Grown up Christianity

Tried unsuccessfully to find Muskegon’s Town Centre.

It's a weird by product of building out of town Malls that in some communities there is no town centre. We experienced this in Grand Rapids, where there is a business and arts complex but no real shops and few restaurants.

As far as we could see Muskegon hadn’t got any centre at all. Lots of buildinng projects but no shops. They had a nice art gallery and an adequate museum but no where to get a coffee, or even a drink.

Talking to a local youth worker he said that locals were happy because there was no youth problems in the town centre: tried to say that’s not surprising as there is no centre.
This afternoon we went to the Unity Festival in Muskegon, which is a huge Christian music festival, with twenty (plus) thousand people on a beautiful day at the harbour park. The festival has a twin aim, fun but also an opportunity to sign up to do things. It was interesting to see the providers of basic needs and advice and to find out their approach. They were enthusiastic to say the least but also ecumenical and imaginative in what they did. My favourite group was the Suds group who had set up a wash place and launderette for those on the streets or in poverty to get clean.
This was grown up Christianity and the music was pretty grown up to.

I expected to feel very alien and foreign but I felt very at home and challenged to do more.

It would be hard to leave the event unaffected...

At the very least it was exhausting we didn't have a chair!