Greenbelt I realise doesn't do fame in the same way that other Festivals do - so there was a poetic image of Brian McClaren attempting to lead his first session with a huge crowd with a failed PA. The substitute was a good old fashioned load hailer which he wielded manfully through a 180 degree arch - so I heard about 30% of what he was saying - which is rather appropriate for a post-modern specialist.
The later panel on the emerging Church was even more interesting. A too big a panel ( a constant Greenbelt frustration which substitutes quantity for quality in the name of inclusiveness) included emerging practioners and Brian McClaren and they were asked to introduce themselves and say what was distinctive about their local emerging Church in three sentences.
Brian forgot to say who he was, and then talked about other peoples experience of emerging Church across the world for rather too long - he must have assumed that being Brian McClaren everyone would know who he is.
Greenbelt however has its prophetic edge - as we left at the end of the session the woman in front in the exit queue turned to me and said:
" I found that really interesting - but who was the garrulous American?"
The too bigger panel meant also that we heard only snippets of each Church's experience - and the inevitable happened in that the person who perhaps had the most to contribute to the UK context, Karen Ward from the Church of Apostles had very little chance to contribute. While it was excellent that most of the panel were women - I can't help noticing that it was the black person who was passed by the compere.
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