Saturday 23 November marked the inaugural Cotswold Bible Festival. Around 700 adults and children converged on the festival town of Cheltenham for a day of thought-provoking Bible teaching, excel-lent music and a whole host of seminars and fun activities.
The event was conceived by a group of like-minded local evangelical Christian leaders who were keen to run a Keswick-style event for churches across the Cotswolds. The vision for the event came together a year ago, with encouraging conversations with Jonathan Lamb and James Robson at Keswick Ministries leading to the formation of ‘Keswick Gloucestershire’ in association with the Keswick Fellowship – a network of similar events across the country. The event itself was given separate branding to help draw in those who were less familiar with ‘Keswick’, and to allow for other events to be run under the ‘Keswick Gloucestershire’ banner in the future.
Tapping into the festival heritage of Cheltenham, the Cotswold Bible Festival’s three watchwords for the day were Encourage, Equip and Enjoy.
Equipped
The adult Bible teaching by Vaughan Roberts was three sessions on the book of Habakkuk, under the title ‘From Why to Worship – Trusting God in Troubled Times’.
Nearly 150 youth and children gathered for their own ‘Festival Kids’ programme, also based on Habakkuk. This was a considerable undertaking, ably run by two local Christian charities, Youth For Christ Gloucestershire and Camp XL (based in Worcestershire). They were supported by a large team of willing volunteers from local churches.
Popular seminars about trusting God were also organised, led by: Paul Mallard on growing through disappointment’; Ed & Christa Moll on parenting; The Christian Institute on gospel freedom; Home for Good on adoption and fostering; and South West Agencies Network on mission. Together these sought to equip delegates to deal with challenging times whilst holding fast to God’s promises.
Encouraged
There was wonderful singing, led by EMU Music for the adults, and new band DumbRocks for the children. Many useful resources were provided by a 10ofThose bookstall and a selection of exhibitors.
There was a tremendous sense of partnership through the day and, all in all, over 100 volunteers helped steward, serve teas and coffees, and keep everything running smoothly.
Enjoyed
The day was also enjoyable! At lunch around 400 portions of Hog Roast were served, and afterwards a ‘Festival Fun’ area was set up with giant games and puzzles provided by Clownfish Events (Matt Turner the CEO is an evangelical with a passion for supporting such events).
Overall it was a very encouraging time, and the Keswick Gloucestershire committee are grateful to God for how smoothly it went. Already planning is underway for next year’s Cotswold Bible Festival on 21 November 2020. The main speaker will be Hugh Palmer from All Soul’s Church in London. The committee anticipate the event will sell out after the popularity this year. The website is currently being updated with the talks and photos from 2019, with booking information for the 2020 event available early in the New Year.
