The Grand Experiment
Foundations goes virtual
I remember the day well, as it was my birthday. A good friend, an NHS doctor had video-called me
and told me, in no uncertain terms, that Foundations 13, at The Hayes, Derbyshire – just six weeks
away – must be cancelled unless I wanted deaths on my hand. I was torn, as to cancel a God-inspired
conference after months of planning was not a happy prospect, yet the only alternative was to make
it an on-line, virtual conference. A virtual conference? Unthinkable! Many proposed Christian
celebrations and conferences were duly cancelled at the cost, in some cases, of over a million
pounds! Some were re-imagined online, usually as video of speakers and worship groups streamed
over Facebook or YouTube. If Foundations was going online, in my eyes, it had to be a Foundations
experience, otherwise I didn’t see the point. The Grand Experiment was birthed …
Now, two months later, we are still reeling. A three day conference, taking up forty hours of Zoom
time, brought over 120 people together – without ever meeting in the flesh – and, on Monday
afternoon, when we were trying to pull the plug on an exhausting conference, many still wanted to
hang around! It was an unqualified success and over a third of the delegates have sent us their
thanks and their testimonies since then. God moved among His people in ways that we couldn’t
have imagined or hoped for. Hallelujah! Every person who stated that they were ‘reluctant’
attendees were won over and told us so! How could this be? How on earth did fellowship flourish in
cyber-space, how did 120 people, by the end of the three days, conquer the impersonal nature of a
virtual world and allow God to turn it around to a positive experience? It is too early to unpack this
but, be assured, an article will appear in the next edition of Sword to tackle this!
God was very much in the details. We were able to experience a three day Sabbath, with opening
and closing rituals, fun games as ice-breakers – charades, a quiz, a jokeathon and marshmallow
construction – we had two excellent worship teams, one in Scunthorpe, the other in Rotherham
(with help from the Wirral). Our three excellent Bible teachers covered the first four
commandments, with lengthy Q&A sessions afterwards, all managed by an unseen team of 15 “cohosts”.
Workshops took us into a flat in Northern Ireland to learn Hebrew, a dining room in London
to understand Hebraic Church, a lounge in Rotherham (and in the Home Counties) for Hebraic
dance, a kitchen in the Wirral to discover fermenting and a mock kitchen on our dining room table
where Monica instructed us all how to make pots out of salt dough! And don’t get me started on the
teddy bear bathroom choir! All pumped into our safe spaces through the internet. If this was
lockdown, then many bodies, hearts and minds were thoroughly unlocked!
The next Foundations conference is Foundations 14, on October 5-9
th. This will either be at Sidholme
Hotel, Devon, or it will also be a virtual experience if lockdown is still in force for our delegates.
Contact Steve nearer to the time to find out more at 07885 941848