Andrea Campanale
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Name: Andrea Campanale Location: UK My role: I founded and run Sacred Space Kingston, a mission project and fresh expression of church, finding creative ways to express Christianity and resonating with spiritual seekers. My call: I am called to people in the UK who would describe themselves as “spiritual” rather than “religious”. Continued over the page The call in action Dear friends, SpiritSpace Thank you for your prayers for the SpiritSpace online gathering I mentioned in my previous letter. On Sunday 1 November 2020 we launched this initiative for spiritual seekers to experience Jesus- inspired art, meditations and prayer ministry. This has been born out of the virtual North American Burning Man Festival that took place last August. Led by Colin Brice from Eden People Guildford, with Simon Tierney, a former CMS pioneer student, Dee Cunniffe and Hope Deifell, who is in the States, the SpiritSpace team bring together contributions from artists, poets and musicians at 8–10pm (UK time) on the first Sunday of each month. An image of the Tree of Life has become a powerful metaphor for what we are seeking to achieve. In the main Zoom room themes such as bridges, fire and light, and streams in the wasteland have been explored. These provide wonderful opportunities for creatives to produce resources that are appropriate for this audience, while still being authentically Christian. They can now be viewed on the SpiritSpace Camp YouTube channel. I have been pleased to create and contribute some videos there myself. In our gatherings there’s also the option of small group or one-to-one encounters in breakout rooms. These include dream sensing, inner healing, body blessing and Ruach card readings. For a number of years I’ve been thinking about using the format of a worship service contextualised for the people I’m seeking to reach out to with the love of God. At our last SpiritSpace I really felt like we were beginning to achieve that. There were videos that brought Scripture to us, which led to a discussion about hope and the sharing of different people’s experience of journeying towards greater self acceptance and wholeness. One of the meditations using the image of a flash flood functioned as a confession and then another of the team sang a gentle song of praise and gratitude, which we were encouraged to join in with as we became familiar with it. However, we are not in any way trying to force this. Rather we are seeking to prayerfully discern together where the Spirit wants to lead us. We are sensitive and kind, allowing God to meet people and touch them where they need it most. Remarkably, the screen is no barrier to that at all! Around 30–40 people now interact with us over the two hours, and we are beginning to see some people come back time after time who really feel part of the community we are building. There are folk in Australia and France who regularly attend, as well as from all over the US and UK. This is a comment from one of the visitors to SpiritSpace, “I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the entire SpiritSpace family. I cannot even imagine the amount of time, planning and energy required to provide the healing and love that all of you give to us. It is my third time here. I come here because I feel completely accepted for who Andrea Campanale Link Letter no. 22 | April 2021 churchmissionsociety.org/campanale The Tree of Life has become a powerful metaphor for the SpiritSpace online gathering. (Image copyright Evie Mowbray 2021.)
Transcript of Andrea Campanale
Name: Andrea Campanale
Location: UK
My role: I founded and run Sacred Space Kingston, a mission project and fresh expression of church, finding creative ways to express Christianity and resonating with spiritual seekers.
My call: I am called to people in the UK who would describe themselves as “spiritual” rather than “religious”.
Continued over the page
The call in action
Dear friends,
SpiritSpaceThank you for your prayers for the SpiritSpace online gathering I
mentioned in my previous letter. On Sunday 1 November 2020 we launched this initiative for spiritual seekers to experience Jesus-inspired art, meditations and prayer ministry. This has been born out of the virtual North American Burning Man Festival that took place last August. Led by Colin Brice from Eden People Guildford, with Simon Tierney, a former CMS pioneer student, Dee Cunniffe and Hope Deifell, who is in the States, the SpiritSpace team bring together contributions from artists, poets and musicians at 8–10pm (UK time) on the first Sunday of each month. An image of the Tree of Life has become a powerful metaphor for what we are seeking to achieve. In the main Zoom room themes such as bridges, fire and light, and streams in the wasteland have been explored. These provide wonderful opportunities for creatives to produce resources that are appropriate for this audience, while still being authentically Christian. They can now be viewed on the SpiritSpace Camp YouTube channel. I have been pleased to create and contribute some videos there myself. In our gatherings there’s also the option of small group or one-to-one encounters in breakout rooms. These include dream sensing, inner healing, body blessing and Ruach card readings.
For a number of years I’ve been thinking about using the format of a worship service contextualised for the people I’m seeking to reach out to with the love of God. At our last SpiritSpace I really felt like we were beginning to achieve that. There were videos that brought Scripture to us, which led to a discussion about hope and the sharing of different people’s experience of journeying towards greater self acceptance and wholeness. One of the meditations using the image of a flash flood functioned as a confession and then another of the team sang a gentle song of praise and gratitude, which we were encouraged to join in with as we became familiar with it. However, we are not in any way trying to force this. Rather we are seeking to prayerfully discern together where the Spirit wants to lead us.
We are sensitive and kind, allowing God to meet people and touch them where they need it most. Remarkably, the screen is no barrier to that at all! Around 30–40 people now interact with us over the two hours, and we are beginning to see some people come back time after time who really feel part of the community we are building. There are folk in Australia and France who regularly attend, as well as from all over the US and UK. This is a comment from one of the visitors to SpiritSpace, “I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the entire SpiritSpace family. I cannot even imagine the amount of time, planning and energy required to provide the healing and love that all of you give to us. It is my third time here. I come here because I feel completely accepted for who
Andrea CampanaleLink Letter no. 22 | April 2021
churchmissionsociety.org/campanale
The Tree of Life has become a powerful metaphor for the SpiritSpace online gathering.
(Image copyright Evie Mowbray 2021.)
I am… I also come here for hope, inspiration, insight, awareness, healing, discernment, kindness, generosity, and compassion. I also come here for empowerment and it is my hope that I can return the same with each person I interact with, continuing to expand the tree of life.” Please pray that we continue to grow the network of seekers we’re engaging with, that they encounter Christ and want to pursue a relationship with him.
ShameIn January, I finally had the paper I’d presented in Australia in the summer of 2018 published in the academic
journal, Missiology. I am currently working on putting together a special edition of Anvil on the issue of shame, to be published in the summer. This will include articles on race and shame and the issue of shame and food poverty. I am now working on a new paper for Missiology on insider movements and what they might be able to teach us doing mission with the spiritual but not religious. This could include those who consider themselves pagans, or a part of the new age movement.
Sacred Space KingstonDespite being unable to meet in person, Sacred Space
Kingston has continued to meet online both for socials and to do a Lent group using the Sarx app looking at Christianity and animals. We were able to do an interactive virtual labyrinth together and I preached at St John’s for the first Sunday of Lent, broadcast on Facebook live. I have committed to preach once a month at St John’s, having now been approved as a Licensed Lay Pioneer in Southwark Diocese, and Sacred Space has finally been awarded their Bishop’s Mission Order. However, we are waiting until we can have a service with the Bishop before these developments are made official and public.
CMS PioneerIn my part-time paid role for CMS as Pioneer Network
Developer, we started training 15 pioneers in a new St Albans hub in January. A second round of training is now underway in the Bath and Wells hub and we are going to be piloting a new pre-hub course called “Edge of the map” on the Birchfield Estate in Yeovil after Easter. On 21 April the annual CMS Pioneer Conversations Day called Gather will be hosted in Gather.town, an online platform with a festival feel and various virtual venues for different activities. I’ll be responsible for the Starfish rooftop cocktail lounge, and we plan to facilitate conversations for pioneers on chaplaincy, the arts and youth work, among other things. In the evening a DJ will entertain us and there’s also the option of trips to the moon! I’d particularly value prayer that this goes well and we’ll be able to get potential new hubs off the ground in Cornwall, the eastern region of England and Republic of Ireland.
With love and blessings,
Andrea
Photos from top to bottom: A screen grab from a video I created for SpiritSpace, using the theme of bridges, shown
in January; The SpiritSpace team connecting on Zoom; A new pioneer hub was launched in St Albans in January.
Church Mission Society is a mission community acknowledged by the Church of England Registered Company No. 6985330 and Registered Charity No. 1131655 (England and Wales) and SC047163 (Scotland).
You can give to Andrea at: churchmissionsociety.org/campanale
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