Among farmers, actors, musicians, theologians and used car dealers, Greenbelt was a dream born on the unsettled non-conformist edges of the church during the early 1970s.

And a few brave and creative people who had a hunch it might be more interesting on the fringe than at the centre soon found themselves at the first ever Greenbelt festival in 1974 on Prospect Farm in Suffolk—and more and more have joined this founding band each year since then.

The Sun newspaper billed that first festival at 'The Nice People's Pop Festival', but perhaps it was more subversive than it appeared. In the 70s Greenbelt's wholistic take ' Bible in one hand and newspaper in the other ' had a transforming impact on those attending. It was about a 24/7 faith, it was theology with 'no-splits', and it meant, as philosopher and Baptist cleric John Peck, put it, that Greenbelt should help people see 'every area of life as moulded by the Gospel.'

And if the initial draw of the Festival lay in its unashamed celebration of the arts, particularly rock music, the appeal broadened as a growing internationalism emerged from the concerns of festival organisers. Perhaps it was the global perspective of young Anglicans like Garth Hewitt and Graham Cray, or, in the 1980s, June Osborne and Viv Faull, that broadened the aesthetic focus of the non-conformist pioneers, but soon the Festival gained a reputation for introducing people to the UK church who came from places where the struggle for justice was more pressing than, say, 'the baptism of the Holy Spirit'. Among the significant new voices were Nicaraguan minister Gustavo Parajon, South African anti-apartheid activist Caesar Molebatsi and Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Melkite priest from Galilee.

As the evangelical musical subculture dried up, the heart and mind of Greenbelt broadened and strengthened. Soon, artists were invited not just because they were believers or had a distant churchgoing relative, but because their vision overlapped with a biblical one of global justice (Bob Geldof) or engaging with the political powers (Midnight Oil) or was simply fuelled by a divine sense of wonder (Waterboys).

The festival grew yearly in numbers from its initial 2,000 attendance and by the early 1980s, only 10 years later, there were more than 20,000 people coming to Greenbelt each year.

But, for a whole variety of reasons, Festival numbers declined in the 90s. And a series of disastrously wet August Bank Holidays didn't help. Only the loyalty of a small core of committed believers who'd grown up with the Festival kept an increasingly unlikely show on the road. And these believers became Greenbelt's 'Angels'.

In 1999, with attendance at its lowest level since the first festival way back in 1974, Greenbelt moved away from its traditional green-field location and de-camped to Cheltenham Racecourse. In the five years since this move, numbers have nearly quadrupled and in 2004 Greenbelt played host to 17,500 people.

As Greenbelt has cemented its partnership with development agency Christian Aid, Greenbelters have been able to translate debate about political engagement and international injustice into vigorous campaigning. Other organisations have also entered into collaboration from CMS and SPCK, to USPG and YMCA, ICC and The Church Times. Enhancing the festival's identity, they have also helped Greenbelters re-imagine the church as an infectious global conspiracy, working for God's peace, healing and friendship in previously unimagined ways.

This is Greenbelt today.