If you happen to visit St Luke’s over the August bank holiday weekend, you’d be forgiven for thinking the congregation is a little on the sparse side. That’s because a lot of St Lukers decamp to Cheltenham for the weekend for the Greenbelt Festival. If you haven’t heard of Greenbelt, it’s a fantastic faith, arts and justice festival, where around 20,000 people descend on Cheltenham Racecourse to listen to great music, learn and debate at talks and seminars, spend time catching up with old friends and new, and chill out in the famous Tiny Tea Tent (and hopefully stay dry - last year’s torrential rain turned the site into a mudbath!).

St Luke’s has a long association with Greenbelt. Many of our members are involved in running and overseeing different parts of the festival – you might see a few familiar faces on the programme, too. For many years, Greenbelt even had its offices in St Luke’s (that was before we opened up the east aisle of the church and installed our swanky new kitchen).

To learn more about our favourite festival, check out the website at www.greenbelt.org.uk. This year is Greenbelt’s 40th birthday, and there’ll be lots of exciting events happening over the weekend.

However, if you’re in London on Sunday, rest assured St Luke’s will still be open for business. There’ll be an 11am service as usual, and friendly faces to greet you. The rest of us will see you when we get back!