Canopy 2022: Having Our Cake and Eating It
by Martin Hodson, General Director
We are delighted to announce that this year there will be two Canopy events. Canopy Summer on Saturday 11 June in Dunblane and Canopy Online on the weekend of 28-30 October.
Let me explain.
For the last two years Canopy has been a tremendously encouraging opportunity for Baptist churches around Scotland to connect, share and encourage one another. The pandemic forced us to create an online gathering and this proved to have many benefits: people from remote parts of the country could join in as easily as those in the central belt, and for the first time we held a shared Sunday worship service for congregations across the country.
The down side of Canopy has been that we have missed the chance for the informal conversations and networking that come with a face-to-face onsite event. With the easing of pandemic restrictions we recognised there is a real appetite for an event where we can come together in the same place.
We toyed with the idea of creating a hybrid event for 2022 but we soon realised we could not do this well and would likely end up with the worst of both worlds.
Instead we decided to have both an onsite and an online event. The plan is to have our cake and eat it!
Canopy Summer
So on Saturday 11 June Canopy Summer will happen at Dunblane High School. It will be a day of worship, teaching, sharing and having fun together. The adult programme will include a morning session with a guest speaker, seminars in the afternoon and a plenary session at the end of the day. Alongside these there will be a programme for youth and children, plus sports and activities for all ages in the afternoon (under the June sunshine!). Throughout the day there will be plenty of time to meet, talk and eat with others. W
Canopy Online
We hope people from across the country will join for Canopy Summer, but we know for many the advantages of joining an event online will be compelling. So on 28-30 October Canopy will be online again, including the now familiar content including a national prayer night, Bible teaching, inspiring stories from our churches, seminars and the online material for Sunday morning worship.
Connecting with one another across our network is a source of refreshment and strength, building us up in Christ and encouraging us to bold and imaginative acts of faithful obedience to Jesus as we learn from one another. I hope you will join at least one Canopy event. Or better still, have your cake and eat it by coming to both!
