jonnybaker

monastery and mission

the uk is privileged to have a collection of people  who have pioneered thinking and practice of church planting and mission over the last 25 years. they are a generation older than me and i see them as heroes (i always think the best heroes are real flesh and blood people you know rather than media constructs). i am thinking of people like bob and mary hopkins, graham cray, stuart muarry, michael moynagh and george lings. those of us involved in emerging mission and church owe these guys a huge debt.

george lings directs the sheffield centre, the church army research centre which amongst other things researches fresh expressions of church and church planting. one of the ways it makes its findings available is by the series of booklets encounters on the edge. they are about 40 pages in length (similar to a grove booklet if you know those) - i.e. short but not pithy. they produce three issues a year and you can either subscribe or buy individual copies. see the web site for a list of titles. they blend a mix of story with comment which works really well. a lot of time and care goes into each one.

i have read a few over the years. when i was at the sheffield centre a couple of weeks ago i picked up a few i hadn't read. one of the most recent ones looks at new monasticism  with a particular focus on the northumbria community - No 29 Northunbria Community: Matching Monastery and Mission. it really is a brilliant little book. i have made some references to the resurgence of interest in monastic spirituality and mission before. its amazing how many groups i know of are drawing inspiration from monasticism whether by developing an ethos/rhythm/rule which captures the aspirations and life of their community or something more developed than that with vows and an order and so on.  george suggests that new monasticism may be one of the most significant fresh expressions of church because of the depth of spirituality and its relation to mission.

he suggest that new monasticsm has arisen as communities of resistance in the face of a culture of excess and a church that has lost its distinctive. he tells the story of the northumbria community and its rule and practices and rhythm of life. i won't go through that in detail. you can get the book but a few things did strike me...

i like their description of their rule as a set of spectacles - the point is to look through them not at them.

alone and together is a section george writes which stresses the importance of solitude and community. it made me think that aloneness is probably underrated in our culture as we confuse it with being lonely.

there is something very healthy that comes across in the balance between mission and spirituality. the community has a strong spirituality of worship and prayer that has a renewing effect. but this is also coupled with a missional focus - this balance is captured by the two words monastery and mission. the ebb and flow of the tides is a picture for the way the community moves between these two important parts of its life. george contrast this balance with some other fersh expressions/emerging churches that are so focused on mission and evangelism that they burn out as they don't have the depth of spirituality to sustain them in their mission. this is a really valuable insight. it chimes in with my own instincts. i love alternative worship because of the way it fuels my faith and spirit and i also love the missional stuff. i get frustrated when people into one or the other put down the other - it's more a case of 'both and'. the northumbria community have two leaders - an abbot and bishop - one to focus on monastery and one to focus on mission to ensure that the community carries both concerns close to its heart. i found george's observation about worship interesting. he suggest that their liturgies fit well for mission today in contrast with anglican liturgies about which he says "most anglican liturgies arise from a christendom pastoral context and do little to nurture the calling and charism of pioneers and evangelists. no wonder there is some drive for more creative acts of worship amongst the fresh expressions. they are rightly looking for what will feed their calling and identity."

there is then an interesting discussion about whether the northumbria community is church. george suggests that we are in a climate of looser ecclesial definitions and for some northumbria communtiy is their church and for others it part of being church while they are also in local congregations. maybe the language of expression of church helps us get away from problems of definition. (we have had this dilemma for years in grace - for some people it is church, for others part of their being church). it is clear that northumbria community has reawakened faith for people who have struggled with church or drifted out of it or found that congregational church has dried up for them which has to be good news whatever we call it!

for anyone engaging in emerging church/church planting/fresh expressions this booklet and the resurgence of interest in monasticism is really worth looking at.

roy searle from northumbria community is taking part in a blah learning day in london on november 25  focusing on new monasticism with gareth powell and sue wallace also taking part. i think it should be a really interesting day. i'd be there if i wasn't at a wedding (well actually i'd be at the ReSource weekend in manchester which is also that weekend but if i wasn't at that either...)

Technorati Tags: encountersontheedge

what is the emerging church? a USA answer

tallskinnykiwi has linked to a paper presented by scot mcknight at westminster theological seminary (i don't know it but it looks like a reformed college) entitled what is the emerging church? (pdf)

i found it an intersting read and i am sure the conversations that it threw up at the get together were good but it made me think again how contextual all of this is and how different the USA scene is to the UK. a much better title for it would be what is the emerging church in the USA?

of course there are similarities but he spends 6 of the first 7 pages discussing don carson's book - as far as i am concerned this is just an internal USA discussion - a complete irrelevance (in fact i think the book is a complete irrelavance full stop and i have absolutely no interest in reading it but that's another point). he suggests gibbs and bolger's book is a better place to start as it begins by listening to the emerging church movement which i agree with and connects because the research is uk and usa based. then he develops his own way of reading the emerging church with  a metaphor of 4 streams that make up the lake emerging - postmodern, praxis, post evangelical, and political. there's some good stuff in there and some that is solely USA focused which scot admits (e.g. the political section). the paper is an intersting addition to the conversation but it only answers the question it sets out to for the USA and i wonder how partial even that answer might be?...

it's halloween

haloween, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

these lovely characters were in borough market on saturday

booklists

church planting reading recommendations

two things i noticed:
1. people who couldn't resist plugging their own books!
2. the lists are all from men - what are the women reading?

still a good bunch of books though

participation modelled in web sites

i mentioned a couple of weeks back that the grace web site had been revamped. on the surface it may not look that different but the big shift is one of participation. a year and a half ago at a grace weekend away we  came up with three words that capture our ethos - create, participate, engage. we subsequently added a fourth - risk. this ethos has really shaped what we have done since, much more than i imagined.

so that the web site carries our ethos it has been changed so that any members of the community can create/participate and add content to the site - either new pages or editing existing pages. on the one hand this saves the current web master from being a bottle neck/controller but more importantly it just opens the whole thing up and captures what grace is about. none of us quite know how we will use it or what exactly we'll add but that is half the fun. some of us had an initial play around with it on friday and liked the shift in approach. a good example of the way we can work with it is the new archive section. this has dates of grace over the years. any of us that have bits and pieces of liturgy/titles/outlines from those services can add them in to develop a collective memory/archive/resource. that should evolve. clearly the site could remain static if none of us do anything but i expect it will grow organically to reflect who grace is. one of the outcomes is also that it will end up looking less slick and be more messy. 

one of the phrases that stuck in my mind about web 2.0 was that they were applications/sites where 'community is the content'. for grace or any other similar group community really is the content so it makes sense that the technologies and communications we use work with that notion.

co-incidentally i got an e-mail from pete today letting me know that ikon have shifted their web site to a wiki based site. this is even more open than ours - anyone can edit any page on it.

china power station part 1

following a tip off from kester (thanks), jen and i booked in to visit china power station part 1 yesterday. the serpentine gallery is hosting an exhibition of contemporary chinese artists at battersea power station. the exhibition finishes on november 5 so you need to be quick if you want to visit.

battersea power station has been laid waste for decades but is iconic in the london sky line. every time you drive along the embankment or catch a train south from victoria it dominates the sky. it's going to be redeveloped as an entertainment centre with cinemas, theatres, galleries and shops. so this is probably the only chance to see it as it is at the moment. it makes a stunning setting for any exhibition. a lot of the chinese art work is video based which works really well in the industrial setting tucked between huge girders in darkened rooms.

to top it all off, there's a tea house serving tea and cakes - the most expensive tea i've ever had but very welcome after strolling round. i have added a slide set china power station part 1 - all in black and white as it seemed to suit the industrial vibe.

Technorati Tags: china power station, battersea power station, serpentine gallery

so much good music...

there is so much good music out at the moment. to name a few...

good times 6 - norman jay
the usual eclectic blend of classic good times tunes

cafe solo - jose padilla
jose put together the first three cafe del mar albums and this is him back to wonderful form. i have listened to this loads - ballearic chilled tunes.

flight 602 - AIM
hard to categorise - snatches of hip hop, jazzy feel in places, but overall pretty mellow and chilled. i love most of the stuff these guys do.

the outsider - DJ shadow
dj shadow is back. looking forward to seeing him in december. i need to listen to this more but it hasn't grabbed me in the way endtroducing did. but still some good tunes in there though some that i skip.

big chill classics - mr scruff
mr scruff is collecting sub cultural capital here by selecting some of the most obscure tunes ever. spanning about 4 decades includes jazz, reggae, chill

finger lickin export 02 - a skillz
hip hop cd for a party. reminds me of sitting in the sun at the big chill this summer at fat tuesdays tent while he played.

late night tales - air
a trip down memory lane for me in some ways with the likes of all cats are grey by the cure and ghosts by japan but a good selection for late night by the dons of chill

the trip vol 2 - tom middleton
not heard it yet. doubtless a fine selection.

contact note - jon hopkins
this came out in 2004 but is one of my current faves - electronica moody, ambient

trentemøller - the last resort
i feel like i have made a few new discoveries in music but this cd is probably the one that surprised me the most. joel bought it (he keeps introuducing me to new music now) and i can't stop playing it. again it's electronica but with very dubby deep bass and moody as can be.

days to come - bonobo
last night we went to see bonobo live. i caught them at the big chill in 2005 and have been looking out to see when they were playing in london since. the new cd is wonderful. there are more songs on this album than previous offerings though still plenty of instrumental tracks. sadly live the vocalist wasn't the one on the cd, though fink making a guest appearance was a treat.

what are you listening to?

god is an artist

yesterday jen, harry, jon, clare and i went to westonbirt arboretum for the day. the two days before had been pretty grey and it turned out the one after (today) was rain all day, but we struck lucky with the most glorious autumn sunshine. the colours were dazzling in intensity in the light. the photographs give an impression but it feels like little more than that. there's a slideshow above or in flickr god is an artist

neat full screen image tool to work with safari

piclens is a plugin for safari with mac that works with the likes of flickr, photobucket, google image search...

simply scroll the mouse over an image and a small icon appears. click on it and you get that image fullscreen with a slideshow option of images on that page and small icons of those images to click on. very neat. doesn't currently work with firefox or flock though. before you switch off if you think this is just another moment of flickr enthusing it is very good if you ever use say google image search. the image here is a screen grab from typing dj into google image search - you can see the thumbnails along the bottom - click on any image to get a full screen view. the slideshow controls are in the bottom left hand corner. esc takes you back to the regular page. (ht chris)

speaking blog

i have set up a new blog speaking.

it's very simple. each day for the next month i'll post a proverb on speaking. this is really for grace. the last grace vox looked at speaking. i was leading last night's gracelet as a follow up looking at proverbs. i was so struck by them that i thought it worth posting one each day. feel free to follow along - most of them are just one sentence...

worship as bedazzlement

worship as bedazzlement was my latest church times column

new proost cd accompanies book of uncommon prayer 2

the book of uncommon prayer 2 arrived today. it's published by youthspecialties and created by steve case. the first one had a copy of eucharist attached. this time proost were invited to create another music CD to go with it. and spirit draw near is the result. it pulls together tracks from a whole bunch of proost releases and i think makes a wonderful album.

the book itself is a collection of service outlines and prayers and ideas for youth ministry.

the track listing is as follows:

come holy spirit
spirit draw near
and death will have no dominion
when i survey
lay your burdens down
space and time
ps 33
love theme
the lord's my shepherd
table of christ
hope
stars

if you buy the book the CD is attached in the back sleeve

travels

am spending a few days traveling...

weds i was in bath with jon -  planning to re-invent proost. next year will be our 10th year. so seems a good time for a party and fresh start. greenbelt 07 is the target for the new shape. there will be a redesigned web site (obviously), all the stuff available for downloads and regular new content (new stuff each month) - music, movies and books. whereas we set it up originally to publish our own stuff we are broadening it out encouraging others to use it as an outlet for their creativity. we're also considering an annual subscription for a year's worth of downloads. it will of course retain its edge/ethos. so watch this space. while i was there jon pointed out this amazing coffee machine antique in a shop window that apparently still works. imagine brewing your coffee in that. a highlight was obviously watching chelsea beat barcelona in the champions league - chelsea were brilliant and won it with their dominance in midfield. another stunning goal from drogba!

thurs i did a training day for the west of england baptist leaders on mission in the emerging culture. i thought it went pretty well. then i headed up to derby for being interviewed for a fresh expressions dvd. no idea whether what i said made any sense!?

and this morning it's off to sheffield where i have been asked to be an external person on an interview panel for a new fresh expressions post.

it's half term next week so i am taking a week off. meantime joel is heading off to new york on a school trip - the one that got postponed in february because of the snow storms.

good living tips

a friend russell has developed a new web site - good living tips

on the subject of green, i love my mac i just wish it came in green

exiles

michael frost, co-author of the shaping of things to come has a new book out - exiles: living missionally in a post christian culture. i was thinking a while back that i didn't really want to read any more books on emerging church and all that. and when this arrived it was also over 300 pages! but because i loved the shaping of things to come, i soon picked it up to read. and i am glad i did...

it is a really good book. i tend to think that different parts of the world have different things to give to each other and the thing that my friendship with mike and some of the other guys downunder has given me is a challenge about being missional. when mike and alan visited the uk they gave us the gift of a kick up the missional backside. he draws on walter brueggemann to use a framework for the book that says that exiles will rediscover the heart of their faith as they recollect dangerous memories, practice a set of dangerous promises, offer a dangerous critique (of the empire), and sing dangerous songs. this framework is a really neat way of talking about things - i can imagine it being the framework for courses or communities reflecting on what they are up to and this book being a useful text to help people reflect on what it means to follow christ in this day and age. for a group wanting to start something new you could do a whole lot worse than read this book and talk about it down the pub before praying and dreaming and launching out together on something new.

mike is a great story teller and the book is scattered through with wonderful illustrations and stories - i don't preach that often but i'm sure many of his illustrations will be appearing in sermons round the world! there's a lot in the book but a few things i enjoyed in particular...

the section on third places - this builds on the ideas around proximity spaces in the previous book. but it is a very simple idea - get into spaces that are not work, or home but third spaces where people meet to chill and relax and relate (cafes, galleries, bars, gyms etc) and be there with people. he suggests that most christians are too busy with church activities to hang out in these third places and a rethink is probably needed.

he expands a lot on communitas as a model of community that has a mission task rather than community for community's sake. i have always been part of the anglican church and the uk scene is quite shaped by that in terms of mission shaped church, alt worship, fresh expressions so i quite like a take from someone who really isn't that bothered about any of that - i found it refreshing.

and he has a good section on what makes a church or missional comminty more than just a bunch of people meeting together. he suggest that trinitarian theology, covenantal expression, catholic orientation (i.e. connected to the whole body of christ), and missional intent are the four criteria. this chimes in fairly well with my own thoughts. i wonder if there is something about sacramental life that is also part of the mix (breaking bread together and so on). i remember a discussion when we set up the web site emergingchurch.info about what constituted an emerging church - we never published our thoughts as we figured it was too early to nail anything down but our ideas then were around bottom up/grass roots as opposed to imposed from above, trinitarian theology, connection to the wider body of christ and at least moving towards some form of sacramental expression.

i was touched by the section on worship - it amazes and encourages me that alternative worship (one of the gifts from the uk church to the world perhaps?) has inspired others round the world.

i also love the sound of the community mike is part of - smallboatbigsea - gathered around a shared ethos/rule and set of practices BELLS. i could really imagine being part of it. it seems quite close in thinking to mark berry's fledgling community shaped around the story of st brendan. it's strange/good to see parallels in different corners of the globe albeit worked out in very different creative ways.

mike blends a love for earthy, human community, a passion for mission, a passion for christ, concern for justice and the creation, creativity in all things (food, worship...), a desire to see an end to dualism (faith split off from areas of life and culture), great storytelling (you can tell he is an evangelist at heart), a healthy disdain for some of the baggage of church practices but a love for it nonetheless, and a whole lot of nous and wisdom. great book mike - thanks...

the new manual of photography

since saying i would review books over two weeks, life has got busy again so it may well stretch out for longer. anyway one of the books i have really enjoyed this year is john hedgecoe's the new manual of photography. i got a digital slr camera in february. before that i had just used point and shoot. the cameras are so good these days that the automatic setting was immediately a good step up but i quickly realised the camera had a lot more potential exploring iso, time speed and aperture changes as well as thinking about what to shoot, composition and so on. so i picked this book up as an introductory book on photography. and i have found it really helpful. it is full of pictures and tips. the format is that there is a double page spread on a theme - say early morning light. so it's an easy book to dip in and out of. it's not technical and geeky so it's easy to read. i was going to see some fireworks the other week and was thinking about how to photograph them. any i've tried never seem to come ut that well. so at least i was able to read a few tips on shooting fireworks (the truth is i still didn't get any great photos of fireworks but at least i've got a few better ideas for next time!). it's hardcover. to be honest i didn't do much research so i have no idea what this compares with as an intro to photography but it's helped me...

worship trick 82: until god's realm comes

hope steve is having fun at nosh downunder... cheryl has written this beautiful prayer for it, perfect for an ending to a worship service/gathering.

maybe in this there has been a glimpse of the kingdom
a foretaste
a hint
a promise
let it hold you and let it send you
so you will never be at peace
until all are fed
until all know home
until all are free
until justice is done
until peace is the way
until grace is the law
until love is the rule
until God’s realm comes
until God’s realm comes
until God’s realm comes…

Amen.

your great speech

grace vox went really well last night... we set up a soapbox in a sound proof room. people were given timed tickets to go and make their great speech on something they were passionate about. the image of this was projected into the main space so we could see people throughout the evening on the soapbox though we couldn't hear them. this was all part of thinking about what it means to speak out. the grace web site has been revamped. part of that is an archive section. so in the next week or so i'm sure we'll add bits and pieces from the service to that. this image (click on it to see it larger) is a selection of stills of the great speeches. another crazy idea that came off...

(as a sidenote this image may shatter the myth that alternative worship is populated by a single age group of postmodern types - i reckon there are people in their tens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixties in this montage. grace is not a youth or young adult thing)

[update: i have added this as worship trick 81]

quiet descent

quiet descent, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

whatever you think think the opposite

continuing on the two week book catch up, one of my favourite books of the last 6 months is paul arden's whatever you think think the opposite. he is a former creative director at saatchi and saatchi. this is a quick read, lots of pictures, fun and makes you think...

when googling it just now i came across this powerpoint of some quotes from the book from tom peters if you want to get a flavour. one of my favourite pages is a picture of a hammer and a bent nail saying do it then fix it as you go rather than wait until you have everything perfect.

the notion of thinking the opposite isn't a new idea in terms of coming up with creative ideas. i remember one of de bono's creative thinking provocations in teach your child to think is what he calls reversal which is pretty similar. if you haven't come across it his earlier book it's not how good you are it's how good you want to be is also really good. they are both half price on amazon (uk) at the moment as well...