November 17th -19th …. The Festival of Wonder is back for 2023!

November 17 – 19   2023

The Festival of Wonder is back!  This fantastic Free weekend festival is designed to reawaken wonder is an age of exhaustion with top quality family entertainment.

This outstanding event offers an exciting array of circus, dance and music performances all designed to explore and inspire wonder.  Most events and activities are FREE to attend and open to all ages.  This year’s festival will explore the power, mystery and magic of wonder through circus performance, music, comedy, children’s activities, exhibitions, and reflective space along with food, warmth and community.

A gala performance to fundraise for the festival, which will include a seated performance of the festival circus centrepiece ‘Magnificat!’ as well as comedy folk group Folk On, takes place on Friday 17 November.

Full details and tickets available at www.festivalofwonder.org

Simon Howell, Priest based at St. Laurence: The Stroud Centre for Peace & the Arts adds, ‘On behalf of all at St. Laurence I again welcome the Stroud valleys community to our Festival Church, so named for the succession of our community based festivals such as the Christmas Tree Festival, the Stroud Sacred Music Festival, Hidden Notes Festival, the SHIFT Art & Mental Health Youth Festival and of course this Festival of Wonder.’

Andy Bewley, Associate Director of Giffords Circus and Writer & Director of the Festival’s centrepiece circus performance, ‘Magnificat!’, says ‘We are thrilled to have a number of very exciting and unique acts in this years’ exploration of the magic of wonder.  Artists include an amazing sand artist flying in from Cyprus to share an extraordinary act so rarely seen in this country, and circus legend Gordon Marquez, seen at Giffords in 2022 and one of the world’s great jugglers with such a thrilling and daring act. This is a show that redesigns how people view churches and brings together people of faith and no faith to appreciate a common and universal love, welcoming all into the conversation and the community.’

Please support our crowdfunding campaign by donating at https://festivalofwonder.org

 

Reawakening wonder in an age of exhaustion

St Laurence Church: The Stroud Centre for Peace & the Arts, The Shambles, Stroud GL5 1JL

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In these unprecedented times, we are working hard to find imaginative solutions in a landscape that has been rapidly changing. Sometimes we get things right, and sometimes we miss the mark. I apologise that this has been the case regarding communion.

For those of you who have received wafers in a parcel, we would ask that you either consume them, or put them somewhere safe to bring back once we are able to be together again.

We are going to be sending out a new order of service for use during this time as either a simple service of the word or, on occasion, to help us to share an Agape meal together.

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