jonnybaker

greenbelt pocket liturgies book

it's a bit of a proost week on the blog...

ben edson (who co-ordinates the worship at greenbelt) had the great idea of pulling together some of the liturgies from groups who had contributed to the worship programme at greenbelt this year to make a book in the pocket liturgies series on the festival theme - standing in the long now. this whole self publishing world is amazing - within 2 months the book was made, uploaded and printed. and is now available on proost either to download or as a physical book. contributions in the book are from sanctus1, blesséd, safespace, sanctuary, church on the corner, ambient wonder, foundation, sanctum and maybe along with the sunday morning communion liturgy. the series of pocket liturgies really has grown into a neat series...

if you subscribe you can access the book as a download in the download area.

i didn't mention it in the last post because there was so much advent stuff to write about and the books hadn't been delivered but they have now arrived.

other pocket liturgies books

• grace
• moot
• navigatio
• sanctus 1
• hold this space
• book of blessings
• holy darkness
• sanctuary

(and same size but slightly different - )

• listings
• espresso scriptures

end of an era

last night was a farewell party from greenbelt for beki who has been festival director for 9 years. when she took it on there were big financial challenges and numbers were much lower than they are now. she has done an amazing job to grow the festival, put it on a secure footing, and create (with the staff and huge numbers of volunteers) several fantastic festivals. everyone was saying how good this year's festival was. so way to go beki! all the best for the future... while greenbelt interview and appoint a new festival director jenny is acting as interim director for 2.5 days a week.

on greenbelt...

this is an encouraging reflection on greenbelt - such a change to get away from the usual negative media portrayal of christians. occasionally it's good to realise that actually there are some things about christianity and the church that are unique and brilliant!

speaking of church just a reminder of what the church is not from asbo...

theo hobson's piece in the guardian a very english revolution is another really interesting piece, suggesting that greenbelt is brilliant but largely unnoticed. he suggests that it is not about trendy vicars trying to get in with the kids but...

it is more about the trendy kids growing up and awkwardly realizing that Christianity matters to them, despite the backward naffness of church culture. They sense that a new crossover is possible between Christianity and forms of culture that people actually like, that they themselves actually like.

he wrote that in response to the piece an athiest goes to greenbelt which he felt was unsypmathetic. i actually quite liked the piece and good to see that attending naz and co's serum was a positive experience at least. and a wonderful reminder of the power of silence and space, rare things in our culture...

oh and i am looking forward to the world cup - can england really have qualified so easily - where's the usual last minute agony?!

worship trick 69 - the long worship liturgies and fridge magnet liturgies

the worship at greenbelt this year was really wonderful. i can't think of anywhere else you could experience such creativity and diversity in worship. well done to ben, pete, michael and anyone else who put the programme together...

grace took part in a day long worship with feig, safespace, and dream. i wasn't involved at all as i was busy with other things. it went amazingly well. there were lots of interactive stations that built up through the day interspersed with some liturgies written by mark berry. people dropped in and out as they wished - around 1000 visits were made. mark has added the long worship liturgies to his blog. there's a rumour that the various standing in the long now (greenbelt's theme) liturgies may get knocked into a pocket liturgy book sometime in the next few months - watch this space . mark's liturgies also include instructions for the fridge magnet liturgies. this was a very simple idea but worked brilliantly. 840 words that had been gathered from discussions within safespace were printed on postcards and then people selected words to create liturgies on the wall which were read out at various points. there are some photos in the monday set of greenbelt photos

anyway these liturgies and fridge magnet liturgies worship trick 69, in series 3

a new season begins...

august is always holiday season for me so the blog reflects that by being pretty inactive but today i'll gradually kick back into action and that includes getting the blog going again. big chill, family holiday in scotland and greenbelt are now all over. photos from scotland will be appearing shortly but (shock horror!) i didn't take a camera to greenbelt as i find i am doing so many things i just can't give taking photos the attention it deserves.

greenbelt was wonderful as ever - it's such a great festival, a hopeful sign on the church map. i didn't actually get to much but the proost events were a real highlight and i must confess i loved inflicting my taste in tunes on people in the wine bar for two and half hours on sunday night!

speaking of festivals here is a movie i made of sky lanterns being let off at the big chill festival - if you are at the start of the year what are your dreams, hopes, prayers? i'll say more about this in a couple of weeks when it has fully landed but it is a bit of a new season for me at cms with some team changes and a shift of focus to more working with training pioneer mission leaders which i am really looking forward to.

sky lanterns magically float across the big chill festival from jonny baker on Vimeo.

greenbelt 09

well back from holiday in scotland yesterday and now getting ready for greenbelt. hope to see a load of you there! here's a few places i'll be...

• thursday evening - gloucester cathedral for network gathering
• friday 5pm - dropping 2 photos off at the hub to take part on the participative exhibition
• friday 10pm - proost unusual suspects evening in new forms - new talent - come and support/cheer on agents of future, dubb, andi mac, ben norton, chris goan, cntrst, harronell, ben mcavoy, and padraig
• sat 10am - following last year's postmodern doubt vs african certainty i am interviewing yemi more in depth about the experience of black majority churches in britain - in the cms venue
• sat 2pm - hosting a conversation with a few esteemed guests on curation as a model for leading worship following on from the fertile conversations on the blog - winged ox
• sat 5pm - i get to play (DJ would be an overstatement) a selection of chilled tunes for an hour in the wine bar - a new venture for me! - wine bar
• sat 9pm - proost lounge featuring 3 artists - harronell, dubh, and dubb - i can't wait. i'm guessing some of you will be tempted by royksopp but you'll be missing out - the hub venue
• sun 10:30am - interviewing guys from slot festival as part of main worship - so chuffed they will be there - main stage
• sun 2pm - so you want to be a pioneer? - with ben norton and mark rodel - hearing their stories of pioneering in mission and exploring the future for others interested in pioneering - cms venue
• sun 3pm - proost making movies - jon birch is actually hosting this with joel, mark waddington, andi mac - showing a few of their movies and sharing tips on the inspiration and making of movies - cms venue
• sun 4pm - sitting in to learn from andrew jones as he shares tales of his travels across europe and reflects on what is happening in the egdes of mission and the church - cms venue
• sun 8:30pm - be at the tiny tea tent for an act of proost impromptu performance
• mon 10am-6pm (?) - the long now - grace and other groups have joined together to create a long worship experience for you to drop in and out of in new forms. i haven't been involved so have no idea what's going to happen - looking forward to finding out
• mon 3pm - hosting a conversation on liturgy in new/emerging communities with a few wonderful guests and contributors to the pocket liturgy series on proost - winged ox
• mon 6pm - photo swap time at the hub - someone gets mine i guess and i go home with theirs - here's hoping you bring something good!!

other than that no doubt talking and drinking coffee and or beer - will try and see some of arts programme and worship which looks great - so glad i passed on the planning - it's got better! joel is DJing main stage on Sun night. cms have a great programme as ever. there is a conversation going on about the way forward for relational youthwork which is much needed - 9am sat in ymca venue - part two to be arranged from there i guess. if you have an iphone/ipod you can download an app - search greenbelt and you'll find it. or you can buy a pdf of the daily diary from greenbelt site.

greenbelt photo flash swap

greenbelt is at the end of august and is looking like it is shaping up nicely. one new thing that came across my radar is a photo flash swap which i intend to participate in. take a photo to be exhibited. then at the end of the weekend collect and take home someone else's. so if you want one of my prints i'll swap you!

while on the subject of greenbelt royksopp, duke special, dan le sac and scroobius pip, and sway are all in the music line-up which sounds good...

greenbelt visual arts

greenbelt visual arts

blogs - greenbelt and tom sine join the conversation

tom sine has started blogging. i always enjoy tom's insights and reflections

greenbelt festival have also started a blog and podcast (well revamped their old blog is strictly more accurate). they are going to be uploading a talk fee each month so that's worth looking out for if you like listening to talks. i confess that whilst i think it's a good idea i have probably listened voluntarily to about 2 talks after an event in my entire life! i guess i'm more of a reader to learn...

on the subject of summer festivals we have bought tickets to the big chill and jen's coming this time round

african and emerging sensibilities

can a postmodern englishman agree with a pentecostal nigerian?

at greenbelt this year one of the things i did in the cms venue was take part in a debate/conversation with yemi, a nigerian friend/colleague on the different sensibilities arising from out of african churches and postmodern/emerging. it was titled african certainty meets postmodern doubt. i enjoyed it. anyway there is now a recording of it on the cms web site...

greenbelt looking for programme organisers

greenbelt programme is mainly run and planned by groups of volunteers. i helped plan worship for several years and really enjoyed it (though it was hard work too). there are several key roles being advertised. get involved...

worship programme joint co-ordinator
literature programme co-ordinator
film programme co-ordinator

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.

 

greenbelt 2008

just back a little bleary eyed from greenbelt festival, as ever a hopeful sign for the church. this year i wasn't co-ordinating worship - that was wonderfully done by ben, ruth and gayle with a brilliant programme. if you want to catch the edges of what is happening in creative worship greenbelt is a great place to go. we (grace) took a service lunch not included that was good fun - unpacking hospitality. the opening created an experience of being in/out when 'members' were taken out of the queue early and given privileged seats at the front in a  members only enclosure. a very 'in' set of notices and utterly pretentious liturgy followed that only members were able to join in before a staged protest led to the barriers being pulled down. all good fun and it certainly was getting a few people irate up to that point! hopefully it will all get written up in the grace archive/smallfire at some point.

unusually for me i didn't take a camera. i decided that i had too much to do to be able to think about carrying a camera and taking photos - yes i know i have broken my golden rule to always carry one. but there are a ton of photos at the official gb flickr pages - too many in fact to digest! and if you follow the tags greenbelt or greenbelt2008 i'm sure you will trace plenty of peoples photos.

i ended up spinning three plates - the grace service (and spontaneous act of worship which i missed) both went well. we (proost) were running a stand, had two events, an ad on the big screen and beer mats in the organic beer tent. i loved the unusual suspects evening and the proost lounge which was a showcase of artists. hopefully we have let a few more people know about proost who will want to subscribe. and the third plate was cms  where we had a dedicated blah... tent with discussions on mission, emerging culture and all that. pretty much every session was packed. i also took part in a discussion with my friend yemi on the difference in african and european takes on spirituality and faith which was pretty interesting.

so... although in theory it was a less busy greenbelt it ended up pretty packed. i got to two things - matthew herbert big band and jenny speaking on gender differences - she was brilliant of course. this may sound weird but the highlight was an evening on the thursday evening before the festival in gloucester cathedral hosted by feig with a meal, stations, and a candlelit labyrinth accompanied by the astonishing sound of two hang drums, the most gorgeous ambient instruments - see this video or this video to get the idea. about 80 people from various communities were there.

it always feels like summer is over once greenbelt is passed and a new season looms once september kicks in...

if you are coming to greenbelt... 4

it is one year since we relaunched proost. we are back in g-source with a stand where we'll be showing movies and so on and encouraging new subscribers to sign up. we've also sponsored the beer tent on sunday so if you are there you'll see some proost beer mats!...

fri night 10pm we have an unusual suspects evening in new forms - unusuals suspects is a project to identify and encourage new talent in a range of media to publish their work for the first time. a few of the suspects will be interviewd and performing or showing their work.

and then we have a proost lounge saturday evening in the hub (next to the book store) at 7pm. the first 100 people will get a glass of sparkling wine on us. and a whole bundle of artists will be there performing - i guess it will be a laid back showcase sort of evening. please come and join us.

we've had a good first year. focused on good content each month. it now means there is £200 worth of downloadable content plus new content each month for the year ahead so we think it represents great value to subscribe for £60. but we don't really have much in the way of marketing campaign so please let anyone know who you think might be interested...

grace are back in action as ever. we'll be lifting the lid of our explorations in hospitality over the year with lunch not included on monday at 12noon in new forms and one of several groups acts of spontaneous worship round site. watch out for the red umbrella apparently!

this is my final if you are coming to greenbelt... post

maybe see you there if you are coming. let's hope the weather improves!

if you are coming to greenbelt... 3

and you have read about NET, the network of entrepreneurial talent and been frustrated that all the get togethers are in london, well NET are running a symposium over two 3 hour slots at greenbelt exploring business as unusual. there will be a mix of input, panel and practical advice to help people with business/social enterprise ideas that want to make them happen. the two slots are sat 2-5 in cms blah tent, and sun 5-8 in workshops 1 - more detail here

if you are coming to greenbelt... 2

jenny mcintosh came to greenbelt from new zealand in 2005. following on from research by alan jamieson into why people were leaving churches, published as churchless faith, alan and jenny launched spirited exchanges in new zealand. the key finding of the research was that church leavers had given up on church but not necessarily faith so it was to help people on that journey, through publishing a newsletter and website, networking, facilitating a number of groups and trying to educate the churches.

well jenny is back and this time back and living in the uk. following her visit last time round a few of us got together to explore the same idea in the uk as we have exactly the same issue of people leaving church but still journeying in faith. it's been low key and a quiet thing but jenny's vision and arrival has pushed it up a gear and greenbelt is in some ways the launchpad for a new phase. jenny will have a stand in g-source so go and say hi. she is also running two discussion type groups in the cms blah venue - see previous post for times and there is a panel on monday evening at 7pm - it's actually the worst possible time for a slot as there will be no chance to follow up in conversations later in the weekend, and half the festival seem to leave but never mind! if you are around come along.

if you are coming to greenbelt... 1

cms always have a marquee and run a programme, but this year have added a couple of small tents. one of them is hosting a programme related to emerging church and blah... type stuff. the tent only holds around 30 people so it will be small, cosy and intimate. but i'm not sure to what degree it is or isn't in the greenbelt printed programme so thought i'd post it here. i have also added a couple of things in that are in the main cms venue...

Sat -
10:30 Serum - space to explore Christian spirituality hosted by Naz
12-1pm Mission in spiritual market place with Jonny, Ben and Laura
1-2 Networking and learning opportunities for mission leaders
2-5 Business as unusual 1 Shannon Hopkins
4-5 in CMS main venue - reimagining Christian thinking on other religions - Richard Sudworth
5-6 Gender and youth work - Jenny Baker
6-7 Mission service opportunities

Sun
10-11 CMS main venue - Yemi and Jonny head to head discussing African certainty vs emerging doubt
10-30-12 Serum
12-1 God as Flow - Richard Passmore
1-2 Climate Change - James Pender
4:30 Skinny on the emerging church - Andrew Jones
5:30 Spirited exchanges with Jenny Macintosh
6:30 New monasticism - Mark Berry
7-8 Asbojesus.com - Jon Birch

Mon
11-12 Aradhna
12-1 Bible in 60 minutes - Paul Thaxter
1-2 Cafe church in bangalore - Jacob Isaacs
2-3 Mission in 1024 window - Andrew Jones (i.e. your computer screen)
3-4 Spirited exchanges with Jenny Macintosh
4-5 Discussion around ordinaton and pioneer ministry with Stephen Croft and Paul Thaxter

here comes the sun

gb issue a challenge or two...

1giantleap to play greenbelt

1giantleap to play greenbelt!

their new dvd film and cd is out later this week. i have seen most of the tv series what about me? and loved it. it is the most celebratory single project i know of around global culture. see 1giantleap.tv

coldcut kit tour

a few of us at greenbelt were having a discussion about coldcut and how they do the audio visual stuff live. mark blogged a link to a video talk through the kit by matt black.