Going to Festivals and Beating the Come-downAndy Freeman - 20 Aug 2014

For loads of you reading this article, summer this year means the chance to go and camp in a field for a few days with hundreds or even thousands of others and attend a festival.

Maybe it’s a music festival, maybe it’s an arts festival, maybe it’s a Christian festival like Soul Survivor or Greenbelt.  

But what do these events really mean in our lives?  Are they just a fun blow-out in a field or can they mean a little bit more?  Here’s three tips for what you bring back from your festival of choice ….

1. Take the time to re-charge

It’s an obvious thing to say but make sure that time away recharges you.  There’s something beautiful and holy in saying that you need a retreat.  Retreats don’t need to be in leafy monasteries but can be in a raucous music festival or a Christian event too – just let yourself do that.  Take time to think and ponder, allow music to speak to you, enjoy talks or art.  Let yourself re-boot.

As a practical step - why not find a solitary spot on the festival site for one hour and try to be still.   Ask yourself how you need to re-charge right now.

                                     

2. Creativity speaks 

The consistent theme of any good festival, whatever type or size, is it’s creativity.  Let that speak to you.  Creativity can unlock incredible things. My favourite story is of Nicholae Moldonveau, a Romanian pastor jailed for his faith in the 80’s.  He wrote music on the window of his cell using soap and the making the notes with his finger.  At the end of the day he committed them to memory and now his songs are sung in churches.  Creativity has the ability to transcend our normal every day thoughts.

So again, if you need a practical idea to get going: try some art or music that you’ve never experienced before and ask God to speak to you.  See what happens

3. Let yourself be challenged 

How many times have we visited an incredible presentation, heard a great talk or read the flyer of an amazing organisation – and then promptly forgotten it.  Even at mainstream music festivals there are plenty of incredible justice movements longing to talk to you.  Go and be challenged.  Let words sink into you and then write them down and remember.  Take a journal.  Ask questions.  Let yourself be pushed out of your comfort zone.  

So another idea: Offer each day of the festival with a simple prayer: "God would you challenge and change me today".  Then see what happens.

All images are used by permission in accordance with commons copyright license terms: Feature image is a derivative of the images 'Festival Aftermath' by Gavin Lynn, '34/52 - muddy wet field' by PhotKing ♛, 'Fatboy Slim, Neapolis Festival' by Daniela Vladimirova and 'Future Music Festival 2013' by Eva Rinaldi