jonnybaker

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.

how's your french?

back in 2003 a few of us met in paris hosted by matt glock to join in encouraging what we then called 'l'église en devenir' (the emerging church). as part of that gathering we were privileged to hear and meet jean hassenforder who runs témoins, an organisation/movemmet exploringing gospel and culture issues in france. out of the blue i got an e-mail from him this week saying he had written a feature on my blog for the témoins site. it never ceases to surprise me how blogging makes connections round the world. merci jean...

here we go... (2)

i should of course also mention that the tour de france starts this weekend and runs from july 1- july 23. itv4 are providing a daily update with some live coverage on itv3 at weekends. with lance armstrong retired this really should be an interesting year. i know some blog readers are bemused by my interest in the tour de france but i still think it is one of the most amazing sporting events. i confess that i actually have a tour de france blog in my newsreader that feeds me all sorts of trivia though the year that i ignore but it should come into its own now...

Technorati Tags: tour de france

invisible presences

i'm back from nearly three weeks holiday in france. i love france - we stayed down in moliets on the west coast between biarritz and bordeaux. it's a beautiful coast and because it's the atlantic there are always waves rolling in. the combination of sea, sun, surf, and french food and drink is perfect holiday combination. i read some wonderful books which i'll get round to enthusing about at some point no doubt. i have managed not to blog for three weeks which is quite an achievement for me (all the posts that have gone up i wrote in advance in case you wondered which is why i haven't responded to any comments - thanks for them though...)

last year on the way back we stayed in chartres to visit the labyrinth but were disappointed to discover that the chairs are only removed on a friday. well this year we realised as we were driving back that we were passing chartres and had enough time to stop in and visit and it was a friday... so we finally got to walk the labyrinth which was a wonderful experience although it was pretty crowded. the photo here i took with a long exposure time and it produced this sort of shimmering effect where people walked by almost like invisible presences. there is such a sense of history as you walk the path that you are treading where so many pilgrims have walked over the centuries.

back to work tomorrow, greenbelt next weekend to look forward to, so it will be a week before i get back properly into the blogging habit. being away for three weeks you also feel like you've dropped out of the conversation so i have some catching up to do. if you've e-mailed me and i haven't replied (especially some of you coming to greenbelt) now you know why...

la belle france

today i'm off on holiday for two and a half weeks....

no laptop, probably only an occasional visit to an internet cafe, plenty of chilling, sun, surf, reading... can't wait....

i have actually written several posts that will appear - in case you think i'm being a sad loser on holiday i'm not - i've been a sad loser before holiday and written a few things to go up that i've been meaning to blog for a while.

see you later in august!