Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival
The Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival takes place at Cheltenham race course over the August Bank Holiday weekend at the end of August. It attracts around 20,000 mainly Christian visitors each year and provides an opportunity for people of all ages to come together for a weekend to experience “love, creativity and justice in the arts and contemporary culture in the light of the Christian gospel”.
Every year, NCPO has a presence at the festival with the aim of:
- promoting peace and nonviolence as central to Christianity
- inspiring people to practice active peacemaking and non-violence in daily life
- giving people a deeper understanding of peace and non-violence
One of the main ways in which NCPO does this is by co-ordinating the festival’s ‘Peace Zone’. The Peace Zone is located in the G-Source tent and aims to engage Greenbelt visitors in peace issues through a variety of fun, interactive and educational resources and activities.
In the past, Peace Zone activities have included painting umbrellas for peace, contributing to a giant peace mandala and transforming a tank covered in newspaper stories of war into a colourful ‘think tank’ embodying people’s aspirations for peace. It has also played host to several high profile speakers including Norman Kember and Walter Wink and has taken visitors on a journey through Christian peacemaking from Jesus’ time to the present day.
NCPO also has a presence at the Greenbelt festival via the various talks and workshops on peace and nonviolence. In recent years, these have included ‘From Violence to Wholeness’ workshops and inspiring talks on aspects of peace activism by NCPO members.
In 2009, NCPO will again co-ordinate the festival’s Peace Zone. A pre-festival press release will be posted here closer to the festival weekend.