jonnybaker

new music...

have ordered warchildmusic and the reissue of global communication's 76:14

on the subject of classic ambient tunes if you follow this thread you'll find a pretty comprehensive list!

dead texan doing some dates

the dead texan is playing a few dates including one in london on oct 24. the dead texan album has been one of my favourite discoveries of the last couple of years. and the write up sounds intriguing:

Welcome support from the amazing Dead Texan featuring his six-screen visual experiment.

nice rant

nice rant from matt glock on purchasing spirituality

glo4life t-shirts

damian who is one half of glo4life left a comment on my howies post from a while back. i thought people might miss the link so am adding it as an entry in its own right. looks cool...

wow - lots of passion...started by an 'article' on a clothing company from Wales!
so I guess Howies is doing the job - instigating debate and inspiring change!
they have definitely inspired me - we have followed in their footsteps and started an eco-urban clothing range (100% organic cotton T-shirts)(also based in wales)(www.glo4life.com).
basicaly we are 2 designers, disillusioned by the built-in-obsolesence of most products and the dis-regard for the consequences of how they were manufactured - and it was these products we were helping to market through our design! so what could we do?
we started our own company, wanting to change the world in the only way we knew - through creativity and design.
trying to create a legacy of worth for our son!
we're not up there with Howies in terms of brand awareness, but we are making ripples in this big pond - we've been featured as a 'brand to watch' by a fashion/business magazine (Drapers weekly)...so who knows where we'll end up?
but for now, we're trying to make the right decisions and enjoy the journey!
with regards cost - we also sell at the same price as Howies (we do currently have a sale on!) - that is mainly because of economies of scale - we're a small start-up, can't afford to order huge amounts of stocks and therefore are working to the minimums which costs us more!
also there is a premium price paid to the farmers for organic cotton and to the factory who employ responsible working conditions!
but saying all this, you end up paying the same for non-organic and sweatshop t-shirts - so we think it's a good deal and we're doing the right thing!?
like to hear your feedback

biblical curse generator

biblical curse generator - via urban stone

off to dublin this weekend

looking forward to heading to dublin this weekend. i have been invited by 3rock youth to do a day's training on emerging church and alt worship as part of emerge:rising - training for young leaders. david brown then invited me to take part with him in teaching for third year ordinands in the church of ireland on the friday. am planning to teach on cultural change, emerging culture, and leadership using whale rider and probes. it will be my first ever visit to ireland having made my first visit to northern ireland earlier this year. looking forward to it...

how to be spiritual when life is hectic

stephen said makes a great point about spirituality - that a lot of the writing on spiritual disciplnes comes from people who have had the luxury of withdrawing to pray. and yet that is not an option available to many of us. so how do we maintain a spiritual life when we are busy, work long hours, have kids etc... as he puts it

the disciplines are imagined by us through this prism of an extractionist type mould. Even the Brother Lawrence stuff which is written in the context of engaging God in mundane work type vibe, was written by a fellow who worked within the confines of a monastery.

As I wrestle with trying to lead an emergent community into rediscovering what it means to be the missionary people of God, I find it is not just trying to re imagine what gathering, engaging in our local community and being the people of God looks like, but it also requires a re imagining of what the disciplines look like.

he concludes by asking:

What would it look like were the people doing the bulk of the communication around the practice of the disciplines look like if they were full time executives, full time stay at home mums, builders labourers, corporate workers etc ad infinitum? What are the alternatives to the Desert Father’s archetype in terms of the practice of the disciplines?

on earth as in heaven spirituality cards - worship trick 38

on earth as in heaven is the work of bruce stanley (embody | rejesus | online labyrinth etc). wonderful idea. packs of cards on spirituality. they only costs 90 pence for a set of 8. bruce kindly gave me a set at greenbelt where they were launched. two packs have been produced so far. i hope they manage to get these into book shops. ideal for spiritual seekers, mind body spirit fairs and so on. and of course it's worship trick 38.

before anyone complains saying it's a bit new age looking, that's the whole point - to connect with spiritual seekers. if you want to read a good article on that the latest bible society magazine had a good one by john drane new spirituality and christian mission .

i think the cards would be better if they were half the size - i.e. playing card size, but they are still excellent...

Technorati Tags: mind body spirit, worship tricks, spirituality

unearthed tresures from TOLLS - worship trick 37 [series 2]

darren wright began posting archives from TOLLS (the other late late service) on his blog on sept 2. since then he has posted pieces of liturgy, TOLLS book of proverbs and bits of music with more to come. this is more than a single worship trick but i am recording it as one. sounds like an amazing alt worship community that pioneered the way down under...

so far see the cash cows liturgy - a cry against consumerism
lament for a post christian generation
and keep an eye out for an album's worth of music gradually being uploaded we will refund the difference - so far strings and piano | chanting | motion

Technorati Tags: worship tricks, alternative worship

fresh expressions team commisioning

the fresh expressions team were commissioned at lambeth palace tonight. the most surprising moment was when someone asked me whether i knew anything about arkaos whilst drinking bubbly! not what i was expecting...

encouraging that the archbishop is so behind it (fresh expressions that is not arkaos)... the main guy from the methodists was also there and is equally enthusiastic. good luck to the team as they plot the revolution...

contemplative prayer podcast

centering from the center is a weekly podcast from joanthan normon with weekly 10 minute meditation/prayer... nice idea

embarrassingly nice article about proost, me and jon birch

ages back mike rimmer wrote the most amazingly positive article about proost for crossrhythms magazine. he took a lot of time and trouble to tell our story following a long interview. it's embarrassing in that i am sure it way overstates what we have done, credits me with way more talent than i actually have, and as ever gives me credit for the labyrinth when it was a corporate effort with kev and ana draper being the original inspiration for it which was then reworked by a team of us... anyway i had never checked to see if it was online but stumbled across a link to it by accident. i am sure it will cause much merriment and piss taking but if you are interested have a read of alternative worshipper

Technorati Tags: proostalternative worship

missional community beginnings in telford

great to see mark berry today... mark and family have begun a new adventure to birth missional community (ies) in telford. this has caught the media imagination and mark has been on various papers, radio shows and so on in the build up - so much so that he is being recognised around telford! the next splash is a guardian magazine weekend article sometime soon. anyway i just realised that i have never added mark's new blog into my newsreader or blog list so have just done so. follow the adventure. mark has made a great start by converting to mac! i noticed that over the summer even richard sudworth who has slated emerging church leaders (albeit with tongue very much in cheek) for being into ipods and macs has succumbed and got an ipod - slippery slope eh?... next stop a mac richard ;-)

worship trick 36 - liturgy for dedication of a child

i was sorry to have missed elias dedication a while back but noticed kester had posted the service. love the three circles idea... you can download the order of service and service sheets.

Technorati Tags: liturgy, worship tricks, alternative worship

worship trick 35 - reign and breathe me

i've mentioned the video reign by unkle before. it is stunning.

anyway bob sent me a link to a video breathe me by sia (one of vocalists with zero 7). it's a very clever video that uses 2500 polaroid images. i had actually seen it before along with reign on a dvd that comes free if you subscribe to creative review magazine (the reason i subscribe in fact). scouting around the web site it turns out that reign is made by the same company. both are available to download as quicktime movies. looks like there may be a whole load more stuff as well though haven't had time to look too closely.

i am adding these as a worship trick - reign is easy to use. not sure how i'd use breathe me yet - but i'm sure i'll think of an excuse... they are pretty big files (over 30mb) so don't bother unless you have a fast connection...

collider web site
unkle - reign (QT 38mb)
sia - breathe me (QT 32mb)

Technorati Tags: video, worship tricks, alternative worship

A-Z of alt worship

sue's A-Z of alt worship

emerging TV programme

maggi is doing some research for a tv programme on emerging church - contact her if you are interested...

pete rollins day talks available

blah... jointly sponsored a day with moot with pete rollins as speaker on emerging church earlier in the year. the guys at moot have made a cd of the talks available.

hexstatic on the thames

the thames festival this weekend was good fun... the south bank was buzzing with people and activities. we recognised a lot of stalls from festivals in the summer. all the venues were free as far as we could see. definitely a good day out.

enjoyed seeing the sun going down over the thames. a highlight as expected was hexstatic, ambitously creating a wall of water and projecting visuals onto it from a barge. the screen was huge and sound was played from the barge. it was good fun but in fact the technology wasn't quite up to it. anything dark was difficult to make out on the screen and with a little breeze you could only see half to two thirds of an image... but good to be there anyway. there is something magical about projecting onto water - it suspends an image in space.

another fun thing was the river of embers. as the tide went out on the thames, lanterns, fireworks (small catherine wheel type things) and a line of fire was lit over a period of a couple of hours.

we're going back tonight for the final fireworks (on ITV at 9:30 if you're not in london)

st marys ealing web site

st marys ealing (which grace is part of) have a web site...