jonnybaker

fractured broken and beautiful - dubh

dubh (pronounced "duv") is irish for dark (and a bit dubby). it's also the guise for ikon's own jonny mcewen who has recorded his first solo album fractured broken and beautiful. you couldn't get a more honest title - it sums up the music perfectly. made on a laptop, a couple of synths, a kaos pad and samples this instrumental electronica is dubbed out, trippy, warm, mellow, chilled, gorgeous, ambient, almost dub step in places. it's hard to know what to compare it to. it's a very unique sound with a real edge, an instant proost favourite!

somewhat confusingly the title of ikon's album was
dubh but this time round the artist is dubh!! and just to confuse you a little more we also have an album coming out on proost shortly by dubb :-)

there is a dubh facebook group you can join and listen to a few tracks online. go say hi to jonny and become a fan! this is the sort of release that reminds me why proost exists. it's hard to imagine any christian record label releasing anything like this!

it's currently available just as a download in the audio section of the site though a physical product is in the pipeline in time for greenbelt in a cardboard recycled sleeve as proost gets eco friendly. (if you subscribe you get access to it in the downloads area as part of your subscription).

in the spirit of richard long...

the day before going to the USA we went to the richard long exhibition at tate britain which is well worth a visit. anyway i have added a set of photos from new york to flickr. and in the spirit of richard long the trip went something like...

Penn Station
Storm
NY Cab
57th St
B & B
Roof Terrace
French Restaurant
Searching for PS1
Grand Central
Subway
Battery Park
Lower East Side
Museum of Contemporary Art
Bread
Greenwich Village
Washington Square
Moma
Pizza
Times Square
Comedy
International Photography Centre
14th
Chelsea
Highline Park
Eggs Benedict
Gay Pride
Central Park
Subway
JFK

you are the message

you are the message, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

as part of the week we taught at lancaster seminary the students created a worship experience. it was around a passge from 1 thessalonians 1 - not an easy one! we only had around an hour we spent planning but somehow pulled together a really amazing worship experience. the central idea in the passage is that the apostles imitate christ, the macedonians have imitated the apostles, and now the thessalonians are imitating them. it's like a chain of modeling. but it is effective because in the end if it is real it will be visible in peoples lives. i guess it's like leslie newbigin's idea of the hermeneutic of the congregation, or like christ's simple words - if you love one another people will know you are my disciples. so taking this idea the central ritual involved people coming up and looking in a mirror which had an icon of christ on and of paul, the idea being to see how we might reflect christ. as people walked back to their seat they passed another mirror with the words you are the message written on - simple but very powerful. that line is from the message translation of the passage...

transforming preaching

back in 2005 i wrote a chapter for a book on preaching that was subsequently rejected. i called it 'throwing a hand grenade in the fruitbowl' so maybe i was asking for trouble. deep down i was perversely proud of its rejection in a funny kind of way. i guess i am a reluctant preacher - i am a big fan of creative communication but find preaching invariably one head talking and it dulls me way too often. i like it when i am surprised and it is a lost art that can uplift and inspire and challenge. anyway... all that by way of saying that i then turned that chapter into a free pdf online. much to my surprise it's had quite a life of downloads - even being used in college courses as a set reading for preachers!

grove books contacted me earlier this year asking if i could beef it up a bit as they would like to publish it which i have done. the title has changed though the hand grenade in the fruit bowl line is still in there as the title of the first section! when i got back into the office yesterday a pile of grove books was waiting for me... so if you want a booklet on preaching by me it's out. oh the irony :-) it's actually not on the web site yet but if i notice it appears i'll let you know but it's called transforming preaching, is in their evangelism series, and is book no ev86.

lancaster linkage

if you came to the workshop jenny and i led at lancaster theological seminary hi! in no particular order here's a bundle of liinks to things we mentioned...

alternativeworship.org is a great intro site to alternative worship. this piece how to make it happen (click through the pages) formed the basis of the session i led on the process of putting together worship. and how to get started is another intro piece, this time on the grace web site. i didn't mention this but the grace site has an archive. click on services or liturgy to find a lot of stuff such as communion by numbers or we hang our lives on your mercy

smallfire.org is a collection of photographs of alt worship services and events. it's a great site to get ideas and it's so much easier to see the services than just have them described.

i mentioned the worship tricks that i have compiled on my blog over the last few years. these are now in their third series. these can be a prayer, an idea, a whole service, a movie loop or whatever. have a browse through series 1 | series 2 | series 3

proost is a small company i help run. we produce creative resources out of the pool of wonderful people and communities doing this kind of stuff. there are a mix of movies, books of homegrown liturgies, and albums. the best deal is to subscribe - this gives you access to all the downloadable content when you like plus new content for a year. if you type in the coupon code PRSUBBG that will give you 10 percent off (any other readers feel free to use the same). i plan to set up a US page where people can buy the pocket liturgy books direct in hard copy through lulu but lulu have just changed the weight of paper so we have to redo all our book covers first (aaaargh!). btw have a look at lulu.com - useful for publishing your own book of ideas an liturgies once you get on a roll after this week's workshop!

sophia is jenny's blog which is packed with good stuff.

emergingchurch.info is a site we set up to collect stories of new expressions of church. fresh expressions is the anglican movement encouraging newness which followed on from the report mission shaped church. all these things are part of a wave of mission in our own context(s) - postmodern or whatever you want to call them. i lead a team for cms encouraging mission in the uk and europe, training and networking leaders.

other things we mentioned... flickr is a photo sharing site. some photos are published with a creative commons license which means you can use them if you credit the photographer. choose creative commons from the explore menu. the beauty of flickr is that there are both amazing images and they are often at a good size. click all sizes above the photo to choose a larger size. there are of course a load of other places to access images though create your own as well!

movies - i haven't checked these sources out but these were published in the youthmultimedia discussion forum the other day. it's a pretty useful group run out of australia - lots of useful answers to geeky questions! anyway the links for free movie loops were (let me know if you find anything good as i am yet to look) - archives.org architectsoftomorrow.com lucidhouse stockfootageforfree nara vjvault Of course none of this beats getting your camera out or getting someone else to - have a look at the flip if you want an easy way to shoot footage.

i also mentioned curation as a model for thinking about leading worship. i said i'd send round the notes we use as a guide at grace. well they are included in this blog post . this was the first of 5 posts - this last one has links to the others if it's of interest.

i'll add photos of the worship service to my flickr pages when i get back and get round to editing them...

guerilla worship on crosby beach

on the plane on the way over here i read the improv everywhere book and really enjoyed it. i think there are lots of possibilities for thinking creatively around alt worship type events in public spaces. anyway i just noticed dream are planning a second guerilla worship event on 18 july on crosby beach (a wonderful place to visit anyway) so if you are anywhere near liverpool head over...

think stream

the rise of social distribution networks is a good (long) piece (ht nic). i liked the concept of streams:

A stream. A real time, flowing, dynamic stream of information — that we as users and participants can dip in and out of and whether we participate in them or simply observe we are are a part of this flow...

...This world of flow, of streams, contains a very different possibility set to the world of pages.   Among other things it changes how we perceive needs.  Overload isnt a problem anymore since we have no choice but to acknowledge that we cant wade through all this information.   This isnt an inbox we have to empty,  or a page we have to get to the bottom of — its a flow of data that we can dip into at will but we cant attempt to gain an all encompassing view of it. 

alternative worship in the USA...

jen and i have arrived in the US and are teaching at the summer academy at lancaster seminary. we are doing a week on alternative worship. we kicked off this morning which seemed to go well... each year bruce epperley plans to have a week like this at lancaster with an emerging culture focus. next year i think doug paggitt is booked to come...

so it may be a little quiet on the blog but a few links meantime

run video is a new site launched by run - slightly different emphasis to proost though this makes us look brilliant value!

i can't remember if i have blogged this before or not (old age?!) but rob ryan tells his story so far of starting out as an ordained pioneer in rochester from nothing which is a wonderful read...

and i liked this story surprise surprise from tom brackett - a cheap sustainable way of planting a church in the episcopal setting - pay an ordained priest for doing the essentials and that's it! nice...

maybe i'm catholic?! a review of 'fresh expressions in the sacramental tradition'

fresh expressions in the sacramental tradition is a collection of reflections/essays edited by ian mobsby and steven croft. it's a very welcome book. a fear that is often expressed is that fresh expressions is the play thing of evangelicals but a read of this shows that this clearly isn't the case. i wasn't expecting to think this but it made me think i'm more catholic than i realised! i actually prefer to resist those sort of tribal labels anyway - i've blogged/ranted about evangelical identity before and i don't find that helpful at all - being a follower of christ is enough for me. but here's a couple of the things that made me think i may be more catholic than i knew...

rowan williams opening chapter identifies these features of catholic spirituality:
non verbal expressions of faith
a central place to sacramental action
seeing christian life as taking time and use of the christian year
faith is a community experience and not just an individual one

then steven croft locates the movement in the tradition of catholic mission in the vein of vincent donavon and roland allen - with central themes of the missio dei, incarnation, and the formation of disciples in community

steven croft's chapter is brilliant - he uses the story of gamaliel in acts 5 who cautioned the sanhedrin to wait before judging the early church. steven croft suggests half the clergy in the church might be in that position of caution and writes his chapter to persuade them to come off the fence. he also makes the point that the resistors/conservatives are in every part of the church and my experience has been that conservative evangelicals have been the most resistant group to ideas of contextual mission as they seem convinced that their way of doing things is the gospel itself! steven croft led the fresh expressions team for 5 years, has spoken with every diocese and lots of groups around the country. he is a wise man who brokered so much in what was a relatively short period so i really valued what i see as his parting reflection. he is now bishop in sheffield.

one of the things he talks about is whether the language of fresh expressions is helpful and says we had to have some language to 'talk about this movement of forming new ecclesial communities through contextual mission'. and it was that sentence where i thought - yes that is why this is so exciting!  'emerging church' 'alternative worship' 'emergent' 'postmodern mission' may come and go but if it has helped us recover contextual approaches to mission at the heart of what the church is about then it is an amazing thing...

there are chapters on various communities such as contemplative fire (i must blog about them another time), new monasticism, a couple of helpful pieces on liturgy and sacraments, and a few US authors such as karen ward, paige blair and phyllis tickle in the mix if you are looking for a book to help lever discussion in the episcopal context in the US.

congrats to ian and steven on this book (which i noticed was the window display in church house bookshop last week). it's not just another book on this stuff - it has a particular story to tell and role to play.

sweet notions

sweet notions, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

i recently attended a sweet notions party - sweet notions is a social enterprise recycling jewellery. they collect jewellery and accessories and resell. all profits go to support projects. if you fancy hosting a sweet notions party contact shannon... i took some photos for them at a recent party. it looked amazing. here's one and i have added another here. no doubt more will be used on their web site in the future...

i previously blogged about it here.

true tube

true tube

shalom

shalom - conference for youth workers working with young people at risk

vulnerable mission

mark oxbrow has a piece on vulnerable mission on his blog hope transfigured. his blog is well worth adding into your reader or facebook or however you track the flow of data in your life. he has worked in cms (and now faith 2 share) for decades and is amazingly connected globally with a wealth of experience and wisdom on mission...

what would you have done differently?

i really enjoyed meeting tom brackett earlier this year - we've become good friends in a short space of time. he works for/with the episcopal church in the USA nudging it in the direction of church planting and redevelopment. he connects with, networks and encourages new edges and leaders. he has a great piece on his blog what might you have done differently? . when he was in the UK he asked people the following question:

If you knew twenty years ago what you know today about the impact of secularization on the relationship of Culture to Church and vice versa, what might you have done differently to prepare the institution for those emerging realities, back then?

the answers come down to two dominant themes -

• we should not have let young people drift out of church (which meant we gradually lost sight of the gap between church culture and the wider culture)
• we should not have lost sight of how to nurture the prophetic voice in our midst.

so playing it back to leaders in the USA tom strongly advocates

Invite faith-filled young leaders into your communities. Listen. Try on new ideas. Experiment.

she who has ears to hear let her hear...

the project - if you're in scotland...

the project is on 20 june in edinburgh, a day of

arts – faith – theology – ecology – politics –philosophy - spirituality - justice
…or basically celebration, inspiration, irreverence, profundity, laughter, tears, questions, argument, friendship, shivers up the spine - add your own noun to the list.

there's a listing of the programme here (scroll down) which it includes the likes of beki bateson, doug gay, steve butler, julie wilson, john bell, iain archer. looks wonderful!

the poppies are in the field

poppy fields, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

beautiful fields of poppies en route to ely yesterday - a few more pics on flickr.

gra[ce]ss labyrinth 09

gra[ce]ss labyrinth 09, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

the last few years we have mown a labyrinth in the grass outside st mary's church in ealing. this year it took joel and i only an hour - we must be getting more confident! instructions here if you want to mow your own... saturday night grace was walking this labyrinth with a cafe set up outside under the trees - it was wonderful. if you are nearby it will be there for a month or so. the banner to the far right of the photo has a bit of blurb about walking it and about labyrinths. an ideal way to slow down and reflect in the midst of the busyness called london...

turbulence at the boundary

several years back at greenbelt we did some silent movies for worship - 4 alt worship groups rose to the challenge. i really liked the whole thing...

turbulence at the boundary was vaux's offering. if you never got to experience it that is now up on proost. it's silent but there is a recommended soundtrack at the end of the movie and on the movie page. it's 20 minutes long and is a bargain at the regular movie price of £1.99

The M25 is 120 miles or thereabouts of road looping round London often known as a car park due to its clogged lanes of traffic. This film from Vaux turns a trip round the M25 into a meditation on ourselves, on our cities and on God finding turbulence at the boundary. The film is shot on Super8 and has four sequences/meditations:
Looking back
Looking Out
Looking in
Looking forward

If you live in the UK London's M25 is iconic. If you are elsewhere it's urban spirituality that we hope will connect.

free of charge

i love this image which was on the back cover of geez magazine - another great issue btw. if you haven't come across it subscribe! it's by steve lambert - have a browse round his site...

wise blindness and icons of the present

cms publishes a series of small booklets, a similar kind of size to grove booklets which are monographs reflecting on contemporary issues in mission.

the latest one is called telling it slant and is in two parts. the first is by john pritchard asking questions around the arts and how they represent an alternative spirituality and doorway to faith, and how they connect with mission. the second is a response which i have written called wise blindness and icons of the present - i'm quite pleased with what i wrote!

you can either sign up for the series or buy individual ones from the cms shop.