jonnybaker

passion pictures

mark berry has posted a series of passion pictures

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

i am making these worship trick 27 series 3

and you held me

the grace lent blog 2008 draws to a close for another year...

you must read yesterday's reflection and you held me

surprised by hope

tom wright's latest book surprised by hope is brilliant. it's also a great book for easter...

tom wright slams popular 'christian' notions of salvation as going to heaven when you die, of it being away from the world. he provides a quick tour of hymns and popular songs sung in church suggesting that they have a vague fuzzy optimism that things will work out all right in the end rather than the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead. these don't chime with the christian vision in the scriptures of the renewal of all things, of a renewed heavens and earth, of new creation, of resurrection bodies in a healed creation. i have gone on about this on the blog in my own way several times - what i have referred to as escapology theology. the reason it's important is that a vision of resurrection and a future hope for this world suddenly makes sense of developing all areas of life and culture, of the kingdom of god coming now on earth as in heaven, of being human, of hope (as opposed to a view that this world is going to be destroyed so what's the point?). mission in this way is joining in with god's mission of the healing of creation as we look forward to the day when it will be fully freed from its bondage to decay when there will be no more injustice, racism, brokenness and so on.

like all his books it's not thin but i really recommend it. preaching at a funeral earlier in the year really focused my mind on hope and what the christian vision of hope is as we stand in the face of the final enemy 'death'. and tom's book was a really good reminder of that. it's a theology i was introduced to at st matthews church in bath many years ago and totally reshaped my understanding of what faith was all about. it's encouraging that this theology seems to have regained currency at least in many circles in the uk. there is of course still a load of utter tosh espoused through the likes of the left behind series!

if you are preaching on easter sunday (which i'm not) this should inspire you...

holy week reflections - worship trick 26

i can't quite believe we're almost in holy week... where did lent go?

anyway i'm sure the blogosphere will be full of creative reflections and links to accompany the journey this year. so to get the ball rolling have a look at holy week reflections from lifewords. jeremy williams at short film in worship put me on to this. there's is a movie/animation/reflection for each day. just click on the day number to watch the movie. i don't know what the deal is with downloading them. but if you use flock (as i do) the way i find out the address of flash movies is as follows:
click on tools - page info - select media tab - highlight the animation and you can see where the movie url is. so day 2 is at http://www.sgmlifewords.com/easter/films/easter2.swf - then click file - save as and you can save that animation so you don't have to be online to watch it. i assume that this is an ok piece of info to pass on?... if you don't use flock, find your own work around - see the source code to find the url etc...

anyway that's eight short movie reflections right there...

movies for easter

this month on proost there are a couple of movies from mark berry and safespace in telford - one is a reflection in isaiah53 and the other on the coming of the spirit at pentecost. and jon birch has a new movie the cross. my favourite easter piece on proost if you haven't come across it is twelve stations... you can preview them all in the media player.

shooting jesus - easter resource

cms and the diocese of london have collaborated together to produce a new schoools resource for easter. this is partly inspired by the change of holidays meaning schools are still in action in holy week.

dennis morris, a photographer who toured with the sex pistols, was invited to give easter a visual makeover. the resulting images are pretty unusual and contemporary. they form part of a schools resource pack and the good news is you can download the images and pack free from cms! if you want a hard copy you can buy it from the cms shop.

congrats to ben bell, bob mayo, anita matthews, russell price and jenny baker who are the people i know who worked on it. i'm sure there were some others at the diocese end as well. the resource is aimed at 7-11 year olds. and as you'll work out if you download the resource, churches in the london diocese get sent a box of artefacts and so on to out on the workshops. you'll need to improvise if you are not in the london diocese...

if you use the images with young people (or anyone esle) i'd love to hear how they go down, how you use them and what connects or doesn't...

i'm making these images worship trick 25, series 3

croatia again...

well i had a quick visit to croatia this week to visit irena, mihael and ruben who make up mzk working with young people, churches, and young leaders in croatia. having done some training with them earlier in the year i had been invited back to be an outside reflector - they have been doing the work for about 10 years and are taking a pause wondering where to head next. we had a good time - hopefully i was some use... (fortunately being there meant i missed england's hopeless performance in football - looks like we will not be at the euro 2008 finals which is a depressing thought).

it made think that all work and things in life are seasonal, they ebb and flow. it's important to stop and take stock, let go of some things in order to create space for newness. sometimes we are so activist that we don't create space for rest, and letting go and waiting. i came across this article by anne lamott - it relates to easter but captures something important.

it also made me realise that although we can complain about church and the state of things in the uk, actually there is so much creativity, permission to do stuff, experimentation and other people to connect with. whereas in other parts of europe it can feel a lot more isolated. if you pray, pray for these guys. there's also a get together in paris this weekend organised by témoins (which sadly i am not at - though i will be watching a certain rugby match on tv from paris) - l’innovation dans les Eglises. Le courant de l’Eglise émergente. in case your french isn't too good, that's looking at innovation and emerging church stuff.

on the subject of europe and faith, the book that everyone is recommending at cms (now we are having a more european focus) is god's continent by philip jenkins that i noticed richard recommending as well.

i didn't manage to take many photos in croatia but like how these cranes came out almost insect like.

on the subject of photos, joel's friend bhav has been having fun with some long exposure shots of roads and traffic. and  i love this abstract...

and i have added another album (portugal pics) to my member's page on the ealing LIP group site.

things are looking up

grace stations of the resurrection went well last night. 19 readings of the resurrection appearances were placed around the edge of the worship space. it was a bring your own station service so you never know who is going to bring something. but 10 stations appeared. the thing i was most pleased about in a way was that three people who have never taken part in producing something for grace produced stations including two guys who had never even been to grace before. our ethos of participation is alive and well.

simplest ideas are often the best. i really liked the damscus road - as you walked into the area where the station was, written on the floor were the words 'saul saul why do you perscute me?' and there were some dazzling garden lights set up that were triggered as you entered that space. the damascus road strikes me a something that could be explored as an idea for a whole service some time...

things are looking up had a pair of shoes suspended from a wire overhead which was a fun idea. hopefully all the ideas/stations will get written up and added to the grace archive in the next week or two.

i set up a station using the art of he qi which i have referred to before. there are several pieces on the resurrection so i just put them into a slide sequence that looped round. i have made a small quicktime video of the sequence if you are interested. there are galleries of he qi's work on his web site. well worth a browse.

grace stations of the resurrection

this coming saturday 14 april at grace we celebrate the resurrection.

inspired by last year's lent bring your own station we are doing another bring your own station service. this is exactly what it sounds like. people turn up and set up a station in the worship space for people to look at/interact with/be inspired by. there is a list of 19 ideas for themes based on resurrection appearances, but you could also come up with something else. if no-one brings a station there is no grace...

details are on the grace web site.

[breathe went well btw - i have added some photos to flickr]

happy easter!

happy easter - christ is risen!

[the grace lent blog comes to an end for another year]