jonnybaker

greenbelt 05

greenbelt was great... 20 000 people, sunshine and a beer tent. my role for greenbelt with others is co-ordinating the worship programme. this year's had so much going on. new forms is home to alternative worship. it was exciting to see so many new groups taking part this year including COTA from the US and Kubik from Germany as well as several UK groups. i loved the ikon services again. paul hobbs installation holy ground was amazing (more about that later) - was nice to see that come to fruition after two years dreaming (it's the thing i have been blogging about getting shoes for). grace which i am involved in ran the creation installation that we had run at easter. over 500 people experienced it. (kits are now available in the uk from proost - more about that later as well!). that venue had some brilliant pieces in this year.

one of the things i was looking forward to beforehand was the new ikon cd dubh. i was expecting to blog about it before i left but we ended up with a series of manufacturing errors which delayed it so i left for greenbelt last thursday decidedly frustrated and depressed thinking we were not going to manage to get the CDs in time... but they finally arrived on friday evening which i was very relieved and excited about. the next blog entry will be a review of the CD which you simply must get a copy of.

i also got back from greenbelt to find our phone line dead and have had to report the fault so far three times and it still isn't fixed - so am without phone and internet at home which is incredibly frustrating... amazing how we take these things for granted now. good old BT's usual service...
[update: it's now fixed :-) ]

i have sort of got out of the habit of blogging for a few weeks. i guess that's a sign of a good few weeks holiday! apparently andrew jones mentioned i was doing a blog fast in a seminar on the spirituality of blogging. i actually was just on holiday - but maybe it's the same thing. we did have a funny moment when we both realised that we were at greenbelt with just a paper notebook and pen.

i did my usual thing at greenbelt of bumping into loads of people i know and hadn't seen and not managing to attend much! i realised when i got back that i didn't take many photos. but here are a couple of snaps...

tlb did a couple of stencils on the theme tree of life. the idea is that the one tree has lots of different things going on in it at different times as it develops.

i mentioned the txt worship before which went well. this is adam who was running the new media side of things (wonderful big video screen finally made it this year after a few years trying to persuade gb it was worth the investment). adam worked incredibly hard and typifies the kind of person who makes gb happen by putting hours of time in as a volunteer. anyway i caught him here sending out the gb txt thought for the day by his tent at 8am texting wirelessly through his mobile...

the communion service this year was led by revive. simon smith seemed to be one of the key people behind it (he designed the 40 animation which is now on sale on a CD ROM btw). anyway the level of creative effort was brilliant. they had done a set of eight comics by different artists on the theme tree of life. everybody got one - you could buy the set later if you wanted. there was a wonderful story that was used as the eucharistic prayer that i think was written by tess ward. i want to try and get a copy - i'll post it if i get permission. anyway well done revive - it's a difficult service to pull off because of the scale and the expectations.

perhaps the weirdest thing and a first was one group getting evacuated because of a bomb scare. the fire crew thought one of the people looked suspicious and had left a bag there. it turned out he was part of the group running the service. a depressing experience for echoes that could easily have been avoided... most of us involved in alt worship probably look suspicious!...

Technorati Tags: proost, greenbelt2005, alternative worship

off to greenbelt

off to greenbelt...

newsreader for windows

a friend was asking about a good free newsreader for windows... being a mac user i have no idea. any suggestions?

greenbelt collage and zoo

greenbelt want to collect a digital collage using flickr, technorati and del.icio.us

there will also be a global zoo - this is as much as i know...

there will be another meeting of Zoo  (for those into alt worship / emerging church and the like) at GB this year (v successful last year). hopefully this will take place in the organic beer tent on Saturday - look out for info in the programme and posters etc on site

update:
it's at 2pm saturday in the organic beer tent

banksy at west bank wall

banksy has been up to mischief again. this time stencilling on the apartheid wall that runs through palestine/israel. i thought this must be banksy's work a while back when i spotted the photo album of the wall on adam's holy land blog. wonderful!

whilst on the subject of banksy i loved this

VJ superstars - worship trick 31 [second series]

the bbc have come up trumps (again)...

i contacted the bbc a while back to enquire about using their archive video footage and the price i got quoted was frankly absurd. so it's great to see that they have developed a route for making archive footage available for non commercial use.

it's a trial with the creative archive license. 100 clips have been made available to download and use free under terms of the license. it seems that VJs have been uppermost in their thinking... the only bit of bad news is that the terms of the license are restricted to the UK only. (i can feel the groans coming from downunder and across the atlantic).

it's brilliant news (at least for those of us in the uk). and i'm making VJ superstars worship trick 31

Technorati Tags: vj, worship tricks, alternative worship

podcast support in typepad

typepad have added very easy podcast support... cool

cornwall holiday

have had a wonderful couple of weeks in cornwall. we struck lucky with the weather. you are never quite sure what an english holiday will throw at you but we have had glorious sunshine apart from 2 half days rain. today's the last day...

i haven't added a photo album - not sure many people would be too interested in our family holiday snaps. but here are a few - a view of the beach at porthtowan where we were staying - a very beautiful bay; a shot of the sea from the tate at st ives (i really like this picture); and the sun setting over the sea at porthtowan (this coast is wonderful in the evenings with the sun setting over the sea).

we've had fun body boarding and making various attempts to stand on surf boards albeit in the shallow waves, reading, drinking, eating, relaxing, playing games, watching the ashes, listening to music. i picked up a wireless signal from a house nearby (but disciplined myself to not blog on holiday at least until today) and i even fitted in a couple of games of golf...

back into the fray next week, looking forward to greenbelt next weekend, hope to see some of you there.

big chill pics

big chill 2005 pics

preaching: throwing a hand grenade in the fruit bowl

i am off to the big chill  festival this weekend. then going straight on from there to cornwall on holiday with the family for two weeks. so blog posts are likely to be absent or infrequent over the next few weeks. i could do with a break and i am sure you can too!

so by way of a parting shot i am uploading an article that i wrote on preaching entitled throwing a hand grenade in the fruit bowl. the background to it is that i was invited to write a chapter for a book on preaching with other contributors being well known (mainly men surprise surprise) preachers such as john stott, steve chalke, derek tidball, roy crowne etc... when i was invited i rang the editor up suggesting they had got the wrong person. but i was assured that i was the right person... so i had a go and couldn't help but deconstruct preaching before reconstructing it. anyway this wasn't what was required so my chapter was rejected for the book (which i have to say i felt quite relieved about). i was invited to rewrite it but declined. i actually wrote it about a year ago. i'm now publishing it here for free. if anyone reading this would like to use it anywhere, in a magazine or whatever get in touch...

download preaching:throwing a hand grenade in the fruit bowl (pdf)

Technorati Tags: preaching, emerging church

winnipeg pics

jordon's photos of winnipeg - you'll spot me in there

india talkie revisited - post colonial guilt and contextual worship

in june i blogged a series of posts called india talkie which were my reflections on my visit to india. some of them reflected on the challenge of the cultural forms of church - e.g. is christianity a foreign religion

sunil came across my posts and we have had an exchange of e-mails that i am posting below (with his permission). i found this really helpful - it justs highlights the complexities of mission and contexts...

Hi Jonny

Somehow stumbled upon your blog site. Saw Jakes and Sheila and I think I was supposed to drop in when you visited their coffee house. Anyhow I have some thoughts on some of your postings. Expecially the bit about culture and indigenous worship.

I think it's always a danger to slot people. When you go to a different country one expects things to be in a certain way. Ya indigenous worship is surely the way forward but what defines indigenous? My family have been Anglican for over a 150 years. All my friends, whether Christian, or non-Christian speak English, listen to rock. What is indigenous? indigenous Christianity today seems to be a
post-colonial reaction for Easterners and post-colonial guilt for the West. so the West still prescribes what Christianity should look like in other cultures! No sinister motive this. Just a lack of trust and
understanding I think. the Holy Spirit will inspire us to be who we are meant to be. Imposing is always dangerous.

But I completely agree with your statement, 'globalisation, global, western and even american were all getting merged together, sometimes as though they were the embodiment of evil!' I've married a Britisher and we see it every day. Racial prejudice is alive and well all over the world!

These issues of race and culture are only truly answered in Christ. He
is our peace, breaking the dividing wall between us.

Thanks for reading
Sunil

Sunil
Great to hear from you. Thanks for taking the trouble to write. I completely agree with you that it is very difficult to define what is indigenous. And this was my first visit to India... I realise that there is plenty of Western influence in youth culture in India etc. and it is complictaed. My posts were not meant to rubbish that in any way. But I still think the issue of contextual worship is important. It must connect with and come out of Indian soil - maybe as a fusion or a remix? But not adopted wholesale. I don't think it is just post colonial guilt (though you are right I do have plenty of that!!!). I was particularly reacting to what felt like english worship from two centuries ago... I can't believe that is a good thing for India today? It's irrelevance here has led to decline in the church amongst young people. I interviewed several people when I was in India (including Jakes). I could send you a DVD if you are interetsed. But one in particular was interesting on this issue. Ganesh works for the IMA and is from  hindu background - all his family are hindu. He is if you like outside the church culturally. He basically said that for his family and those who have grown up outside the church they see it as foreign in its cultural expression and this turns them away from Christ. This is why I think it is more than just post colonial guilt - long term unless worship connects at some grass roots level with peoples context it ends up being alienating. I realise that in many areas this will have western components in the mix. But in other places it probably won't and shouldn't...

I run a blog as you know. Would you mind if I posted your e-mail on it? I think it adds an intersting dimension to the discussion. You certainly have got me thinking.
cheers
jonny

Hi Jonny

I do agree about contextual worship. I guess it's just that I react a lot to some things. When I studied in London School of Theology (then LBC) we learnt a lot about contextual worship and its importance.. In fact my 3rd year dissertation was on a similar thing. My conclusion was that actually that my church in it's particular context needn't radically change it's musical style, because that's what people have grown up with. Also deciding what is contextual is a difficult process. In a rural area it is simpler because there is more homogenity in culture. But what about a city? There are people from all over India here, speaking different languages. My chief worry here is to impose something that looks unreal.

If a church sounds like 18th century England then obviously that's hopelessly out of context. But straightforward bhajans (indian devotional hymns) for an urban english speaking community will also be out of context. You are quite right in using the terms fusion and remix. That is the only way to go. Aradhna are kind of close. They interweave hindi and English songs within one session of worship. Have you heard them? But many musicians down south say that the singing is too complex for a congregation.

I think the issue is very important, but for some reason not many of the churches have got into the act of at least thinking about it. There was a songwriter in the early 20th century (1905) who did write many songs from scripture with Indian tunes. But they're all forgotten. My father is trying to translate them into English and get them published.

The ideal would be if the local church in each area could write their own music pertaining to their own context, musically and lyrically. But there is a a long way to go. But conversations like this ensure that the seeds are planted and watered.

I use the term post colonial guilt because the issue of contextualisation is often brought about in relation to colonialism. But the first evangelicals to come on mission were very into contextualisation. It's a whole mission history lesson to find out how it all started getting confused.

Anyhow thanks for writing and responding to my rant and hope things are well with you.

I have no issues with you putting up the posts.

Sunil

Thanks... I have actually booked aradhna  for greenbelt this year as I co-ordinate the worship. There is also a group called sanctuary who do a kind of alt worship meets british asian culture. I think you’d find it very interesting. Pall singh who heads it up is doing something very unique...

I’ll add our exchange to the blog

blessings
jonny

Technorati Tags: india, mission, india talkie

mobile text worship [wt30]

greenbelt has been a place for innovation and experimentation in worship. a few experiments have been tried using mobile phones in the last few years such as text vespers but the technology was never quite up to delivering. however hopefully with improved networks and so on this year will see a vastly improved service...

this year sees a new venture with mobile phone worship planned by sanctus 1.

Mobile worship
In a world where we're all connected through electrickery, what does gathered together really mean? Join Sanctus1 for an experiment in mobile worship. Messages with instructions will be sent from 12pm until 12:45 on Saturday. Limited places. To join in, text 'worship' to 07748 875 735.

this and other text provision is outlined at greenbelt texting. i am making this worship trick 30

Technorati Tags: worship tricks, alternative worship

boozoo bajou latest

boozoo bajou latest out later in august but you can listen to all the tracks on this promo...

their last album was stunning

stories from downunder

stephen said has been recording a series of interviews and podcasting them. i have subscribed to his feed and pasted it into itunes. as part of his podcast he has posted the first of regular discussions with hirschy. this picks up on a conversation that was sparked when forge put out a statement reacting to emergent's reaction to don carson. (i haven't blogged about that discussion because to be honest i thought it was dull and utterly pointless - carson hadn't done his homework - why give it the space? i've got better things to do. i also thought that the reactions were very defensive - not a stance i'm that keen on either.) emergent then reacted to forge and so on and so on... alan and stephen are discussing that reaction and trying to clarify what they were saying. the reason i have decided to mention this is because i think maybe some conversation about the different emphases is a good thing now. i think that different expressions of emerging church within different countries and contexts are a good thing. part of the forge gift and challenge to us in the uk is and has been to be more missional and i thank them for that. we see god more fully when we see god's image more fully reflected by engaging with all the parts of his body round the world. in that sense we all need each other...

the comments on the interview post with alan are an intersting conversation as well...

aug issue of emergingchurch.info online

latest issue of emergingchurch.info is online with two really good new pieces.

open space is a simple initiative engaging with the local community on a housing estate

the other is a reflection from paul on leaving church - away from and toward. this names a journey that a lot of people have made but churches very rarely talk about. jenny macintosh who runs spirited exchanges in new zealand is coming to greenbelt this year so it will be interesting to hear more about this movement amongst those who have left the church...