jonnybaker

spirit labyrinth next at grace

next up at grace is a celebration of the coming of the Spirit. we'll be mowing a labyrinth in the grass at the front of st marys, walking it prayerfully praying to be filled with the Spirit at the centre before beginning the journey out. we than have storytelling round the firewok before going over the road to the pub... should be a great night. it's on saturday june 10 8pm. this is a first for mowing a labyrinth in grass for us inspired by brother anthony from burford priory and his labyrinth mowing with a piece of string, a hand push mower, and a few sticks. if it goes well i'll be back blogging a how to mow a labyrinth blog post as a worship trick. if it's never mentioned again you'll know it was a disaster...

the following week we are taking part in the minet park festival in southall with arocha and mowing a larger labyrinth there based on the chartres pattern and running a tent with activities related to labyrinths. so this is a sort of warm up before the big one.

congratulations!

congratulations to adam and kathy!

monthly church times greenbelt page

i have been asked to contribute to a monthly greenbelt column in the church times in the run up to greenbelt writing something on worship. the first column is now online

creative review on flickr

my latest creative review magazine landed on the doormat. i opened it up and immediately recognised the photo on the inside as one of cole rise - relocationist. anyway turns out there is an article bigging up flickr and another article on creative commons licenses. interesting that though the magazine is singing the praises of sharing information you have to pay to download a version of their magazine online so i can't link to the article for you (sorry). the irrepressible thomas hawk is quoted at length. it's interesting that a design industry/visual communication magazine is picking up on flickr in this way...

tour of mind body spirit festival

if you're wondering what the london mind body spirit festival is like, phil johnson has posted a tour guide which will give you the flavour. this is then followed by a set of questions to reflect on for those of us running the dekhomai stand. i can honestly say i have never written a blog post that long...

dragon breathes fire on 1 westminster bridge

dragon breathes fire on 1 westminster bridge
Originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

the demolition of the building in the middle of the roundabout at the south side of westminster bridge began yesterday. there was a clock counting down for days so most people expected something dramatic like it would be levelled to the ground with explosives but all we got was a couple of machines nibbling the edge off the building. it was all a bit of an anticlimax but i quite like this pic...

neave

neave has had a redesign - looks cool as ever

Technorati Tags: design, flash

creative thinking

mycoted is a site i have just discovered. this is the blurb...

Mycoted is dedicated to improving Creativity and Innovation for solving problems worldwide, with that in mind, we provide a central repository for Creativity and Innovation on the Internet as a summary of tools, techniques, mind exercises, puzzles, book reviews etc, that is open to all - and can be written by all.

there's a pretty impressive A-Z of creativity techniques, some of which i've seen before (random words, wishing, six hat thinking etc) and others i haven't. leave a comment if you have tried any that worked well.

if you like lateral thinking which is always good for stretching the mind there is also a section of puzzles . i find it amazing that even though i know there's a catch that's obvious in hindsight i often can't spot it!

the latest wisdom from munsons coffee shop

the latest wisdom from munsons coffee shop, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

now i wish i'd waited

now i wish i'd waited - the iDJ2 looks a whole lot better than the iDJ...

the NuVJ looks like fun as well... anyone tried it?

spain pics

steve's spain weekender photo set

a couple of the pics are crying out for captions so go and leave your suggestions here (especially if you know nic and kester) and here (if you know susie)

dekhomai at the london mind body spirit festival

had a great time in spain - pics to follow...

this week is going to be an adventure. some of us have got together and booked a stand at the london mind body spirit festival which runs from wednesday to monday. we'll be in the spiritual marketplace offering

Healing prayer, interactive meditations to try, space, meditation cd and cd rom, all from the Christian tradition.

dekhomai is the name of the stand and the venture. this blog is pretty popular but geared to encouraging emerging church, mission, worship, creativity and so on - i.e. resource chrstians. so i have designed a new blog that a team of us will be blogging from at dekhomai.co.uk to engage with the mind body spirit community. there are rich veins of inspirational spirituality in the christian tradition - seekers often don't find it because they perceive the church as religious and not spiritual. so this is simply about trying to make the spiritual riches available offered as a gift. i also think alternative worship has developed amazing stuff over the years. so it will be great to take some of that into a different context - out there rather than in here if you know what i mean...

steve's weekender

off to spain for a party thrown by my brother - we stay overnight and come back sunday! should be fun...

scooterworks

scooter1, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

the scooterworks cafe has been home to many a conversation i have had about emerging church, alt worship, life the universe and everything. i get a lot of international visitors who want to meet up - invariably they get taken to the scooter cafe. round the corner from the office in waterloo it's like a second home.

i was waiting to meet someone yesterday and had my camera with me - so took a pic of the machine, upped the contrast to bring out the light and changed it to black and white...

we are all this and more...

we are all this and more

tribute to rob

tribute to rob lacey

practising passion and hard-fi in brixton

  hardfi1 
  Originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

last night i took my son harry and a friend matt to see hard-fi in brixton academy. i hadn't realised but billy bragg was supporting so that was a good bonus - he was ranting and protesting as ever...

today i was privileged to get to hear kenda creasy dean present a research day at kings that i crashed. it was based around her work in practising passion. she outlined three dimensions of passion - fidelity (being there); transcendence (great experiences); and communion (relationships). it struck me that groups of friends who were at the gig having a transcendent experience were at least touching on two of kenda's themes.

kenda showed a very powerful clip from the film thirteen which curiously enough is on the top of our tv waiting to be watched so i am now looking forward to that...

bill viola has an exhibition in london this summer

well sptted ian - bill viola has a new exhibition in london this summer

Technorati Tags: bill viola

flickr gets an upgrade

flickr has been upgraded from a beta version and has a whole new set of features, changed interface and so on. i was about to write about them but thomas hawk beat me to it so you can read his... it all looks good especially the drop down menus and improved search stuff. flickr blog info here

Technorati Tags: flickr

search - new venture in basingstoke this saturday

search begins this saturday at 8pm in basingstoke...

one of the thiings we have done at grace over the years is hosted lost of visitors. a group have been coming over the last year from basingstoke and got together a team who are launching their own series of three alternative worship services this summer. it's been great getting to know them. duncan took part in the last grace (as did his son in dramatic fashion via his mobile phone). we favour this sort of approach to growth - peoples imagination gets sparked and then they go and dream and do something new that relates to their own context. great stuff - blessings for the journey...