This year’s Keswick Convention is going to be held online after the annual international Christian gathering scheduled for 2020 was cancelled because of the worldwide coronavirus crisis.
The Virtually Keswick Convention will take place over five days this summer and will feature teaching, sung worship and seminars for children, youth and adults. Running from 27th-31st July, its online sessions will be available for everyone, with the theme being hope.
The virtual event replaces the scheduled three-week convention which was due to have taken place from 11th-31st July before it was cancelled in March because of Covid-19.
James Robson is ministry director for Keswick Ministries, the charity which runs the convention. He said: “While we can’t be in Keswick this year, we can meet together online. What an encouragement to be part of something bigger. We’re not alone or isolated but together. All one in Christ Jesus. It promises to be a great time to meet with God through his word, together.”
The convention has been held in Keswick for more than 140 years and attracts around 12,000 people to the town each year from all over the UK and across the globe. Dating back to 1875, it enables people from all backgrounds and age groups to join together and be inspired.
Mr Robson added: “At this time of great uncertainty and sadness, there is hope in Jesus Christ. A Christian is not a prisoner of the present moment. Even in the midst of struggle, hardship, suffering, pain, tears, we can, by the power of the holy spirit, know joy and peace from the God of hope.”
Keswick Ministries now hopes the 2021 convention can be the first one to be staged at its new base at the former pencil mill factory, which it is converting from a derelict site into a modern facility in a multi-million pound redevelopment.
