jonnybaker

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.

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.

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.

listing - a gem

every so often something surprises me in a delightful way. i love it when that happens. the latest was when chris goan sent us at proost an idea for a book. it's a collection of poems and meditations riffing off lists in the bible - the beattitudes, the fruit of the spirit, a time to be born... i have fallen in love with the book. it really is lovely in every way. of course we said yes! and it's now out on proost this month as of yesterday. chris is part of aoradh - here's the foreword i wrote:

“Maybe the poet is gay but he’ll be heard anyway
Maybe the poet is drugged but he won’t stay under the rug
Maybe the voice of the spirit in which case you’d better hear it
Maybe he’s a woman who can touch you where you’re human”

This is penned by Bruce Cockburn in his song Maybe the Poet, a writer Chris cites as an inspiration when it comes to crafting words. I can’t help wondering if Cockburn had been reading Walter Brueggemann’s book Finally Comes the Poet in which he suggests that it is poetry rather than prose that we need too hear to shatter our settled world to create the way for newness to come.

This book is a little gem, a surprise that came Proost’s way over the horizon from Chris. He loves crafting words, playing with words, chewing over words, creating and re-creating worlds with words. His poems and meditations are a delight, spinning off from and opening up new takes on familiar verses of ancient wisdom from the scriptures.

It’s the second book from Chris on proost. The first is the wonderful meditation he wrote to go along with Si Smith’s images of Christ’s journey into the wilderness ‘40’.

“Pay attention to the poet
You need him and you know it…”          Proost

you can order a copy or purchase a download copy from proost

worship curation [1] : opening up a series of reflections

curation is a term usually used in the art world for the role of imagining and overseeing an exhibition space or spaces either working with one or a group of artists. it's a term that has been adopted by quite a few people in alternative/creative worship. in my memory it's mark pierson who came up with this as a helpful way of thinking about worship leading both in the prodigal project and in the cd rom fractals. we have adopted this as a term to describe the person who leads a creative team putting together worship in grace and found it a helpful way to think about it. mark pierson describes a worship curator as

A maker of a context for worship rather than a presenter of content.
(The content would be prepared by others.)
A provider of a frame inside which the elements are arranged and rearranged
to convey a particular message for a particular purpose.

however... i realised the other week that whilst i go to quite a few exhibitions i actually don't really know a lot about curation in the art world other than experiencing the fruit of the work. what is the discipline? what is the process? what are the skills? what makes for good curation? so when i was in a gallery bookshop i bought a book called curating subjects - a pretty obscure text in some ways - that is a series of pieces on curation and what it's role is and where it's headed. i have been so struck by the richness of the ideas that as a result

a) i think if i'd taken another set of turns in life i would love to be an art curator!
b) i'm going to try and blog a few pieces in relation to ideas in this book that might connect if you are involved in worship creation/curation.
c) i think this could be an ongoing series where i want to reflect on particular curators of alternative worship and interview them about how they go about things (i haven't asked anyone yet but it's an idea!)

so first up a pragmatic post. i wrote some notes for people taking a lead role in planning a grace service a few years back when we were first shifting to working in smaller creative teams rather than everybody planning everything (why did we ever think that was a good idea?!) and they might be of interest. they don't really get under the skin of curation. but it's how things get done!

At Grace we have been experimenting with giving one or two persons this lead responsibility role as a way of sharing the load a bit. Maybe after 6 months or so we are better placed to reflect on how that's going and what it involves. When we first discussed it we came up with this list of tasks below. It's pretty good. I have now tried to embellish it a bit. What I am thinking is that we should come up with something as a document so that anyone curating has it as a reference point.

• facilitation of planning meetings
We usually have two planning meetings set aside for planning a service. Sometimes it is less if it is a simple structure such as 'nine'. The first meeting is usually a free flowing brainstorm, drawing out ideas and inspiration for the theme. The second one is the time when the ideas are knocked into shape for a service and reponsibilities delegated for the various components. The role of curator is to chair both of these meetings and keep them focused and on track. It is also worth doing some thinking for both ahead of time to have things to throw in to the mix for the first meeting and maybe some notions or ideas of how this might take shape before the second. Part of the meeting role is either taking notes on the discussion and order of service or asking someone else to and then e-mailing them round the group.

• reflection on emerging direction and content between meetings
After the brainstorm sometimes there is a clear idea for a service that is going to be easy to pull together. But other times the discussion may not have produced too many concrete ideas. In the latter case the curator should take the initiative to think what might help nudge the process on a bit before the second meeting. This could be e-mailing round some thoughts for discussion before the second meeting. Or it might be finding a few new ideas to throw into the mix, or suggesting a litugical framework or an idea of using stations or whatever to help give it shape.

• ensuring distillation of service order
It is crucial that by the end of the second meeting there is an order of service with names allocated for tasks. This must be circulated soon after the meeting as this second meeting is usually the Monday before Grace. As curator it is your role to fill the gaps - the order is sometimes less than complete!

• ensuring allocation of tasks
There are several areas of tasks. Each of these needs to be checked.
1. Tasks for the service order - hopefully most tasks for producing stations/prayers/liturgy/video etc will have been agreed at the second planning meeting. But it may be that there were gaps and you need to ensure that those gaps are filled. This may include asking people who were not present at the meeting.
2. Audio - somebody needs to be at Grace who knows how to run the sound. Usually we now plug into St Mary's PA system. But we can easily use the Grace PA instead. Your role as curator is to check that someone is there who can set this up (assuming there is audio required). You will also need to check that the music or songs required are able to be played via double CD player, ipods or whatever means.
3. Visual stuff - somebody needs to be at Grace who knows how to set up and run the visual side of things. This might involve drapes, slide proctors, TVs, data projectors, video mixer, laptops, and mac classics. These aren't all necessary but your role as curator is to help decide which of these are required and how they will be used in the space.
4. Cafe - ensure that some one has agreed to get food for the cafe and set it up and run it.
5. Welcoming people - this is soething that sometimes gets overlooked especially is setting up gets behind and there is a general sense of panic. But it is important that you ask someone to welcome people at the door. And if setting up is behind so that the service is going to start late, let people know over the microphone so that they know what is happening. At the end of the service someone should give a notice to invite people to stay for the cafe.

• mailing round of service order
Once the order of service is planned e-mail it round. You should ideally e-mail round the brainstorm notes and then the service order after meetings one and two

• checking that people are doing their tasks, have necessary help/support to deliver
usually everyone does their tasks (albeit on the day of Grace!) but if there are tasks that are more complex (e.g. making a new video piece that needs to run on a dvd loop such as we had to do for the Creation installation) these are the things to check are happening ok.

• arranging cover or alternatives if someone can't deliver
If it transpires that someone is ill, unable to be at Grace, or just too busy to do what was planned, you need to rework the order of service - this might mean finding someone else to do the task or it might be finding or getting someone else to find something to replace whatever it was.

• ensure forthcoming service is advertised
There are four usual ways we advertise services: a) e-mail the grace mailing list. It is helpful if you can write one or two sentences to send Mike that describe or intrigue people about the service. b)put the next service on the front page of the web site. Again a few sentences or something intriguing or a visual image if you have one can help in this. c) if appropriate e-mail St Mary's asking them to include it in the news letter. There is only any point in doing this if you can do it after the first planning meeting. It's too late after the second. d) enourage members of Grace to plug it to friends and in any of their avenues of communication

• oversight of setting up
On the day it is your role to have thought about how the space will be and oversee the setting up process. If there are particular items that are not always there (e.g. bread and wine and cup and plate if there is communion) you need to ensure that someone is bringing those. It is also worth checking who is around to help set up and clear up. There have been occasions when very few people are there to set up. It is always easier if you check in advance.

• collecting service material afterwards for publication on grace website and grace noticeboard
Please collect any bits and pieces from the service for the web site.

• collecting feedback about the service [from team or congregation] and reporting to team afterwards
We usually have a brief moment to reflect on the service at a meeting. You can lead that or if you prefer e-mail round for feedback.

and finally...
These notes are meant to be a guideline to ensure the bases are covered. But curation is an art we are all learning so there are probably gaps in the notes and you may have other creative ways of facilitating the process via other communication means etc. So don't let the notes hold you back. There may also be certain services (e.g. Ten) that require much more planning and a different kind of process.

if there are particular worship experiences/events/installations that spring to mind that you think it would be really interesting to know how they were pulled together leave a comment. i want to compile a list of people and events to explore in conversation. if you blog and want to dive in the conversation on curation please do and send me a link if you write something so i can track the dialogue.

if you were at spring harvest...

if you came to the teaching that joy and i were doing on the theme of apprenticeship/discipleship i have uploaded our slides for you to download as a pdf file apprentice. i really enjoyed working with joy - we were very different stylistically (- spot the difference in our slides!) but i think that difference brought very different edges.

if you came to the sessions i led on prayer, my wife jenny is better in this area than me. a few resources you might like that she has written are tune in chill out, and heart soul mind strength. you can download the breathing prayer here and there are a couple of examens here. sleeping with bread was the book i mentioned on the examen.

if you came to the worship we led, we loved having you there. grace has an archive of prayers and liturgies some of which we used - see wounded and slow for example. and i run a series of worship tricks - 1 | 2 | 3  which you can scroll through for ideas. if you had to describe the worship i guess it was contemplative but it comes out of a movement known as alternative worship. i have co-written a book or collated a book called alternative worship. and in recent years proost is a web company i help run that has a ton of resources - music, books of liturgies, and movies. harry was amazing this week and people loved his poetry, half of which was written on site. he goes under the name dubb and is on myspace here. i think we invented a new genre of worship mixing chants with rapped invocations! we will be putting an album out on proost of his stuff in the summer. laurence keith goes under the artist name harronell - his music is beautiful and he has an album harronell on proost that you can buy to download. listen to the track archangel on his myspce - one of my favourite tracks of last year.

if there was anything else we did that you want to know where to find it let me know in a comment or e-mail.

i work with cms and chatted to lot sof people about the current exciting shift to community

it's the first time i have been at spring harvest for 7 or 8 years i think. for those of you who haven't come across it, spring harvest is an evangelical mainstream christian festival. it caters for families really well with a very good childrens and youth programme. then there's a mix of bible teaching, seminars, and a celebration in the big top with lots of singing, preaching and all that (i was in the bar last night having my own celebration as chelsea beat liverpool so brilliantly at anfield!!). it won't surprise those of you who know me if i say it's not where i am most at home these days. in fact i feel like i hardly connect with this world - i don't even know any of the songs. and it seems pretty similar to when i was last here. the worship we were doing was on the edge, an alternative - always a place i feel more at home. called reflective readings we attracted a crowd who really didn't like the big top either because of taste, or because it was simply too noisy. we ended up with an older crowd but we so enjoyed them - they didn't have any of the usual postmodern angst!! a highlight was an evening where we went and lit a fire and built a cairn on the beach...

moot pocket liturgies

i have really loved how the pocket liturgies series has developed on proost. a small idea has quietly grown so that we are now releasing the eighth book in the series. the books are small pocket sized and simply capture the prayers and liturgies from particular communities - emerging church, alt worship or whatever. we think worship should be creative and emerge out of the life of communities rather than be produced on high from a liturgical committee somewhere.

the latest one out this month is from moot. moot began as a small collective of enthusiasts of alternative worship, which quickly became an emerging/fresh expression of church in central london. moot have tried to cultivate a healthy and integrated rhythm of spirituality in the heart of an incredibly busy city and have developed a rhythm of life as a way of living out the faith in practice. moot has four services, two of which are ‘the little service’ and ‘compline’. both are quiet, simple and contemplative liturgies that are held on the first and fourth sunday evenings of the month. this book brings together different versions of these services, reflecting the rhythm of life, along with suggestions of forms of contemplation to include within them.

i think it''s a great little book. i like the way they have structured service liturgies around the value words that form their core rhythm. you can download the book as a pdf or buy it as a physical product. ian mobsby is currently in australia so hasn't seen the book and nor has anyone else in moot yet but it is hot off the press...

also new on proost this month is a movie for mother's day and a set of 40 lent cards - ideal for personal use in your wallet or with a group round the meal table. have a look at the home page for more info.

i hope i don't sound like a stuck record but as well as being able to buy individual items on proost, the big deal is if you subscribe for £60 for the year and then you can access the whole back catalogue of downloadable content whenever you like as well as new monthly content for a year. and it is of course ever expanding.

lent book

i have ordered maggi's book giving it up for lent...

glossy mag - oh it's the bible!

the american bible society have produced the new testament as a glossy magazine bible illuminated: the book  and it is a really impressive piece of art work. there's a lot of text for a magazine (it is the bible!) but the magazine is filled with wonderful photographs and quotes. it surprised me just how different it felt in a different format. the medium is the massage and all that...

i can imagine it on the magazine shelf at the tate modern. it looks that good and the art is contemporary and not 'religious' if you know what i mean.

i have left it lying on the kitchen table and read galatians this morning as if it were a feature in a magazine whilst drinking coffee.

being a magazine it's much more likely you feel you can dive in and read any article - i.e. you don't feel you need a great plan to tackle it.

similarly it doesn't feel like you need to get too holy with it - i.e. set aside a time and place to have a spiritual time - just tuck it in your bag and read it on the tube...

i'd read it on the tube.

i wondered if i would recycle it after it's been round a couple of months? i.e. it's in a more temporary format. i quite like that. it downplays its heaviness somewhat.

joel and harry liked it - it looks great, not embarrassing.

it would be a much better thing to give out in schools than the gideons new testaments (though more expensive!) or as a confirmation present or whatever...

the version is the good news - easy to read.

they are working on the old testament. i fear that will just feel too big! but it will be interesting to see. it's expensive - $35 which is the only down side. but hopefully the bible society will come up with creative ways for it to be used that won't cost people that much.

you can download a sample chapter here

Tribes - do something remarkable

i was talking with a friend yesterday about jamie olver and the ministry of food. he exercises a kind of leadership that is a good example of what is described in the book tribes by seth godin which i read over christmas. jamie has an idea and is passionate about it - getting people to cook and eat better and goes to extraordinary lengths to develop a tribe who are converted to the idea and communicate it to others.

the good news is that the book is thin and got big writing - i.e. it won't take you long to read! i think it reads well as number three in a trilogy with starfish and spider, and here comes everybody which if you follow the blog you'll know I have enthused about. together these are great books as dialogue partners in mission, culture, theology, church, and leadership in the new environment. at least I have got as much out of reading these as any book I have read recently on the emerging church...

a tribe is a group of people connected to an idea, or a dream or a vision. faith or belief is crucial here - the vision needs to be passionate and paint a picture of the future. this sort of faith is critical to all innovation. the kind of person who will have this faith is called a heretic in the book. by this godin means the heretic leader undermines the way things are, the status quo. their role is to create change they believe in. they don't care too much for organisational structure or official sanction to lead. they use passion and ideas. they are generous, care for the tribe and are focused on smaller numbers of fans/committed people rather than focused on numbers realising that a committed core at the heart of a movement is more powerful than a larger group. they are also prepared to take risks. they know that new things are rarely as good as the old thing was. but that if you wait for the new thing to be better you'll never get started and you'll be too late! tribes get stuck and it's these kind of leaders that unstick them or begin new things to effect change. godin contrasts religion with faith (and he's not talking about church per se) -

religion works great when it amplifies faith. Religion at its worse reinforces the status quo often at the expense of our faith.

having got the idea and the heretic leader(s), communication is the only other thing needed. and guess what - because of the new communication technologies it's never been easier and geography is eliminated or nothing like the challenge it used to be. that communication is between leader(s) and the tribe and then enabling communication between the members of the tribe to enable them to participate and initiate change. it's not about money - if that becomes the agenda people will opt out.

i probably like it because i am a heretic! that may not surprise you...

if you identify with this because you are a leader/heretic i guess the question is what are you passionate about or what's your good idea? and what's stopping you going for it?

if you are at the institution/organisation end of things looking for newness maybe the issue is to risk hiring people that don't fit in, that are not sheep like, that don't have a factory mindset, that will be leaders in their own right irrespective of the management structures in place. and set them loose...

the church of england is trying to do this with its pioneer ministers but factory and organisation and religion are proving to be powerful forces. i hope the pioneers are able to do it anyway through passion and vision and communication and connectivity. i guess they shouldn't be called pioneers if they can't! and it's a good reminder that a lot of pioneers will just exercise leadership and create tribes without the official sanction of 'ordained' pioneer leadership.

the quote i most remember from the book is actually from einstein

imagination is more important than knowledge

reading the book made me want to do something remarkable

50 worship ideas - new book from jenny baker

congratulations to jenny (baker) on her new book that was launched at the youthwork conferences this weekend. it contains 50 worship ideas which are a mix of prayer, meditation, ritual, worship experiences, contemplative exercises and reading the bible. several have been tried and tested at grace. whilst pitched at youth it's actually a book that will work across ages if you like a creative approach to worship. as ever with jenny it's brilliant! it's available through proost.co.uk for £9. look in the books section of the site...

sanctus1 pocket liturgies

this month on proost we are really pleased to announce the release of sanctus1 pocket liturgies. sanctus1 are a christian community/emerging church/alt worship in the centre of the city of manchester. the book pulls together a flavour of their approach to and worship liturgies that they have developed over the last six years or so. i love this series of books. it is doing exactly what we hoped – giving voice to liturgy that is grassroots and creative emerging out of the life of communities rather than being produced by experts in a centralised committee removed from the context of the worshipping community using them. you can buy them as a physical copy or a pdf download in the books section of the proost site.

congrats laura, janet and rachel!

luminosity and a mystical quest

i read another john taylor book on the plane recently - the christlike god. you may remember me blogging about the primal vision and the go-between god...

one of the things that took me by surprise was when he writes about luminosity.

we should perhaps be ready to trust our occasional perceptions of the luminosity of the physical world and its apparent potentiality for becoming a voice and a word whereby we know ourselves to be addressed and held in relationship.

he says that the greek word for god 'theos' might easily be translated as 'shining' in some of its other greek usage. i like this idea. maybe energy or wonder might be other ways of getting at the same idea.

i recently had a conversation with someone about my photos and they said that my work had a luminosity, an almost god-like presence. this wasn't someone who is a christian as far as i know. but i was pleased and surprised with the comment and on reflction i am attracted to that sort of luminosity. i sometimes think of myself questing the light. i guess in this or this or this ?

i had a piece published in the latest issue of the london independent phortography magazine along with this photo which i submitted with this and this and this in the last issue which i was pleased about. i don't think i have posted it on the blog (at least i can't remember and can't find it). this is it...

A Mystical Quest

“Sometimes I think the people to saddest for are those who have lost or become numb to the sensation of wonder” Douglas Coupland in Life After God

In the film American Beauty Ricky films a carrier bag floating on the wind in front of a garage door for 15 minutes. As it does so he whispers ‘there is so much beauty in the world – I can’t take it in’. He films everything. For him the camera seems to enable him to look or see more closely, to pay attention, to see beauty where others might see rubbish. The mystics call this awareness. In this sense photography is mystical. At the recent annual LIP lecture Paul Hill described photography as learning how to see. He also shared his own sense of never waning interest and excitement in taking ‘small adventures’ locally with the camera on a kind of quest.

These photographs are taken in Gunnersbury Park in Ealing, which is round the corner from where I live, on one of my own small adventures. The combination of morning sunlight, frost and mist is almost electric. It has an incredible energy to it. I find myself on a morning like this questing the light, wanting to catch moments that will never be repeated before they pass. Paradoxically these sort of moments are both wild and still. There’s a wild rush of adrenaline and excitement but then in the moment of beauty I almost hold my breath, lost in wonder at the stillness. Maybe it’s being in the fast paced city of London that makes these fleeting still moments so renewing.

i am pete ward's disciple!

pete ward has a new book out this week - participation and mediation: a practical theology for the liquid church

i really like it. pete ward has been a huge influence in my life. when i was doing youthwork it was hearing pete and reading his book youth culture and the gospel that opened me up to realise that missiology held the clues for how to work with young people (and subsequently the emerging culture). it's a journey i have been on ever since. the opening chapter of his book tells his story and he traverses youth ministry, missiology, anglican charismatic renewal, evangelical roots and trying to subvert the defensive posture of that towards culture, and then cultural studies as a framework for making sense of culture or opening up a different way of thinking about the practice of ministry in relation to culture. i studied under pete at king's for an MA and found the cultural studies approach really interesting/useful.

the challenge of the book is language though maybe that's no surprise if culture is language games anyway (paraphrasing wittgenstein). part of the challenge of academic writing is it that it is located in a particular discipline and to interact with it uses a particular grammar and discourse. so pete uses the discourse of cultural studies so it takes a while to get with the grammar - participation, representation, mediation, animation, texts, structure, agency, flow and so on. i hope this doesn't put people off. i was used to it from my previous study and reading. in fact some of the key texts that helped me inform pete's approach here including the brilliant michel de certeau. it honestly made me realise how much i have learned from and with pete over the years for which i am really grateful...

here's what's good about the book

1. pete locates what he's up to in practical theology which is probably a smart and necessary move but in doing so he suggests that practical theology whilst it attempts to be reflective ends up causing people to step out of culture to analyse it which practitioners don't want to do. i completely agree with this. the turn to culture that seems to be happening in theology is an encouraging step realising that theology is or should be about the lived experience of faith and not an abstraction.

2. the use of cultural studies gives a different way of seeing how christian communities are involved and participate in the production of culture and worship and meaning. this is really useful for practitioners though you've got to get inside the discourse or so it seems. i tried to do precisely this in my dissertation to talk about what is going on in the ritual of the labyrinth for ritual agents/labyrinth walkers. describing this lived faith in practice and how christian communities are making meaning in culture pete says that the waters are often muddied in contextual approaches to culture - i fear this may put some people off this approach but muddied waters is a pretty common experience in mission in attempting to grow the gospel in the soil of other cultures. anyone that pretends not to be in muddied waters may be deceiving themselves!

3. participation and mediation are theological themes that pete draws on. i was so reminded of the discussions/reflections i have had on the blog recently around the book here comes everybody - everybody it seems want to talk about participation and again it is a smart (and trendy i think) move to  draw on participation in the divine life as a rich theological theme to open up how god is mediated in and through culture and then animated.

4. pete seems to have finally conceded in public that consumer culture has a few problems - hooray! i have had this argument with pete over several years. what pete was wanted to do i assume is to swing the pendulum so that people engage seriously with culture rather than react negatively to it which i understand. but this feels like his most mature work on culture to date discussing the complexities of both engagement and resistance within cultures.

this is a really short review but i wanted to write something before heading off for a week or it will be ages before get round to it. this book is going to punch open a hole for a lot of good work to follow i think. pete is opening up all sorts of possibilities for dialogue around lived faith in culture and what is going on with lived faith in worship, mission, denominations, using cutural texts and so on. i really recommend it even if you have to read some paragraphs a few times to get with the language games. as i said in the title i feel like i am pete's disciple!

the Network of Christ: Here Comes Everybody 4

I have done a series of three posts so far in relation to Clay Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody.

sharing, co-operation and collective action
I participate therefore I am
it's a small world

I have also taught on small world and networks for our CMS team and this has catalysed a lot of reaction and discussion which has been great. In the comments on the last post small worlds there is a brief discussion around what this means in relation to the catholicity of the church - or put another way the need to be connected in to the wider church. So this part four isn't directly in relation to the book but is sparked off this series. In respsonse to Ben and Steve's comments I have had a go at an improvised reworking of 1 Corinthians 12:12-end - the Network of Christ.

Just as a network, though one, has many small worlds, but all its parts interconnect, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptised by one Spirit and given a portal into the wider network of Christ - whether Orthodox, Emerging, Missional, New Monastic, Catholic, Anglican, Post-denomnational, Pentecostal, Baptist, Ana-baptist etc or any blend of the above the Spirit flows through our networks. So the network of Christ is not made up of one small world but of many interconnected small worlds and hubs.

If the Australian missional communities should say 'because I am not focused on worship I don't connect into the wider network' it would not cease to be part of the global network of Christ. And if the French Catholic church should say 'because I can't feasibly imagine homogeneous missional church planting I don't belong to the wider network it wouldn't cease to be part of the global network of Christ either. If the whole network lived in the small world of Alternative Worship where would the growth of African churches be? If the whole network lived in the Anglican small world where would the prophetic passion for justice of the anabaptists be? But in fact in the  network of Christ God has catalysed and flows in lots of small worlds just as God wills. And the network is such that the Spirit creates an environment where She flows and small worlds emerge as the Spirit beckons the network into the future.

If there were just one small world with no external connectors where would the network be? The redemptive gifts that the Spirit has distributed throughout the wider network of Christ would not flow. They would remain static.  So don't let the small world of which you are a part ever say 'I don't need you' to another small world and don't despise the gift of external connection. To be in Christ is to connect to Christ and to participate in the Network of Christ where the Spirit flows. And be careful that you don't just notice the hubs that seem important or powerful or branded and neglect the weaker or less connected small worlds. God flows in these parts, distributes gifts there and has a special love for them. And the small world in which you mostly participate is most likely to be energisd by connection to other small worlds which are the most different to you so don't be tempted to just connect to others who seem like you.

You are the network of Christ and each one of you is connected and participates. And the Spirit flows in and through you and has distributed different kinds of gifts and roles - pioneers, catalysts, networkers, artists, mission leaders, loyal radicals, local practitioners, environmentalists, guardians of flow. Are all external connectors? Are all local practitioners? But eagerly desire the greater gifts to flow throughout the network of Christ.

I am making this piece worship trick 43, series 3.

here comes everybody 3: it's a small world!

i was chatting with a friend (who shall remain nameless) in the pub the other night and he shared with me his excitement of discovering that he can connect to elvis presley in 5 steps - or 6 degrees of separation as it has become known! that is to say he can show a relational connection from him to someone to someone else and so on until he connects to elvis in five steps/6 connections. this phenomena often takes people by surprise. how can it be possible that there is that level of connectivity? welcome to small world theory...

i was first introduced to this by steve collins who gave a presentation on networks at a network gathering of uk mission leaders a couple of years back - the presentation from it is worth a look. clay shirky devotes a chapter to it in his book here comes everybody. this is the third blog reflection on the book. if you haven't followed along then parts 1 and 2 are here

part 1. sharing, co-operation and collective action
part 2. i participate therefore i am

so what's the big (or small) deal? if you are in a small group of friends everyone connects to everyone else pretty easily but it doesn't take long before that suddenly requires a huge number of connections for everyone to connect to everyone else. so what actually happens in practice is that people connect to a relatively small number of people (their small world). but as long as that small group has one or two people who also connect to people in the wider network in another small group, it's only one step removed to reach anyone else in the network through the connector. this is how most networks work - a mix of dense and sparse connections rather than everyone linked to everyone. these people who focus externally are connectors. most people are quite happy existing in a small world but connectors often hold an astonishing level of connectivity across small worlds. six degrees of separation works because these people create huge short cuts and it's often these connectors that people start thinking about unconsciously when looking for that connection in a conversation to establish common ground.

i tried drawing a network but it looked terrible so i won't inflict it on you. but imagine a group of five small groups - grace in london, sanctuary in birmingham, hold this space in melbourne, sanctus1 in manchester and safespace in telford. now there is no way that everyone in each of those groups will connect to everyone else in the other groups and why would they? i have picked five groups that i connect between but i am not the only connector. but because of the connectors the insights/gifts flow round the whole network just as well or have the potential to do so. so insights about new monasticism and setting sail in mission from safespace, wisdom around engaging in islamic contexts from sanctuary, alt worship approach in prisons and creative liturgy writing from hold this space,  mission at mind body spirit festivals from sanctus 1, worship ideas and leadership without anyone paid from grace etc etc can all flow. and this really is a microcosm - if we really mapped the connections in the emerging church and alt worship network and started adding all the creative connections it would be unbelievable to think what gifts and connections there are. and if i now think about connectors i relate to outside that it blows my mind - my friend yemi is an unbelievable connector into the majority black churches, i was with matt who is mr connector in france etc etc etc...

the obvious rider to this is that some groups don't necessarily have natural external connectors and i know groups who think external conections are a waste of time altogether. but the benefit you'll gain by encouraging someone(s) to focus externally will be huge so it's worth thinking about, even though most people remain locally focused. shirky calls these two types of relating bonding and bridging capital. how much of each do the key small worlds you are in have? is it a good balance? this of course applies to the photography group/world i am in or any other kind of social group...

one of the interesting sections in clay shirky's chapter is a story of a firm that had new management and a piece of research was done to see which managers came up with the most creative solutions. the discovery was that those that were least locked into their own department brought the most creativity i.e. lots of their connections were external. as he put it bridging capital puts people at greater risk of having good ideas. in any network there is a balance to be had. the temptation is to want to keep it tight - i.e. relate to people with similar passions/interests etc as you share concerns, struggles etc. but the network will stifle if it is too tight - it needs random elements and connections that are totally different to bring a creative edge. how you strike that balance i have no idea but for some people i think it's counter intuitive.

this all got me thinking about the amazing network that cms is - a global mission network of small worlds and connectors. part of the thinking around the importance of the other in cms is that we only really know who jesus is as we see christ's many faces, theological takes, and gifts round the world wide body/network/multitude of christ. but we need to be intentional about connecting with difference rather than just sameness so there can be an interchange. the tragedy of the network of christ (church) globally at the moment is that we seem to be following the opposite instinct and gathering together with people who mirror our own theological takes!

shirky's book in large part is on the new environment and the effects of new social media tools. in terms of networking i guess it's obvious why we are talking about this. social media tools mean we are relating in small worlds and connectors all the time without even thinking about it. and the scale of networking response/influence can be on a huge scale when things start to flow.

this theory about small worlds obviously relates to why i think margaret wheatley's process - name * connect * nourish * illuminate - (which i blogged about a couple of days ago) is so significant because when people connect and those connections are nourished gifts flow and the world can be changed for the better. and the great thing about it is that none of us can really control it and we are all severely limited in our relational capacity (or monkey sphere as it's known in the theory!) so we only ever see a part of the whole - we can simply participate and get in the flow as it were...

here comes everybody 2: i participate therefore i am

[ no 2 in a series of posts reflecting on here comes everybody - for no 1 see here comes everybody 1: sharing, co-operation and collective action ]

i participate therefore i am

this isn't actually a quote from clay shirky's book here comes everybody. it comes from john taylor's discerning of the worldview in african primal religion in his amazing book the primal vision. but it has stuck with me and i finally get to bring it out...

participation is one of the big themes of the new cultural environment that we are in and i find it an exciting and hopeful one. in the world that is passing identity has been constructed around taste and consumption, what we are into. we often connect with people of similar taste and make snap judgements on the basis of the stuff people are into - i consume therefore i am. we may hate it but it happens all the time. i'm not suggesting this is entirely going away but in the world of new media passive consumption is not what it is about. if it was youtube wouldn't exist or it would just have a few slick hollywood promos and independent short films. all youtube did was to create a space for self publishing and creative production, sharing and interaction. most of the movies on there are pretty poor quality but it turns out people love to be able to produce and share and interact with friends. they just didn't have the tools so cheaply and freely available (all you need now to publish a movie is a phone). the interaction is often only with a small group of friends (see my next post on this - small worlds) but that interaction with a small group is in itself a participative environment. one of the examples i can think of how we used youtube was to publish a movie of joel's friends wishing him happy birthday for his eighteenth. the point of that movie was that it was fun and a surprise but it is about particpating in creating, sharing and interacting in a small community of friends and family. it's been viewed 150 times or something...

i've heard and quoted the adage about web 2.0 that 'content is king' - i.e. because there is so much stuff being put out there actually good stuff rises to the surface so if you have good content that is key. but shirky quotes  cory doctorow who says

conversation is king, content is just something to talk about

both are true but this one shifts the emphasis to much more relational as opposed to the new media being an environment to simply publish good content (though i still think good content does rise to the surface).

this is a bit geeky but hang in there as i think it's very insightful. with the availability of the tools for contribution you might expect a huge increase in equality of particpation. but shirky says you'd be wrong. research into participation shows that almost across every type of participation there is a huge imbalance. if you were to plot this as a graph it would come out as a power law distribution. he gives an example of photography shared on flickr of an event - the coney island mermaid parade. rather than an even number of photos from contributors there are one or two very high contributors, a few a bit lower down but by far and away the largest contribution is one photograph. in fact this is the mode (the most frequent way of contributing). this graph is in the book.

this probably isn't a huge surprise. but there are a few things about it that are interesting. one is that we assume that equality would be much more ideal but actually the imbalance drives things well. if there were only a few high participators it would be much weaker. those contributions of one photo, or one change to a word on wikipedia make so much difference when added together. the second is that we shouldn't underestimate the feeling or importance of participation by the lower participants. they are part of the network/community of relationships without having to do loads.

i was looking at asbojesus the other day which is hugely popular and has a community that participate in and around it - there are 30 or more comments on most posts. but if you look at the comments over a period of time there are a few very high contributors - carole, dennis, rob, jon, becky for example. i think i have contributed once but i feel connected and there are plenty of others like me who enjoy and participate at a low level. but it clearly has this power law distribution going on.

in grace one of our values/ethos words is participation. we really want participation to be part of the air we breathe. but i recognise the same thing in practice. we don't have equality of participation and never will. i recognise i am one of the high end contributors but then there is a whole range and plenty who join a group to plan worship occasionally and some who just participate by showing up a few times a year. our challenge is always to encourage involvement - it helps belonging apart from anything else. but this power law distribution has helped me see that actually a spread of participation is fine, it works. and don't underestimate the importance of it for those who only participate at a low level.

so what? the challenge of the new environment isn't just about the new social media tools and making the most of them (though that is of course a good thing to explore). but the wider change is actually about how the new environment is remaking us or our instincts. and i think there is a wider cultural shift towards sharing and co-operation and interaction - participation. this is great news for churches and christian communities - it sounds like a description of church as an organic relational body. somehow many churches have got stuck in a provider/client relationship between leader/congregation, expert/dumb disciples,  priest/laity preacher/passive listener. it's a very dependent world. this new environment affords the possibility of recovering something that has been lost. it is also a resurgent theological theme at the moment - participation in god - in whom i participate therefore i am!

Technorati Tags: here comes everybody, clay shirky

here comes everybody 1: sharing, co-operation and collective action

when we change the way we communicate we change society

so says clay shirky in here comes everybody:the power of organising without organisations. it's an absolute gem of a book (and the uk cover is so much better than the usa cover!!), the best of its kind i have read since the spider and the starfish. shirky looks at social media and the new technologies not for their own sake but for their effects. he is blogging about the themes in the book here. the quote above is really a rehearsal of marshall macluhan's theme that changing technologies creates a new environment. rather than do one large review i want to pick up some of his themes in a series of posts. we'll see how it goes depending on how busy my september continues to be. it may be a short series!

a phrase that i've used before and has been used in relation to the smart tools of web 2.0 is an architecture of particpation. the current technologies enable free and ready particpation of distributed groups of people with a whole variety of skills. in times gone by those people existed but getting them together to work on something was a feat in itself that required pretty high organisation and motivation. there were lots of institutuons and organisations who played that role. now it's so simple that everything has changed, and things can get done without the need for organisations (or at least organisations as they have been known). shirky kicks off with a disarmingly simple threefold process.

sharing - co-operation - collective action

sharing creates the fewest demands and you can see it happening via flickr (photos), digg (stories), blogs and the number of small niche communities with common interest or concern. co-operation requires a bit more co-ordination especially if there is to be some collaborative production involving decision making. something like wikipedia manages this sort of participation really well. then collective action is definitely a harder step. it needs a strong enough shared vision which binds a group together and people will put effort in for. shirky says this is much more rare.

perhaps an example will help. i was thinking about the truth isn't sexy campaign and have written something about it recently thinking about how networks work (it will be in the next CMS magazine Yes). this is a short version... it began with an idea (or a rage against injustice more like). a friend of mine si had a concern about sex trafficking following visits to bars where girls were visibly being picked up. the first phase of the process was sharing. chatting with a few friends he got connected with a few other people who were involved in care for sex workers or political campaigning. a few e-mails, google searches and coffees later, he begin to build up a picture of the scene and the various economic, immigration, political and cultural factors at play. crucially he also connected with some others - the second phase collaboration - who caught the vision for doing something and a small team was formed with aimie & shannon picking up the baton. the team quickly found themselves part of an informal network of brilliant people working on their own projects but also collaborating together. an idea began to form – no-one seemed to be working at the customer demand end of things, with men who pay for sex. via a few networked connections, a design agency got involved and a beer mat and poster campaign was born called The Truth Isn’t Sexy - the third phase collective action. 200,000 beermats have been distributed in city centre pubs and NUS bars along with other events and media and cross party MP’s have praised the truth isn’t sexy in the house of commons with the minister in charge of this area now publicly stating the importance of addressing demand - the main political objective. the group are going to self publish an activist's handbook for others wanting to take collective action on something...

the campaign cost virtually nothing apart from printing costs. It wasn’t spearheaded by an organisation. volunteers made it happen as networks of people shared the idea, co-operated and joined in collective action. this network of people is not a club you can join – it was much more organic and invisible. It wasn’t something that was led – at least not in any traditional sense – though the people involved had a high level of skill at getting people connected and participating. the technological tools that are available in the world of digital media, all free if you have a computer – e-mail, web sites, blogs, social networking sites and so on - were absolutely crucial to the process. this process is so simple that you can miss it! It’s particularly easy to miss if you are looking for success with an organisational or old paradigm pair of glasses - measurable outcomes in organisational strategy achieved by professionals supported by systems of hierarchy and control.

since reflecting on this i am seeing this process in all sorts of places. the new social tools enable 'ridiculously easy group forming', groups that can share, co-operate and do things. what are you waiting for?

the other side of this that interests me is what role organisations or institutions can or do play in this new world. this week i have spoken or taken worshops at two diocesan conferences (bath and wells and exeter - hi if you are reading from those) and am taking a weekend this weekend coming for winchester diocese ordinands. what does it mean for the church and for leadership? this is a question i have asked before. maybe the new environment affords a recovery of the notion of the body of christ and of leaders as those who can catalyse small group activity that transforms, create environments in which that happens and facilitate an architecture of participation and gift sharing? i probably sound like a stuck record on that theme - sorry if that's the case! nic posted a comment around church as assemblage on one of my recent posts - i have yet to read what that means but the story above is certainly assemblage of a kind. this is all a huge imaginative shift for what it might mean to lead. but the new environment might be closer to the values of the kingdom of god than we might have first imagined?...

Technorati Tags: here comes everybody, clay shirky

improvised blessings - worship trick 39, series 3

our latest unusual suspect at proost is juli allen. her big thing is blessings. in her community(s) she listens in and joins in the evening reflections and dialogue and at the end improvises a spoken blessing that weaves the threads together. we got to experience this first hand at greenbelt in the proost lounge evening (thanks to everyone who took part and came along). at the end of the evening she gave us a greenbelt blessing which she has posted on her blog. it was great to meet juli having never met before greenbelt and just liased via e-mail on the book.

we have published with juli the latest book in our pocket liturgy series (we're now up to number 6!!) - a book of blessings - which is available from proost and if you are a subscriber you can download in the downloads area (actually as i write this we are shifting the site to a different server so the site is temporarily down for maintenance but it will be back shortly.) you can find juli's book to download or as a hard copy in the book section of the site.

i really like improvised liturgy - juli reminded me how much i liked karen ward improvising the eucharistic prayer a few years back where she wove into the prayer lots of stories and thing to be thankful for. it somehow blended the depth of the liturgy with a more personal touch. it's a real skill.

i am making the idea of improvised blessings a worship trick - no 39 in series 3

here's the text of the blessing...

blessings on you who have entered this space-
who have traveled far and near to be in this space.
let your soul sigh in this space.
let yourself be undone in this space.
let yourself feel the love that surrounds, and permeates, and brings this space together.
breathe it in and let it wash over you.
for some, this marks the beginning.
the beginning of a new year,
a new song,
a new season.
for others it is a close, an end, a period at the end of a chapter.
hopes have been sparked here.
dreams have begun here.
revolutions and relationships have arisen here.
and as a phoenix, we will descend in all the glorious shades of red, and orange, and yellow.
this time together...
this space together...
this experience together...
we will take deep, deep down into our bellies
where a fire will burn that will take us through the next year.
until we meet again we will carry within us memories that will never leave us.
embrace what is left in this space,
and in this time soak up all that you can,
and be sent out knowing that you are loved and you are blessed.

 

mass culture new edition

mass culture is a collection of essays on eucharist and mission edited by pete ward. it was first published in 1999 and has been out of print but a lot of interest was still been shown in it. so brf have published a new expanded edition of it with a couple more contributors. the chapter i wrote for it is unchanged. it's a good little book if you have not come across it before...

(i much preferred the original cover!)