In early October the Kaleidoscope team hosted their first festival celebrating the impact of creativity through ChristCentral. Called ‘Kollide' this was a day gathering creatives and those excited about how God’s gifts of creativity can make a difference in our world!

The Kaleidoscope team have really enjoyed being part of the Devoted festival in previous years but were super excited to be able to host an event solely dedicated to celebrating God’s gifts of creativity and how they’re sharpening the church and shaping the culture.

Stoking The Embers
The theme this year was ‘stoking the embers’ and we were struck by how challenging the season has been for so many of us with the pandemic and all sorts of other societal impacts over recent years.

We started the day with a time of worship so ably led by Andy Lowe, our first time of worship demonstrated how we can use creativity and different music styles to give glory to God and engage our bodies and minds in creativity as well as welcome the presence of God without having to use one style of music.

We then launched into the first of our networking and exhibition sections where we were able to spend time looking at the various creative exhibitions and stands. We were also able to meet one another and discuss various aspects of creativity as well as find like minded individuals to encourage and equip one another. These times were an excellent way of encouraging each other in the different ways we are expressing the creativity we’ve each been given.

How can we create art that engages people outside of the church?
Following on from this Jonny Mellor (Co-Founder of Sputnik) addressed us asking the question: "How can we create art that engages people outside the church?"

This was a challenging talk as Jonny sought to root out a common pitfall that christian artists can fall into, the expectation that art made by christians should directly communicate the gospel. He reminded us that art can forcefully communicate all sorts of messages but often if that is our motivating emphasis, then it can fail completely. He encouraged us that art can be most effective at communicating faith when artists powerfully engage in their tradition, learning from masters, respecting those who have gone before and studying their particular discipline over a period of time. This was so helpful in inspiring us as artists to see our various avenues of creativity as a way of engaging people in a conversation about faith which is open hearted and that expresses love, compassion and care to those who it is communicating to, art that contributes to the conversation.

We later enjoyed three creative workshops: Prophetic Creative, Creative Writing & Collaborative Songwriting workshop

Over the lunch break we were again able to network with other creatives and we also heard from a number of the performance artists who joined us, a poet, a songwriter and then there was the first performance of one of the songs which was shared during the collaborative songwriting workshop.

Andy then led us again in a completely different time of worship and we broke out into networking groups again to round up the day.

To Go Far We Must Go Together
One fantastic prophetic encouragement came from Ali, one of the Kaleidoscope team, she shared a prophetic word encouraging us that when the whole body works together it gives power to the diaphragm and enables the body to sing with a more powerful voice. We have a real sense that this was a deeply significant contribution and links in with what Jeremy spoke about during his ChristCentral Sunday talk about Koinonia / Partnership, how "if we want to go fast, we go alone, but if we want to go far, we go together”.

A Deep Well
It was wonderful to connect with others who are of a similar mind and heart. The day really felt like a breakthrough in many ways as we gathered together.

There was a sense that this is a deep well and that as we reach in to what God wants to do with us in this area as a family of churches that we will find fresh water that quenches peoples thirst, that as we develop this, it will fuel mission and kingdom work for generations to come.

Details of Kollide 2023 will be available soon!