find creative ways to create resources.  This may mean providing days for people to come together in different locations around the country to write, build, cut, stick, pixel push and develop resources together.  I am also wondering if there is a need to do this across the internet of things.  It may be good to start places to creatively splurge in the Sanctum Connect group based on a topic.

Thirdly, Ruth and I are consciously making space to write music together.  We’re off on a song writing retreat in the summer.  I will probably blog more about this in a separate post.

After Sanctum 2018

Sanctum held its fourth gathering of Sacramental Alt:Worshippers last week in the iconic if a little sun scorched grounds of the monastery church of The Community of The Resurrection.

What a melting pot for sharing good practice and cultivating ideas it has become. As I looked at the delegates eating lunch on the final day I realised, it wasn’t those of us who organise the conference that were important, it was those who came. A Canadian priest with a new intentional community forming in her rectory sharing experience with a vicar’s husband from a village in Wales. A guy from the USA coming on sabbatical to look at how the UK is blending the ancient traditions of the apostolic faith with the modern – or as Sue Wallace calls it, “Ancient Future Faith”.

Sanctum has grown and evolved in the last four years and begun to flourish. What was a place to come together with friends and talk about our passion for making accessible and creative worship that engages people is now a place to meet new people, new creatives and for new networks to be formed. Sanctum is now a place where fresh minds meet others with the same desire to see people engaging afresh with the Christian faith.

I’ll post about content in a later post when I’ve had chance to look at some of the footage. 

Nova by VNV Nation, Nova | Alternative Hymnal

Why is Robb sharing electronica?  Who can say?  It’s not normally my kind of thing but when we were running the charity stall at Whitby Goth Weekend this came out of my friend’s iPod and I really like it. Electronic goth/industrial – no spandex in sight.

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