Lucy Smith on the Time To Turn gathering

Time to Turn is a movement of young people in the Netherlands who want to lead a sustainable and just way of life, based on their faith in Jesus Christ. They provide each other with study materials, campaigns and inspiration, and together speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. Time to Turn started as an educational project about 10 years ago, but is now a network, and this was their third network gathering. The event began with a welcome and an introduction to the theme of the weekend – consumerism. There was an interesting debate on Friday evening about whether we can be rich and a Christian. Should we live simply or is it OK to be rich sometimes? Should we just give 10% and do what we like with the rest, or did Jesus preach a new way of thinking about money? In the morning, we heard an inspiring talk by a British guy who had had everything – money, success, expensive possessions - and yet a series of events had left him homeless in Amsterdam. He heard God tell him to enter a Christian hostel, and the rest is history! As well as being enthusiastic about his new found faith, he also passionately believes in living simply and trusting God. He himself has no possessions. There were some great workshops centred on the theme of consumerism, but also on globalisation, silence with God, and drama. On Saturday afternoon, we took to the streets for International Buy Nothing Day. It was a busy shopping day in the beautiful city of Utrecht. We engaged shoppers with drama, gave free hugs, and made ‘trash into treasure’ to give to passers-by. The creative, playful way we engaged with shoppers meant that they were happy to listen and didn’t feel threatened or guilty for shopping! It was wonderful to spend time with our friends in the Netherlands and we all felt inspired by what we had heard. TTT will be continuing the Consumerism theme in their campaigns over the winter. One creative campaign tool they are distributing is a scratch-card style Advent Calendar – under each panel is a simple suggestion to help you break your addiction to consumerism. This is really cool because hopefully it will influence people as they think about their Christmas shopping. Can SPEAK UK take this on?