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

beach hut advent calendar now available on proost

in addition to all the other wonderful advent stuff on proost we are now stocking the amazing beyond advent calendar. you need to order quick to get yours in time for dec 1! order here

advent - new 9 lessons animations and a bundle of other ideas and resources from proost

9 Lessons is a wonderful new flash animation from jon birch of asbojesus fame. it is incredibly simple an idea. run the flash file (in a browser or flash player) and there are 9 animating loops corresponding to each of the nine lessons and carols from the traditional christmas service. but here's the brilliant part - each one loops for as long as you like while you do the reading and whatever else. then you simply click on the play button in the corner to move on to the next image. it's only £2.99 and is this year's offering from proost into the ever expanding creative melee of ideas as the worldwide body of christ goes crazy to celebrate the coming of jesus the god/human into the world.

proost actually now have an amazing selection of advent ideas and resources. if you've not come across them have a look at the following:

nine - nine artists interpret the traditional nine readings with 6 movies and 3 songs - see here for info

25 - si smith's amazing cutout and make nativity characters and advent calendar and comic
- see here for more info

wait - vaux's simple but powerful movie and liturgy on waiting in advent - see here

silent night - a movie that's ideal for pretty much any christmas service - see here

then of course lots of liturgies and songs on the advent theme elsewhere in the books and audio sections...

it's probably obvious but these resources are as useable round a meal table or in your lounge with a family and friends as they are in a worship service. use with creativity and imagination!

did i ever mention that if you subscribe to proost you get access to all the back content and the coming year whenever you like for the equivalent of five pounds a month?! ;-)

anyway hope your own creative juices are flowing and that of your communities. i'll be blogging other ideas and stuff that's out there as the weeks go by.

i am making 9 lessons a worship trick - no 75 in the third series - as i love it so much.

[update: jon has added it to youtube if you want to take a look]

proost - standing still for a change!

ok just kidding...

standing still is the title of a new movie on proost from andi mac themed as a ghostly tale for halloween. we also have two new movies from molten meditation which blend scripture, quiet music and visual wallpaper. these tracks are from his new album molten meditation 3 also up as part of our latest upload.

and yes if you subscribe this is all included in your subscription in the download area.

i love elvis - worship trick 70

andi mac was a discovery on proost two years ago as one of our unusual suspects. it's been exciting to see his movie making/animation going from strength to strength. at the proost events at greenbelt he showed a new movie he has made i love elvis, another contemporary parable. you may remember sea parable in a similar vein and he has done clouds, vampire love and a movie for last year's nine on proost (see the movie section of the site). well the good news is that it is available free from the guys at kore to download. i'm hoping that we will be able to add it to proost as well at some point, at least for subscribers but the main thing is you can find it and it's free!

...talking of free just a reminder if you haven't to check out the proost.co.uk/freebies for a taster of proost

freebies

yes everyone loves free stuff. so this year for our proost promo stuff around greenbelt we are simply giving people a taster of proost new and forthcoming releases for free - a bunch of freebies including the likes of dubh, harronell, dubb along with samples from forthcoming releases from ben mcavoy, molten meditation and grace (yes over 10 years later there is a new grace album on the way). simply go to www.proost.co.uk/freebies and follow the instructions or if you are familiar with proost go to the audio section and select freebies. and if you are a subscriber freebies is in the download area - it has a couple of tunes even you won't have heard yet.

it's two years since proost's relaunch at greenbelt 2007. since then we've managed to get new content every month uncovering some gems in the process and published a bundle of artists and writers for the first time in the process. we did a bit of counting up and worked out that there are now around 44 movies, 22 albums and 11 books all of which would add up to around £250 to download individual items. if you subscribe you get all that plus the next year's content - that has to be good value. the numbers seemed so neat we put them on our promo card...

thanks to anyone who has encouraged us in the last two years, who we have encouraged, who has created something, who has been inspired, shared their creativity, taken something from proost and made it their own in their context by giving it a different use, purchased an individual item, no longer needs proost becuase you make your own stuff, or who have subscribed. it's been hard work but we've surprised ourselves at how well it's gone.

dubb - debut album rhythm and poetry

i am very excited to announce that dubb's first album rhythm and poetry (rap) is out. dubb is none other than harry baker who crafts words that are fun, poignant and high energy. the album is 9 tracks mixed by jon birch, the godfather (well his godfather!). the beats are provided by the human beatbox tyte who if you haven't come across is brilliant. it's available to download from www.proost.co.uk for only 4.99. it includes be yourself and the legendary superman shoes which you may have heard before. you can have a listen to samples of the album in the media player (right window on proost). i am of course totally biased but it is a wonderful debut.

our other release this month is espresso scriptures from ben norton, a collection of short reflections on scriptures. here's what i wrote for the foreword...

Ben’s a surprise! When you meet him you think he can’t be a vicar in the Church of England. He doesn’t seem the type with his tattoos and piercings and spiky hair of whatever colour it happens to be that week. But then you find out he is one of these new pioneer ministers who get to create something from nothing, to share the Christian faith with people who aren’t in church. The church has realised that business as usual works for insiders but there are whole groups of people for whom church is like another planet, a different world. And it is going to take some different people to go on an adventure of the imagination to connect the Christian story with their stories in a way that makes sense. So Ben hangs out chatting to people, sharing the faith whether at school gates in the pub, on youtube online or out surfing gently growing a spiritual community or two that doesn’t require visiting another planet called church.

Espresso scriptures has naturally emerged out of that – framing the scriptures as a daily short reflection that is sent via e-mail to people who are interested in spiritual things. They are straightforward, direct and creative – perfect for the morning to get you going for the day. It’s Proost’s first bible reading book I guess though it doesn’t quite feel like a set of bible study notes in that sense. It’s also Ben’s first book, the first of many we are sure.

So make yourself an espresso, rip out a page and digest it as you go. We’re delighted Ben brought it to us as an idea and now the idea has legs.

emergent psalter and agents of future podcast

isaac everett has written an emergent psalter - no mean feat! this is an example for me that shows that many in the emerging church are looking to re-connect with and improvise out of the tradition rather than move away from it. he is also running a podcast that takes a pslam from the lectionary and interviews someone about it playing related tunes. the latest podcast features an interview with todd and angie fadel of agents of the future including a track from their mini album which is on proost.co.uk . you can link to the book and listen to the interviews from the emergent psalter page. i am looking forward to agents of future being at greenbelt this year! isaac of course also has two albums on proost...

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!