This past week my family and I had the great blessing of attending a famous Christian conference that has been held for over 139 years in the same place here in the UK. The conference itself is named after the city of Keswick which is situated right in the middle of the Lake District, one of the most beautiful places in England. The blessing itself didn’t have as much to do with the conference as it did with the ability to get there and the people we got to spend time with. Thanks to the generosity of a few close friends who rented us a cottage in Keswick and the car to get there, we were able to take one of the first family vacations that we have had in a years. God even provided the gas money through another couple of generous friends!
The main conference speaker focused on a few different Psalms, giving an expositional summary of the main themes running through each. The weather was nice the entire week, so hot that we felt like we were melting even though it was only about 25 C (around 80 F). I guess our bodies have acclimated to the Scottish chill.
The Keswick conference is pretty unique, kind of like an Evangelical Christian version of Sturgis in SD (except hardly any motorcycles). The entire town gets taken over for 3 weeks out of the year and there is no registration or attendance cost of any kind. The local businesses make a fortune, so much so that I am sure if there are any atheists in the town they don’t mind the lack of parking and worship songs floating through the air as they drift from the main tent.
My sense of the Keswick conference is that it is very family driven and frequented by all sorts of the aforementioned Evangelical Christians. I didn’t get the vibe that it was very evangelistic at its core but my soon-to-be-teenage-son was really impacted by the youth group events that discussed identity in Christ as their main theme. We had a great time discussing some deeply spiritual things on our walks to and back from the venue.
All in all it was a restful break from the grind of working on a PhD and trying to juggle all of the family stuff associated with summer. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a summer break with come and go as you please conference-like atmosphere. (Also, a side-note for all you single people our there looking for a mate, I have heard countless stories of now married couples that met in Keswick for the first time at this conference. CHA-CHING!!) In summary, we had a really restful week and spent some time with a couple of really cool families that God has put in our lives as a unique and fabulous blessing!
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