A partnership of St Peter’s Barge, the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and several Christian networks within Canary Wharf, held a week-long event entitled a Festival of Thought, in late February.
Events took place during lunchtimes and early evenings hosted by groups of Christians who work in various companies based in Canary Wharf (Wharfites) and by St Peter’s Barge. The Barge is known as London’s floating church where regular lunchtime meetings are held for Wharfites, as well as being the base for church meetings on Sundays. The Festival of Thought was the biggest event the Barge had been involved in.
Lunchtime events
The ownership for all the events of the week ‘on land’ was very much in the hands of the individual company networks who benefitted from being part of a big Wharf-wide festival. During the 13 lunchtime events hosted by six different groups, and three evening events hosted by three different companies, hundreds were brought to consider Jesus’s claims.
The Festival took place with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby (his daily video message is available on www.festivalofthought.buzz including one which gives a summary of the Christian message). Alongside speakers like Indonesia’s first Supermodel and the former Chief Secretary of Hong Kong were Amy Orr-Ewing and Michael Ramsden of the Zacharius Trust (the European branch of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries). The events focused on many hot topics including integrity in the workplace, happiness, suffering, power, and being a person of substance in a complicated world. Each event ended with a ‘Q & A’, and two sessions in the week were devoted to answering any question raised by those in attendance.
Feedback forms were filled in at each session and 31 ‘Count Me Ins’ and many ‘Tell Me Mores’ showed a positive interest from those who attended.
The Barge will be running Christianity Explored courses for those who want to investigate further. At this stage there are no plans to run a future Festival of Thought, but the format was used across the country in the surrounding weeks. A week in Scotland and one in Bournemouth University took place where people kept returning to events and many signed up for a follow-up course.
