jonnybaker

free wifi cafe in london

congrats to church.co.uk and headspace on the launch of their taste cafe today. si johnston says a bit more about it over at his blog...

good coffee, reasonable prices and free wi fi!!! as far as i'm aware there are very few cafes in london withe free wifi - so this is a result as it's just down the road from the office. you probably remember how inspired i was by karen ward's cafe offering good coffee and free wi fi - well it's good to know that london is catching karen up!

i love this photo of si sat with his ibook apparently chatting up the local grannies and showing them a few mac skills....

naomi klein

naomi klein - anybody but bush and then let's get back to work - in today's guardian

new ideas originate at the margins

There is a debate in this month's Creative Review on 'What is design for?'. The most interesting part is the tension designers feel about working for advertising (to earn money, where a lot of the creative energy is) and staying true to their vision/art. How do you manage to not sell out? One of the guys basically says that if you want your work to be seen and have an influence you have to get it in with the big players. But Rick Poyner (who I'm increasingly come to like - I am currently reading a collection of his essays called 'Obey The Giant') disagrees...

This idea of the person on the one hand at the margins having no influence and then the person in the corporate world who is making a difference because his work has an audience: I don't buy that dichotomy. When you look at the important cultural makers, not just designers, but photographers, film directors, cultural people, over and over they are people who are preserving a position of some kind of independence, being able to pursue their own direction, which produces work which is of immense cultural value.

Does it matter if their audience is small? I'm inclined to the contrary, the 3000 people who bought that product are engaged in a kind of cultural exploration which is the very stuff of self-education and growing as a human being. Smallness is not a barrier to significant, influential work. If, as a designer, you choose to position yourself there then you've got my support because it's culturally important - it's difficult, a struggle, but it's difficult to imagine a world that doesn't have those people - without them it would be a monoculture, full of people who shared mass experiences and ultimately it would stagnate. New ideas tend to originate in the margins where those makers are freest.

Sounds like many a conversation that's been had in alternative worship over the years.... Read that last bit again but thinking about creating worship...

Smallness is not a barrier to significant, influential (worship). If, as a (curator of worship), you choose to position yourself there then you've got my support because it's culturally important - it's difficult, a struggle, but it's difficult to imagine a world that doesn't have those people - without them it would be a monoculture, full of people who shared mass experiences and ultimately it would stagnate. New ideas tend to originate in the margins where those makers are freest.

sigur ros downloads

sigur ros download page - thanks to rebecca for the tip off....

labyrinth revisited...

had a couple of e-mails about the labyrinth today. glad to see it's still proving a wonderful resource/tool/gift...

labyrinth australia charts what eddie is up to with it in australia. if you are in australia you can get CDs and kits etc from him if you want to run one...

and richard white has posted his thoughts including visitors comments on running it at the st helen's show here and here. i like this thought...

Seeing the labyrinth connect so effectively with all ages and types at a showground in a Northern, working class town strongly confirmed my suspicion that many elements of so called “alternative worship” are only alternative in relation to church. They are by comparison more mainstream than ‘normal’ church in relation to the culture we live in. Again, more thoughts to follow…

archbishop's spiel

after the tenth anglican church planting conference i blogged my notes on rowan's spiel but if you remember my battery ran out so you never got the end!

the good news is that the archbishop's address is now up on the ACPI site as are the emerging church stories from that day.

missional entrepreneurship

further to my previous post on bad news outlining moot's struggle to raise money for ian to work for them, si johnston has posted some thoughts and i noticed a great spiel at living room on missional entrepreneurship.

[later addition to the post] darren rowse has added some good thoughts on funding as a comment on the post below. i know not everyone follows the comments so for those of you reading in newsreaders etc he says...

I think its time we did some serious talking about this question and explore some options that might include a combination of:

- Denominational (and interdenominational) grants/support. We need to keep communicating to the powers that be the need for experimentation, new forms of church etc. I think its very important for denominations and established churches to support what we do.

- Bi-vocational Ministry - Its a bit of a hobby horse at the moment for me but I'm feeling more and more drawn to the 'secular' workforce and have been blogging about it a bit lately. I think its something more and more of us 'clergy' types should explore for a multitude of reasons including sustainability - but also for reasons of mission, reality check etc. I've made a conscious decision this year to start my own business and am finding it an incredibly liberating experience that is invigorating my ministry and giving me so many opportunities for missional encounters.

- Self Funding - I've been challenging my community lately to step up to the mark in their giving. Why should we expect our denomination to pay me to care for them? If we decide that one of the roles of a leader in our community is pastoral care....or worship leading...or preaching...(things that largely focus upon the group itself) shouldn't they contribute to the financing of such a role? I thin we have to bite the bullet as communities at some point and stop putting our hand out to our denominations to fund us and work on ways of sustaining ourselves.

- Churches running Missional Enterprises - I'm seeing more and more churches that are running businesses or that are developing income streams. Often these income streams are missional in their focus. Some I've seen include opening cafes, pizza shops, galleries, gift shops, starting guitar schools, hiring our their buildings to community groups, starting book stores, running skills based courses in the community, running welfare programs and getting grants from governments, running multi media courses etc. In this way many of them are not only creating an income stream but are developing proximity in their communities.

interestingly enough steve taylor has just posted up emerging values of opawa baptist church in NZ. one of their values is directly related to what darren is suggesting:

We value a workplace reality. We want a bi-vocational pastoral team and our worship to engage with life 24/7

and in contrast to that jason presents the case for full time pastors in the emerging church.

BIG opportunity

The Editor of "Q News" (the Muslim newspaper) wants to find 20 Christians who would spend three days with 20 Muslims in London to talk about their different faith experiences. A few points about this 'experience'.
* It is free - possibly even help with travel costs to London
* 13-16 September 2004
* Based at London School of Economics
* Dine on a Thames river boat
* Meet the Archbishop of Canterbury
* Social activities, formal and informal discussion, high quality accom.
* Must be 18-25
* Must be serious about Christian faith
* Must seriously want to understand young Muslims
* Total group = 20 young Muslims + 20 young Christians (10 male 10 female)

If you know of anyone who might be suitable e-mail andrew (though i've just noticed he is away from today until 10 august) so either be quick or wait a bit... no guarantee that there will still be places....

worship trick 94 - art of speed

the art of speed is a project commissioned by nike with 15 talented young filmmakers interpreting the idea of speed. all 15 films are on the latest dvd that came with creative review magazine (you have to subscribe to get the dvd which comes out twice a year). but all 15 films are available to download from the web site. the large size ones are pretty big so you'll need broadband connection. my favourite is the associates in science one which has the most useable sequences for worship. grace are doing a service at greenbelt called 'slow' looking at speed and slow - handy eh?!...

the web site also contains links to several other interesting things. i particularly like this hand clock

lance gets the sixth victory in the tour de france

congratulations to lance armstrong who today won his sixth consecutive tour de france - and in quite some style. last year looked like a struggle and many people predicted it was the beginning of the end of his reign. but in the form he has been in this year it's hard seeing anyone else winning it next year...

bad news

moot - bad news

disappointingly moot have not been successful with their grant application. i have said this before more than once. but the issue that the church of england have to face is that it simply isn't enough to give permission for fresh expressions of church (wonderful though that is). there has to be an investment of resources. i know the church isn't a business but if it was if you were in decline you would support innovation and investment in future projects that were engaging with change but you would also have to close down some failing parts of the business to make this reinvestment. ian has just got ordained - probably every other candidate is sorted in a parish post that is salaried. why not the emerging church one? it really bugs me....

i recently had an exchange of e-mails with karen ward facing similar difficulties in securing funding in the usa from the episcopal church...

hadge and smallritual on the move

a couple of blog changes if you haven't spotted them...

hadge is now blogging here (formerly ogblog) | steve collins has started a new blog here (formerly small ritual though don't change that link as there is so much fab stuff on that site!)

fake or real?

what is real? try this fake or foto quiz

god violates intel trademark

god violates intel trademark (thanks to richard for the link)

in response to this article the register have published god to smite reg hacks! :

One Gareth Richardson was upset with us for, he thought, exposing said religious establishment to the full legal might of the great Satan of chips.

You do realise that you are a muppet don't you ?
There is a PHONE NUMBER on the bottom of the poster.
If I hear that they have been done over by Intel because of this, you'll be seeing the dark side of the Lord pretty darned soon. Twat.
Gareth

Well, Gareth, thank you for your concern, but you can rest assured that it is misplaced. That phone number is not on the advertisement, it is on the hoarding, and is actually a non-location-specific UK local rate number for the hoarding company. We'd also like to give you a tip for writing threatening letters: try not to use the word 'darned'. It undermines your credibility somewhat.

great stuff!

emerging church in brighton?

anyone know of anything in the emerging church/alt worship category in brighton (england)? post a comment below if you do....

tour de fonts

5 free fonts in honour of the tour - available for mac and pc. via tdfblog. according to the blurb this downlaod is available for one day only so be quick!

armstrong takes the yellow jersey

armstrong rides into yellow - loving the tour de france as ever. what a fantastic display of cycling over the weekend in the pyrenees by armstrong and his team... i can't see anyone stopping him en route to the unprecedented 6th title.

qualifications for leadership in the emerging church

richard sudworth suggests...

leadership structures are being rebrokered in the emerging church as follows. Qualifications for:

Deacon: tattoo and blog
Pastor: tattoo, blog, ipod and powerbook
Apostle: tattoo, blog, ipod, powerbook but belief that leadership is redundant whilst broadcasting a strategic apostolic voice to that effect

...all the above are white and male and under 45 whilst advocating the inclusivity and breadth of the church

the trinity and worship

good stuff from maggi on the trinity and worship.

music links

a couple of fun music sites:
musicplasma | looptracks