jonnybaker

fractured broken and beautiful - dubh

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

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

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

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

turbulence at the boundary

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

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

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

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

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

pentecost movies

pall singh is an amazingly creative guy and has been a friend for years. he is the founder and creative behind sanctuary a community in birmingham who draw on the contemplative traditions of the christian faith but fusing it with contemporary british asian culture. it's truly unique. he is now also a cms mission partner which is great. this month on proost we have three movies from east and west trust who produced a dvd (scroll down this page) a while back of 5 meditative movies which captured the flavour of what they are about. pall was the visionary behind it. natural images mix with the sounds of aradhna - tabla, sitar and so on - around the themes of fire, water and light. we've picked three that seem to tie in perfectly with pentecost. all the movies are around 7 minutes long and make an ideal meditation in their own right or visual wallpaper for the soul as background during worship and prayer.

i had a count up and there are around 40 movies now on proost which surprised me how fast we've built up that number. subscribe if you haven't or download the individual movies...

12 stations meditation freebie - worship trick 61 [series 3]

it's good friday so we thought we'd throw up one of proost's pieces for free. this is party because there was a glitch in the file we uploaded originally so some people have had problems downloading it so we feel bad for messing a few people around. and because we felt like putting something out there on good friday anyway. to view this i have embedded it full size so stretch your browser window so that the whole animation is in there and then you click through the slides on the bottom right. if your window is too small, download it - see below. the movie 12 stations is a great accompaniment if you haven't seen it. thanks jon for agreeing to give the meditation away. if you've paid for it already and feel hard done by e-mail me and i'll create a coupon for you to download something else. if you are a proost subscriber you could access this anyway. you can download it here and use it either with flash player or open it in a browser if you want to use it offline.

i had a scroll back through the worship trick series and these are other things i noticed related to the season. if you have things you have come across leave a comment and i'll take a look

bitter journey
seven sayings - which has now moved to here
three days
ecce homo
a couple of animations
tenebrae
dead man waiting
good friday stencil
graffiti stations of the cross
easter liturgies
shooting jesus images
holy week reflections
passion pictures

agents of the future - alt worship gets out of its laid back soundtrack

agents of the future are part of the bridge community in portland, oregon in the usa. their debut mini album of 6 tracks has a fantastic raw energy. none of the usual laid back alt worship electronica for the old alt worship folks! you can listen to samples in the media player on the proost site. they are our latest unusual suspects on proost. this is what they say about themselves

We are a bunch of Jesus-loving, jalopy-gospel way-backers who get together and do creative things: Shrieking, speaking, flailing, failing, storytelling, fear-quelling. In the process, songs and stories are smithed and written, friendships and families are stretched and shaken, stirred and strengthened. Genre-gender-class-past-death-defiers and town-crying demystifiers of mystery history lead these pacifistic, full-frontally ballistic missives. Best of all, on frequent occasions, we see entombed voices raisin’ and we peek through the haze.

i raved about andli mac's sea parable before on the blog and even went and bought it myself. well i'm delighted to say that you can now get that on proost as well. it's a beautiful animation that tells a tale of sailors who live to rescue people drowning in the sea. their mission keeps getting subverted by the lure of the comfort of the boathouse. sound familiar?!

one of my personal favourite movies on proost is jon birch's manga style 12 stations. if you've not come across it take a look. this year he has taken some of the still images from it and worked them into a meditation for easter 12 stations meditation. it is a flash file where each page has an image associated with a station and a written reflection. when you are ready click the button to move onto the next page. it's perfect for good friday (though skip the resurrection station at the end - which was never part of the traditional stations anyway!)

i know i have said it a few times but if you subscribe you can download all our stuff and get a year's worth of new content. and every time i say it there's more there :-)

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.

parable of the sea - mission and the church

andi mac rocks! he is one of proost's unusual suspects - new talent that we publish. he contacted us out of the blue last year and we published clouds - a quirky movie. last year at the greenbelt unusual suspects session he played vampire love - which we adored - even more quirky! that now has an electro french pop sounding soundtrack and we decided to hold it back for valentine's day so it's just come out this month. he was also one of the artists we featured as part of nine with another brilliant piece. andi is now carving out a niche as a designer, animator, illustrator... and he sent me a link to a piece he has done for SAMS ireland called the parable of the sea. it is stunning - simple, sad, powerful.

go and watch it on his site and there is a link to paypal to buy it for three pounds. also if you haven't watched any of the three movies andi has released on proost they are all on his site in the animations section...

lent resources on proost

it's two weeks to ash wednesday and the beginning of lent. i always love the season of lent - it somehow provides a good focus for faith in the run up to and preparation from easter. unlike previous years grace are not running a lent blog. we decided to take a break from that. but I'm sure there will be plenty of activity to link to in the coming weeks...

proost's february content is now uploaded. there are a two ambient instrumental pieces from jon birch dust and water, a movie winter from dave wiles which reflects in photography and poetry on death and new life. dave is new on proost. and then a quirky fun movie from andi mac called vampire love which looks at the transforming nature of love with an electro pop soundtrack by ben mcavoy, also new on proost. if you have a valentine's day event this would be perfect!

i was having a quick look through proost resources for lent. 40 is the most popular, the amazing movie by si smith tracing jesus' journey into the wilderness in 40 illustrations. it is also available in a book with accompanying reflection. other movies that might work for lent - beattitudes, space and time, where are you, winter, vampire love, cloud and incense smoke.

on books, tune in chill out, alternative worship and heart soul mind and strength are full of creative prayer ideas. the pocket liturgy series have plenty of lent pieces: ash weds labyrinth in hold this space, 5 blessings for lent in a book of blessings, slow service in grace, lent reflection in sanctus1...

jenny baker's contemplative prayer EP, earthenware's deserts 1-5 with accompanying meditation (see that page to download words), molten meditation and labyrinth (try noise with the vj loop spectrograph) are all in the audio section.

VJ Loops 1

this month on proost we release VJ Loops 1. this contains 5 movie loops from mark waddington - candles, flames, fireworks, spectrograph and dancer. mark was part of grace for many years before moving to yorkshire and in fact he still is part - of the grace diaspora!

if you are wondering what a VJ or a loop is a VJ is like a DJ only mixing visual images, and a loop is a short movie clip that starts from the beginning once it has finished - i.e. it loops. these VJ loops could  be projected in the worship space as a texture, ambience or visual wallpaper for the soul. there are various pieces of software that people use to present - powerpoint, keynote, arkaos, easyworship and so on. whichever you use or even if you are using quicktime on its own you should be able to set the movie to loop so that it keeps playing/looping. we play loops like this most of the time during worship as background, with words over the top, during prayers...

they are available in the movies section of the site as a bundle for a fiver. happy new year from proost!

thanks for all the feedback on nine by the way - seems like people loved it. we'd love to hear how you used it in practice if you have a spare moment. i'm meeting jon this afternoon to plot what we are up to for lent...

advent resource from proost - nine

at proost we have been cooking up a project for advent for a while which is now available... inspired by grace and their service nine over the last few years we invited nine pieces by nine artists to interpret the christmas story. all the pieces have been created in response to one of the traditional nine readings from the nine lessons and carols christmas service. there are 6 movies and 3 tracks. the items are not available individually - we wanted to keep this as a set. the pieces are:

1. Genesis 3: 8–15; 17–19
Dust by Dubb and Coyote - mp3 spoken word and beats

2. Genesis 22: 15–18
God of Abraham by Doug Gay - mp3 song

3. Isaiah 9: 2; 6–7
O Come O Come Emmanuel by Pádraig Twomey and Jonny McEwen - mp3 song

4. Isaiah 11: 1–3a; 4a; 6–9
Love's Impossible Reality by Cheryl Lawrie and Mike Emmett - movie

5. Luke 1: 26–35; 38
Blessed by Juli Allen and Jon Birch - movie

6. Luke 2: 1; 3–7
Signs of Love by Andi Mac and Harronell - movie

7 Luke 2: 8–16
A Great Company by Jonny Baker and Jon Birch - movie

8. Matthew 2: 1–12
Magi by Andrew Jones - movie

9. John 1: 1–14
Word by Gavin Mart - movie

nine costs nine pounds and is available in the movies section of the web site. you could use it in your church/community, at home alone, with a family. it's all downloadable.

i'm really pleased that harry (dubb) gets to make his debut on proost (proud dad moment) - we'll have an ep or album from him next year in the spring we hope.

i'll be blogging a few more advent ideas and links in the next few days/weeks but other things on proost that are also worth a look are si smith's amazing 25 - advent calendar and comic and cutout nativity - totally brilliant, kester's movie wait and jon's movie silent night.

thanks to everyone who has contributed.

[added as worship trick 47]

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!

proost back with corinne bailey rae

we have had a few problems with proost this month which have ended up in us shifting the site to a new server. if you have had hassles or tried to visit proost and found it down, it's all back in action now. we have a great schedule of content lined up for the year ahead and kick of with two albums from revive in leeds. they are both from their back catalogue - beautiful day is an amazing album, one of my favourite alt worship ones ever and has stood the test of time. corinne bailey rae sings on both albums and was part of revive back in the day before she became a star! it's interesting to see that these aren't listed in her back catalogue on wikipedia so maybe a few corinne fans will get a pleasant surprise. i remember revive playing at a brainstormers youthwork conference years ago and being simply stunned by her voice. seeing as this is a bit of a home base for alt worship music, movies and liturgy we wanted to add these in.

there are also two new movies - an animation of the parable of the sower and one for thanksgiving, both from jon birch.

you can preview stuff in the media player, buy individual items and as i keep saying subscribing gets to be a better and better deal with the back catalogue ever expanding. it's good to be back in action after a stressful few weeks!

Technorati Tags: corinne bailey rae

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.

 

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... 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.

send your confession into space - worship trick 38

this month on proost we have three interactive confessions. send your sin into space on a rocket, watch as it is destroyed in a machine or eaten by a goat! yes jon birch had a touch of inspiration/craziness all at the same time. all are in the movies section of proost. if you buy one feel free to add them to your church web site or blog. just give a link back to proost. i am making these worship trick 38 in series 3.

since our relaunch at greenbelt one year ago proost now has around £200 worth of downloadable content iincluding 9 books, 20 albums, and 23 movies. you can access all that plus new content each month for a year whenever you like if you subscribe and it only costs £60! what are you waiting for?

pocket liturgies available in australia

Unichurch bookshop are stocking our proost pocket liturgy book series and will post books to anywhere in australia. cheryl has details...

cheryl lawrie liturgy book out on proost plus cloud movie

this month on proost we have two new items...

we conceived the idea of the series of pocket liturgies to try and make available prayers, liturgies, reflections and rituals that were being born out of the life of local situations. we are really pleased to add hold this space as the fifth in the series to reflect worship growing out of the soil of melbourne, australia. cheryl lawrie is wonderfully gifted in the art of crafting words - if you follow the blog you'll know i regularly link to her writing and have made several pieces worship tricks before now. as well as working in a range of spaces to curate worship events and experiences across the city, cheryl has developed worship in prisons. her prayers and liturgies for that context along with the psalms written by prisoners are powerful. it's in the books section of the site as a download or physical book. (if you are in australia the uniting church bookshop in melbourne will be stocking it).

then cloud is the first proost movie from our latest unusual suspect andi mac who is part of a community in lurgan, northern ireland called arise which is the playground for his creativity. it's a really unique piece. here's what he said when i asked him about it...

Cloud was born out of a period of heaviness amongst the Arise community. The image that resonated was of a dark cloud resting overhead. Then looking at the imagery in the Bible of a cloud as a sign of the presence of God, of reassurance and guidance, the video "Cloud" was born. You could use it as a loop in the background (would look excellent playing through a stack of old fashioned 60's TV's) but probably most likely to be used as stand alone video. Could be used for exploring themes of commitment, guidance, going through periods of darkness. The main element at the beginning and end of video of the people walking with clouds overhead is based on the urban commute, that sense of dreariness that seems to hang over everyone on their way to work.

[you can preview it in the media player on the proost site]

new movies for pentecost

we have added three movies to proost for may. they are all movie loops
flames flickering
eagle in flight
and incense smoke rising

you can preview them in the movie player on proost. my personal favourite of these is the smoke movie created by mark waddington which we have used loads of times over the years at grace.

wallpaper for the soul...