jonnybaker

mission 4 justice

Mission 4 Justice April 15th, 7-9.30pm
Tom and Christine Sine are speaking on mission, justice, life and faith for students and young adults.
Venue: St Mary's Church, 57 Kennington Park Road, SE11 4JQ.
Nearest tube: Kennington or Elephant and Castle (10 minutes Walk).
Tickets are £5 available on the door.
They have been invited by SPEAK as part of the Trade Justice Global Week of Action

(click on the image for a full size version of the flyer)

a couple more flashes

ben has posted a couple of flashes from sanctus 1's easter services - uncertainty and it is finished. i like the ishuffle juxtaposed with thomas!...

worship tricks updated...

i have finally got round to creating a list of links to the second series of worship tricks. if you click on the worship tricks button in the right hand side bar, rather than link to a list for the first series it will link to you a page from which you can link to both...

pete blog

pete rollins has started a blog for musings on theology in a postmodern context

grace turns gold

grace lent blog for 2005 finished yesterday. i liked the way the site turned from purple to gold/yellow for easter and it was a fun last post from harry...

worship trick 18 [second series] - shine like stars

happy easter christ is risen!

josh lyon has posted this wonderful idea called shine like stars. take an image of christ such as the one below (that josh used) which is in black and white. on a sheet of paper tack tiny holes where the dark areas of the image are. put the sheet on an overhead projector and you should get an image of christ like a constellation of stars.

Technorati Tags: easter, worship tricks, alternative worship

photos of 'out of nothing'

i have added a photo album of pics from 'out of nothing', the installation we have been running over easter at grace. it's something we have developed with group which will be released in june as 'worshiping the creator'. it's been fab. after all the dreaming and creating it's nice to see it in action...

worship trick 17 [second series] - a couple of animations...

a couple of animations for good friday from pilgrims progress

crown of thorns | shattered cross

(thanks to mark for the link)

prophet leaves

i like this picture of si i took on my phone. in the background is a shop called prophet (in case you can't read it). i took it after he told me about leaving headspace...

si has told headspace - hopefully they will take it well and work out what the future holds. tallskinny offers an obituary. in the comments on si's announcement gwen asks 'why?' - good question. si is one of the most gifted leaders in the emerging church and he's leaving a church he planted 2 years on when it's going really well. someone needs to ask some hard questions...

[update: si has added photos of all the stations from the icons of the cross installation at headspace. there are some wonderful pieces]

out of nothing starts today...

out of nothing starts today and runs thurs, fri and sat...

all 40 pics...

all 40 pics are now there - (see worship trick 12) - beautiful...

worship trick 16 [second series] - a desert planet...

my turn on the grace lent blog today...

a desert planet by sue wallace

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan.And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
A desert planet....
Once we stood by the clear waters,  knowing who we were, who the church was and where we were going....
...now we’re in the desert....
...uncharted territory.
...severe and bleak.
...but full of Eastern promise.
...the rules are different.
The old ways don’t work.
...it is  a lonely place,
and dangerous. 
There are snakes and scorpions.
Alien creatures.
we have been stripped of our illusions
of growth...
of plenty...
and we are in the desert.
waiting...
for God to speak.

Turn these stones into bread.
the instant solution.
the quick fix. If we just..if we just...
change our chairs, change our prayers, fix the roof.
Then everything will be lovely.
Won’t it?

The tempter said. Go on. Turn these stones into bread
bread. like the bread used to be, in the old days...
in a warm hearth in Nazareth.
It was so good then. I can almost smell the yeast.
A quick-fix and they’ll all come back.

But it is written. You can’t live by bread alone.
We need more than that. In this desert planet.

Every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Living God, we need you here, to tell us what to do.
Feed us with your words, we are hungry!
Show us the next step. How to be your church in this
undiscovered world.
As we sit in the sand and try to hear you.

And the tempter said. Look. Here are all the kingdoms of the world. I’ll give you all of this. If you just worship me.
Yes. Maybe that would be easier.
Maybe we should give up. And join the others.
Worship at Ikea, religiously.
Or Kylie, or Microsoft, or Visa,
I believe in the Holy Catalog Church.

You can have it all. Worship me.
Everything we’ve ever wanted.
At a price. But that price would be too high.

Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him.
Who else can we turn to.
You’re the one who gives us life.
And though we may we walking in the wilderness.
You are here with us.
Let us glimpse a burning bush somewhere on the way.
This is a lonely planet.

He will command his angels. They’ll protect you. You needn’t even stub your toes.
Our attendance is plummeting but we needn’t fear
the angels will catch us.
Someone else will fix it. We’ll leave it up to them.
An evangelist with a funny name, or the parish next-door.
This desert is too difficult. So maybe I’ll just sleep.

Jesus answered the tempter. Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
Jesus Help us.
Its hard to find the energy. When the sand pushes against us.
When we stumble in the wilderness. When we can’t see the way.
When the old signposts have disappeared
And all we have are sand-dunes.
But we know...
We can’t do a quick-fix
We can’t give up
We can’t leave it to someone else.

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit returned.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
Because he has anointed me.
To bring good news to the poor.
Good news came from out of the desert. 
There is good news.
God has brought us here to hear it.
And God will lead us the Promised Land.

act justly

went to a launch of act justly. christian aid have developed a team that is focusing on working with evangelical, pentecostal and charismatic churches. i guess this is a pretty smart move because historically i guess it has been more liberal or mainstream in the churches that it networks with. this launch was for this network to try and help charismatic churches move beyond aid to focusing on justice. act justly is a series of 6 sessions that you can download for free (pdf - 1.17mb) and are ideal for a cell/small group. there is also a video you can get. at a quick glance it looks like the themes covered tie in perfectly with the make poverty history campaign. there was also a launch of an appeal to raise money.

on the issue of justice and faith, i really liked this column don't hand religion to the religious right in today's guardian. it makes a refreshing change to have an article in the guardian that recognises that the christian faith has a history of activism and justice on behalf of the poor and rather than being cynical about christians the left would do well to make friends and work with christians. it suggests that the christian left...

...need to toughen up, get organised and invoke the spirit of millions of Christians, from St Francis to Donald Soper, who have fought against injustice throughout the ages. Twenty years ago, Faith in the City was a prophetic call to Britain: condemning the selfishness of Thatcherism and the greed of 1980s Britain. The current campaign, Make Poverty History, is a similarly significant moment.

But the present situation also demands a reassessment by the secular left of the religious left. Because only the religious left is capable of challenging the religious right with the language of faith. The secular left, in short, needs to stop sniping and start making new friends.

art installations in vogue

seems like holy week or thereabouts is becoming a time when lots of groups are running stations of the cross, labyrinths, or other installations which is good...

moya hosted a lab, sanctuary in bath are hosting stations of the cross in bath - this time all the artists have created postcards and the rumour is that there will be over 100 in the exhibition, grace are doing out of nothing

headspace are running a stations of the cross in waterloo thurs, fri, sat of holy week 9am-11pm. it's a stone's throw from CMS so i'll be popping in

if you are running something add it in the comments...

the skinny on emergAnt

tallskinnykiwi is holding forth for week pulling together his thoughts/wisdom on emerging church. should be good.... part 1

column 6: mission and kung fu

column 6 for the christian herald

I have some friends that do kung fu. This is good exercise, a good way to meet new people, and about learning self defence. It involves a discipline of rehearsing certain moves again and again. The theory is that if you master the moves, when you find yourself being attacked you will have developed the reflexes to respond and improvise drawing on that set of moves.

Being a missionary to another culture is not that different. You learn a set of moves and reflexes - about crossing cultures, preparation for culture shock, the dangers of imposing your culture on another, the importance of contextualization (growing the gospel in the soil of the local culture), local theologizing and encouraging and helping develop local indigenous leaders for the emerging church. You also immerse yourself in the life of Jesus and the early church and in stories of how people have shared the gospel across cultures before. All of this helps to build up a set of moves, a set of mission instincts and reflexes. Then it is off into the unknown and the future and it is down to drawing on those moves and reflexes. Nothing can fully prepare you for that adventure. Solutions from another context simply won’t translate to this one.

At the beginning of the 20th century 75% of the world’s Christians were in Europe and America. At the beginning of the 21st century 60% of the world’s Christians were in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In other words the heartlands of the Christian faith have dramatically shifted. In large part that is due to people who responded to the challenge of mission and dared to cross cultures to share Christ with others. We are probably all aware of the mistakes, the blind spots, the embarrassingly Western clothes in which the gospel was shared at times and the legacy that is still being worked through because of that colonial past. But by the grace of God the church has emerged in amazing ways round the world in the last hundred years.

I began this set of 6 columns suggesting that insights from cross cultural mission can help inform the emerging church in our own context(s). I want to suggest in conclusion that with all the talk of emerging church and mission shaped church, what is actually required is that we follow Christ and simply go to share the gospel with people in our emerging culture(s)! It’s not rocket science. The grace of God may just be enough to do the rest. Don’t get stuck just rehearsing and talking about the moves.

fake it till you make it

i have been thinking more about leadership since watching whale rider at the weekend and in particular women in leadership. i was reading an interview with urban street artist swoon and she is asked about her advice for young girls and women artists... and it seems pretty relevant to young women and girls in any walk of life including church:

RO: In closing, I would like to relay some words of encouragement from you specifically to the young girls and women out there doing art or thinking about doing art. If I put you in front of a room full of young female artists what are your words of encouragement? What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

S: I'd say try on a little overconfidence, and to use an old cliche, fake it till you make it. I think culturally we are raised to recede into the background -- stand by your man. Mostly girls aren't brought up to be overconfident, chutzpah isn't considered attractive and it takes a lot of brass to think that anyone wants to look at that puke you just slung on a canvas, but in many ways that's exactly what it takes to make a space for yourself in the world. I learned a powerful lesson in this respect when I applied for a grant that I wasn't at all ready to apply for, in the name of a collective that wasn't officially formed yet, and we got it. I had to step out a few feet beyond myself to even try for something like that.

the full interview is at kutureflash

home web site...

seems like revamping web sites is the thing...

got an e-mail from matt about home's new site. it's really neat. i like the structure of the community that seems to have an outward focus on mission but with plenty of fluidity and flexibility. this is the kind of thing we are fishing towards in grace i think!?...

lunch

good to catch up with pete rollins at lunch yesterday. i was sorry to have missed the blah... that moot were hosting on saturday (which sounds like it had a great turn out) so it was good to catch up and have a debate about the importance of the historical jesus over chilli beef and rice. ikon have revamped their web site which is looking good.

[update: see the discussion over at moot blog where you can download a summary of pete's and follow some of the reactions to it in the comments and here by gareth | hadge | stu]

worship trick 15 [second series] - jesus meets a gay man

loved this retelling of john 4. link via maggi

Jesus Talks With A Gay Man

1 In late July, the Metro Chicago Synod heard that Jesus was attracting more first-time visitors and baptizing more adults than any other ELCA pastor in the city, 2 although in fact it was not really Jesus who had baptized them, but his irregularly-commisioned staff of unordained lay ministers. 3 Now when Jesus learned of this, he left the seminary community in Hyde Park and went back once more toward the ELCA headquarters on Higgins Road.

4 Now to get there, he had to go through an area just north of downtown called Boystown. 5 So he came to a part of Boystown called Northhalsted, not far from the plot of ground where Emperor Mayor Daley had ordained that the Chicago Cubs should play baseball. 6 Cub's Stadium was near there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey on the Red Line, sat down at a sidewalk café table outside the bar called Hydrate. It was just about lunch-time, and though the rainbow flags were fluttering in the breeze and the music inside the bar was pumping, there weren't many people around (because it's often hot and miserable outside, at mid-day in late July, in Chicago).

7 A waiter came to the table, wearing a bright pink "His+His" t-shirt and a "Silence=Death" armband, and raised one eyebrow at the man seated at the table in front of him in the "Come Follow Me" t-shirt. Jesus said to him, "Will you give me a drink?" 8 (All the lay ministers had gone down the street to pick up Subway sandwiches for the rest of the journey.)

9 The gay man said to him, "Hey...you tell me. After all, you appear to be a straight Christian, and I'm a gay man. Let's face it - we don't get many religious folks in Boystown, let alone places like this.  And I'm not only a gay man, but I'm a Muslim gay man. So where does a guy like you get off asking someone like me for a drink?" (For Christians do not associate with gays, nor with Muslims if they can help it.)

10 Jesus answered him, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

11 "Hey, mister," the gay man said, "I'm the waiter here.  I don't see you with an order pad or a serving tray, and it's tough for customers to even get close to our fountain-drink station, let alone our bar. So how are you going to get anything for me to drink, let alone 'living water'? Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you somehow greater than the folks who own this place, who let us drink have free water and soda (and snitch the occasional mixed drink) whenever we want?"

13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks your water, or your soda, or your beer will get thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

15 The gay man said to him, "Yeah?  Mister...you know what, I have no idea who you really are, or even what the heck you're talking about. But you're the first Christian man in 20 years that hasn't spit on me, or called me 'an abomination' to my face. Somehow, I think I want some of what you're offering. Give me some of this water you keep talking about, so I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to get something to drink."

16 Jesus told the man, "OK - just call your wife and come back here, and we'll talk."

17 "Who are you kidding?" the gay man said. "Don't you know where you are?  You're in Boystown, for cryin' out loud.  I don't have a wife, or a girlfriend.  Heck, right now I don't even have a boyfriend," he replied.

Jesus said to her, "You're right when you say you have no boyfriend. The fact is, you've had five boyfriends, and the guy you're living with now isn't even your boyfriend.  He's just a guy you picked up in the club - some guy who doesn't even know your real last name."

19 Whoah, buddy," the gay man said, "that's pretty intense! How'd you know that about me?" Jesus was silent. "OK...I get it. Maybe you're one of those folks who can see right through people - maybe one of those guys with 'second sight.' Maybe you're one of those folks who 'have the Spirit,' like those televangelists say. 20 I don't know anything about that. My family - my people (the ones who are observant, anyway) - think that you have to pray five times a day to Allah to get that kind of power. The rest of the people I know don't even bother with that spiritual mumbo-jumbo...they just think you have to work out a lot, look good, live fast, die hard and leave a good-looking corpse. And all the Christians I've met think that I have to pray their way, and start living life their way, or I'm 'going to hell.' Either way, my day-to-day life is so empty, I'm not convinced that I'm not already in hell.  What's a guy supposed to believe?"

21 Jesus said, "Believe me, my friend, a time is coming when you won't worship God in Mecca, or in the gym, or in the club, or in a church sanctuary. 22 You and your friends worship what you think you know, but do not know. Christians worship what they do know, for salvation is promised in Scripture. 23 Yet a time is coming - and has now come - when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

25 The gay man said, "I know that the church folks say that their Savior is coming. Maybe when he finally gets here, he will explain everything to us."

26 Then Jesus declared, "Then wait no longer. I'm the one they're waiting for."

The Irregularly-Commissioned Lay Ministers Rejoin Jesus

27 Just then the lay ministers returned and were more than a little surprised to find Jesus apparently talking with a gay man - one who appeared to be Middle-Eastern in origin, to boot. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with him?"

28 Then, leaving his tray and his order pad behind at the table, the gay man went back to the bar, and even next door to the gym and to the other clubs, and said to the people, 29 "You gotta come and see this... come see a guy who told me everything I ever did, and didn't run away or act disgusted. Could this possibly be 'the Christ' all those religious folks keep talking about?" 30 People came out of the gym, and out of the bars and clubs, and made their way toward him.

31 Meanwhile the lay ministers (the ones who considered themselves Jesus' disciples) kept saying, "Hey, padré, you may walk on water, but come on - even Michael Jordan's gotta eat something." 32 But Jesus said to them, "I have a source of energy that you know nothing about."

33 Then his disciples said to each other, "Did someone slip him some Mrs. Field's cookies while we weren't looking?"
....
Many Gays and Lesbians Believe

39 Many of the gays and lesbians who gathered from all around Boystown believed in Jesus because of what the waiter said: "You gotta come and see this... come see a guy who told me everything I ever did, and didn't run away or act disgusted." 40 So when the people of that area - gay men, lesbians, bisexuals (even people in civil unions from Vermont and Episcopalians visiting from New Hampshire) came to him, they urged Jesus to stay with them. So rather than continuing the ride out to Higgins Road, the irregularly consecrated lay ministers found some rooms at a nearby bed-&-breakfast, and he stayed in Boystown - amidst the people with whom most Christians would not associate - for two days. 41 And because of what Jesus spoke to the men and women there, many more became believers.

42 The people who heard Jesus said to the gay man who first encountered him, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."