jonnybaker

back at london mind body spirit festival next week

we're back at the london mind body spirit festival next week.

as dekhomai we will have a stand in the marketplace - booth 43. we will be offering spiritual resources from the christian tradition to visitors. we often get asked what dekhomai means - it means the welcoming place. we want to provide a space of welcome in the busyness of the festival, a listening ear and a space for prayer.

at our stand everything is free...

be listened to and prayed for
receive prayer for healing with the anointing of oil and laying on of hands
make a dekhomai prayer cord to help you pray
have a go on the Jesus deck to see how Christ's story connects with your life
sit down, chill and have a foot or hand massage
receive a blessing (we will be using john o donaue's book benedictus)

our popular dekhomai postcards will be back with two additions to the set - see the photo album for the images and text from the cards...

we'll also be leading two meditations in the meditation room on wednesday and sunday at 2pm. tess ward is leading one on celtic mdeitation and peter rundell an igantian meditation.

the image above is of one of the cards which you may recognise from my foggy photos...

linkage and worship trick 31 - sunday

a few news/link type things...

mike morris has started blogging.

beyond church has had it's first worship gathering that looks like it was a lot of fun. and their next event should be hilarious with the brilliant comedian milton jones...

ian adams is branching out into other creative areas and projects offering spiritual direction amongst other things

moby gratis is free music from moby for non commercial ventures. it's film score type stuff - ideal for worship background?

20 questions to use in a small group to get to know people

and darren wright has a whole worship experience called sunday that is free and downloadable. it was originally used at the australian black stump festival. i am making that worship trick 31

centre and circumference

jake lever had an exhibition at greenbelt last year which was really good.

wallspace have signed him up and centre and circumference is going to be an installation in london from feb 19 - march 19. the blurb says...

Jake Lever's exquisitely crafted triptych – influenced deeply by the icon tradition – is designed on an almost architectural scale. The piece enfolds its viewers, enabling them to be immersed in the work. In experiencing the installation, visitors will be able to take refuge from the driven atmosphere of London's financial district to find rest, to slow down and be still.

it's accompanied by taverner and bjork's prayer of the heart which is stunning.

spirit2go: worship trick 23

steve taylor always comes up with creative ideas for advent and lent...

this year he has developed spirit2go. as he puts it the thinking behind it is...

Working toward Lent this year, I have also been seeking a way for people to do spirituality without any physical link to church, while retaining some sense of shared life. How could people do a shared task, but in their own timestyles, yet be encouraged by each other? In the old days it was meet physically, same time, same place. But is that the only way?

there are creative tasks to do and share what you get up to in the comments under each of the assignment blog posts or e-mail them in. i guess you could do this alone, with a family, with friends - a global interactive worship experience of sorts...

wishes or prayer?

adrian sent me a link to the big flake, an interactive site to post your wishes not too dis-similar form some of the interactive prayer/digital spirituality stuff [ lava lamp | labyrinth | embody etc]. somehow prayer seems a bit less flakey than wishes though...

40 book - hot off the press, laudamus from COTA and lent resources

i just had a delivery yesterday of '40' the book. many of you will know si smith's wonderful illustrations of jesus journey into the wilderness. i have used them a load of times in worship. they are fantastic for all ages and perfect for lent. if you haven't seen it the movie is available on proost.

well chris goan wrote a script to go with them and contacted si and to cut a long story short have turned 40 into a book - on one side of the page is one of si's illustrations, and on the other is chris's reflection. rather than using lulu which we have done for the pocket liturgies we have done a small print run ourselves. it's available as a download on proost for free if you are a subscriber but it's the kind of book you will probably want in print. so you can order them through proost as well and it's only £7.

this was part of our january release on proost.

the other new january item is laudamus, an album from karen ward's church of the apostles in seattle. this follows a service of morning prayer and evening prayer. cota have led worship at greenbelt and people have really enjoyed what they have done.

i put a list on the front page of the proost web site of resources that we have that are particularly suitable for lent so you might want to have a look at that as well...

labyrinth web site updated

the labyrinth web site has had an overhaul...

spiritual journeys

well the church sometimes comes along and surprises me...

spiritualjourneys.org.uk is a web site connected with a new book sense making faith produced by the mission theologial advisory group which i think is a group connected with church together in britain and ireland. i haven't got the book though i will look out for it. but the web site is packed with resources around the themes of exploring, looking, asking, dreaming and doing. i am convinced if churches had more emphasis like this on connecting with spiritual seekers we'd be in better shape...

wise traveller

been meaning to blog about this since greenbelt...

wise traveller is a new series of short booklets based around a spiritual theme - happiness, relationships and loss. the booklets consist of meditations, reflections, quotes from spiritual writings and so on. the are not structured with a date on any of the readings so they are booklets to dip into.

it's an interesting shift for scripture union whose staple is bible reading notes. this is much looser, more open, broad and seeking to be useful to spiritual travellers everywhere drawing on the christian traditions of spirituality. there are some sample pieces on the web site so you can get the idea of what they are about and many of the writers are people connected with alternative worship, emerging church or greenbelt. it seems a good venture so it will be interesting to see how it goes and is received.

celtic wheel of the year - tess ward

over the summer i have read several books and been sent several books by publishers or friends.

i was delighted to be sent a copy of tess ward's book the celtic wheel of the year: celtic and christian seasonal prayers.

the book is divided into monthly sections with a daily pattern of prayer. it combines the christian seasons with the  seasons of the solstices and equinoxes. it draws on celtic themes of the presence of god in all of life and pilgrimage and uses wonderfully poetic language. it's published by o-books which i think is brilliant as it locates this resource in the mind body spirit world rather than the christian subculture. each chapter has a meaty intro on the themes and festivals of that month. it's earthy and british - by which i mean the seasons described may not make much sense if you are in another part of the world. it's also fantastically womanly -  it connects strongly with womens spirituality and feminist themes. and i totally mean that as a positive - it's one of the things i love about it.

tess says this about the appeal of celtic christianity today -

the appeal of celtic christianity today is not hard to fathom. even christians more orthodox and patient than myself are wanting to join up the lines much more between their daily lives, creation, their sexuality, their emotional lives, their faith. this inter connectedness between every living thing is of god.

i love it - i think it's one of the most original liturgical books i have seen for a long time. (i think the art of crafting liturgy that is creative and connects with the tradition is quite a rare gift at the moment. we need to cultivate more liturgists and artists in the christian community.) tess manages to find a way with language that connects strongly with the christian tradition but without alienating spiritual seekers by her language. just as an example flicking through the book prayers addressed to god begin with some of the following names...

great artist of the beginning
creator of life
father of all prodigals
spirit of god
brother jesus
inspirer of the universe
source of all
breath of life
complete one
constant one
lover of my soul
my beloved
giver of sun and rain
lure of all our longing
oedinary god
innermost god
peace giver
boundary crosser
trickster god
holy fool
hope bringer
substance of our faith
sparkling mystery
still place
shielder of intimacies
god of surprises

this is actually a great example of contextual mission. i remember reading lamin sanneh on the gospel taking root in countries in africa and he made the point that one of the things about those places was that when the scriptures were translated they used the local/pagan name for god rather than introducing an outside name. i'm not suggesting this is a targeting strategy for tess - it's simply intuitive as she inhabits a world of spiritual seekers, particularly women who are at home in the creation and in their bodies. david tacey in his amazing book the spiritual revolution says that finding a new language is the challenge and tess rises to the challenge.

i am going to use this book for a while to help me pray and see how i get on with it. it's clearly been a huge project. the book is 280 pages long. and i am sure tess has laboured hard to bring it to birth. some of you may have caught tess leading a couple of sessions at greenbelt. sadly i missed them. i really recommend this book - a wonderful gift. thanks tess!