Hope in our Hands
2025 Act of Communion
It’s said that human beings can survive about five weeks without food, and about five days without water, but we can’t survive five minutes without hope.
Give to the communion offeringTurning our hands toward making the world better
In our 2025 gathering, we focussed on human hands — the creative work they can do, as well as the damage; the capacity of human hands to create a hopeful future empowered by God.
We shared bread and wine as an act of resistance to despair. We sung and shouted our belief that Christ is Lord… which means Caesar is not. We turned our hands toward making the world better. We resolved to live in the light of the freedom that we choose to believe is coming tomorrow.
Those who led the Act of Communion have all had experience of having their hands tied — being marginalised or excluded.
In our 2025 gathering, we focussed on human hands — the creative work they can do, as well as the damage; the capacity of human hands to create a hopeful future empowered by God.
We shared bread and wine as an act of resistance to despair. We sung and shouted our belief that Christ is Lord… which means Caesar is not. We turned our hands toward making the world better. We resolved to live in the light of the freedom that we choose to believe is coming tomorrow.
Those who led the Act of Communion have all had experience of having their hands tied — being marginalised or excluded.
Listen & Watch again
You can listen to audio of the communion service here, as well as download the order of service and the script (below).
We filmed the service and will be making that available to watch once it’s been mixed and edited. Watch this space.
You can listen to audio of the communion service here, as well as download the order of service and the script (below).
We filmed the service and will be making that available to watch once it’s been mixed and edited. Watch this space.
Order of Service & Script
If you’d like to follow the service as it unfolds, download the order of service and script so you can join in with the prayers and songs and know what’s coming next.
If you’d like to follow the service as it unfolds, download the order of service and script so you can join in with the prayers and songs and know what’s coming next.
Our giving
Your generous giving to this year’s Communion will again be split 50/50.
50% will stay with Greenbelt to help us safeguard the future of the festival and make sure we can keep creating a place to believe in.
The other 50% will go to relief and restoration projects in Gaza through the work of our friends at Christian Aid.
THANK YOU for supporting Greenbelt and the people of Gaza through this offering.
Your generous giving to this year’s Communion will again be split 50/50.
50% will stay with Greenbelt to help us safeguard the future of the festival and make sure we can keep creating a place to believe in.
The other 50% will go to relief and restoration projects in Gaza through the work of our friends at Christian Aid.
THANK YOU for supporting Greenbelt and the people of Gaza through this offering.
Cast and Crew
TW0:23 an inclusive community of believers providing online and face to face community for LGBT+ Christians. They organise the Fruitful conferences for affirming evangelical churches, and support churches on their journey towards inclusion.
REV SUE PARFITT one of the first women to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England. The church doesn’t currently allow her to minister because she is facing charges following her activism on Palestine and the climate emergency.
ADJOA ANDOH an actor who has appeared on stage and screen with the RSC and National Theatre. In 2014 she gave an acclaimed TED talk about parenting a trans child.
SARAH CORBETT Greenbelt’s ‘Craftivist in Residence’ a campaigner who has developed a ‘gentle protest’ approach to activism.
SETH PINNOCK the founder and leader of the Symphony Collective, an organisation dedicated to empowering young people from underserved communities through arts, academics, and advocacy. Last year he came out as queer.
MARAL MAMAGHANIZADEH a deaf Iranian artist, her work exploring the barriers she encounters in everyday life; being deaf, female, and a refugee.
MARY-JAYNE DE RUSSELL CLIFFORD a deaf theatre-maker, and mother to a creative, autistic teenage son.
CHRISSIE CHEVASUTT a writer who is supported by St Columba’s Church, Oxford as an outreach and development worker with the transgender, intersex and non-binary community.
EZRA SOLANKY a 10 year-old Greenbelter
Thanks to Paul Northup, Nicola Hambridge and Andrew Graystone.
TW0:23 an inclusive community of believers providing online and face to face community for LGBT+ Christians. They organise the Fruitful conferences for affirming evangelical churches, and support churches on their journey towards inclusion.
REV SUE PARFITT one of the first women to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England. The church doesn’t currently allow her to minister because she is facing charges following her activism on Palestine and the climate emergency.
ADJOA ANDOH an actor who has appeared on stage and screen with the RSC and National Theatre. In 2014 she gave an acclaimed TED talk about parenting a trans child.
SARAH CORBETT Greenbelt’s ‘Craftivist in Residence’ a campaigner who has developed a ‘gentle protest’ approach to activism.
SETH PINNOCK the founder and leader of the Symphony Collective, an organisation dedicated to empowering young people from underserved communities through arts, academics, and advocacy. Last year he came out as queer.
MARAL MAMAGHANIZADEH a deaf Iranian artist, her work exploring the barriers she encounters in everyday life; being deaf, female, and a refugee.
MARY-JAYNE DE RUSSELL CLIFFORD a deaf theatre-maker, and mother to a creative, autistic teenage son.
CHRISSIE CHEVASUTT a writer who is supported by St Columba’s Church, Oxford as an outreach and development worker with the transgender, intersex and non-binary community.
EZRA SOLANKY a 10 year-old Greenbelter
Thanks to Paul Northup, Nicola Hambridge and Andrew Graystone.