Tony Cummings visited Harrogate and Skegness to catch some of the sights and sounds of the long-running worship and teaching events SPRING HARVEST

I sit in a just about empty bar close to the glass doors where mums, dads and kids are milling around Splash Waterworld. Momentarily, I wish I'd brought my swimming trunks. Instead, I make my way over to an unsurprisingly quiet gathering at the Lakeside venue who are undertaking a Contemplative Prayer session.

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I find myself sitting at a table talking to a friendly man with a lot of media connections. After praising the wonderful work of Spring Harvest, he then goes on to make the salient point that not only is big beautiful (and 20+ thousand attendees make SH still one of the biggest Christian events in Europe), so is small. He goes on to praise the faithful work of Britain's micro fest KingsStock, which this year clocks up its own 10 year anniversary. I agree with him in hoping that some of the Spring Harvesters who this year caught the Skegness After Hours concerts of Philippa Hanna and Paul Bell (who in the past has been a regular KingsStock artist) will make the trek to Moggerhanger Park in Bedfordshire to attend that cutting edge music event.

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This year, Spring Harvest are working in close conjunction with Mercy Ships, the amazing hospital ships which deliver free world-class health care services to more than 56 countries. In the Big Top Main Celebration, a short film shows truly moving scenes of patients receiving surgery to alleviate blindness and deformities. A particular scene of a poor African lady with an appalling football-size growth on her neck returning to her village to be hugged by her loved ones, who are literally dancing with delight, is so moving the lady sitting next to me is actually weeping. Spring Harvest are to be commended for their support of such a noble work as Mercy Ships.

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Lou Fellingham

Lou Fellingham is in good voice and with her excellent band leads worship with passion and sensitivity. Lou sings a song from her new album 'Made For You' and a powerful rendition of "Reckless Love". Wherever I look around the packed Big Top I see people - grandfathers and teenagers, black and white - with hands raised in praise. Lou is followed by Riding Lights, who do a clever retelling of the Esther Bible story from the angle of two of King Xerxes's empty-headed concubines. Then we're ready for the preach, which this evening comes from Celia Apeagyei-Collins. Celia speaks all over the world and is renowned for her impact across Africa, so to get the president of the Rehoboth Foundation to Skegness is no mean feat. Her sermon on the need for perseverance in prayer ties in so neatly with the Rev Appiagyei's message that it's uncanny. The only flaw in this presentation is that Celia is a very rapid-tongued speaker, and this time there are no subtitles to help us catch every phrase. But what we do hear is truly impacting.

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Spring Harvest are to be congratulated in acknowledging their 40th anniversary without over-egging the pudding. To acknowledge its roots and honour its pioneers, Spring Harvest has brought preacher Clive Calver, worship man Graham Kendrick and children's ministry specialist Ishmael to minister at various days and times. Clive Calver's words in the programme strike me particular powerfully: "Most of us live secure in the knowledge that 'what our god has done in the past, he could choose to repeat!' But we cannot live in a narrow framework, simply expecting the God who worked forty years ago to do the same again. Today, with all its spiritual, political and environmental challenges, we need to pray and expect God to move in new and unseen ways. Living in the past is not enough."

The After Hours attraction for tonight is Ishmael, who will be playing a set at the Reds venue. Earlier in the day I had planned to stay up for Ish's concert, but as I walk from the Big Top, it is thoughts of my chalet and the comfortable bed which are more appealing, particularly as I have planned an early journey back to Stoke for the next morning.

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Spring Harvest has unquestionably been a cornerstone in the continuance of UK Christian music and, as I witnessed in Harrogate, it continues to be the event that more than any other brings together the fragmented British Church. A prophecy often quoted in Cross Rhythms articles is one made in 1991 at a day of prayer and fasting by Christian musicians. It was that "contemporary music was to be a spearhead for revival in Britain." I hope the band members of Elim Sound read this article and read that prophecy. It will show them that what they're doing is far, far more than simply giving wholesome pop rock entertainment to Christians or even giving the Church a more effective musical template to connect with God. They could well be a spearhead for that longed-for revival.