jonnybaker

branded

just finished branded by katherine turpin.

the sub title is adolescents converting from consumer faith. she has a very clear perception of the power of consumer culture in the formation of and funding the imagination of young people. turpin takes wesley's notion of ongoing conversion and applies it to the challenge of how to help young people's imagination be formed by the alternative of a christian faith that runs counter to a culture predicated on the logic of consumption. i guess it's the big challenge anyone in youth minsitry faces. the danger of course (which so often happens) is that with good intention young people just hear adults rubbishhing their world. mean time young people can't help but notice that those very sam adults seem to be living quite nicely in a consumer culture...

i liked the use of ongoing conversion and the honesty with which turpin describes the challenge. she talks about being multi-faithful - ie. we are all caught in the tension between the imagination/worldview that comes from our faith and the imagination that comes from consumption. and she proposes a gracious and gentle way of helping the process of conversion. the main strategy is small circles of grace which she descibes as

a way station along the path of conversion for young people, a place to breathe, to be formed, to celebrate new visions, and to be connected with others who share them. i call these small communities circles of grace both because they are a gracious space of transformation for participants and because they embody the possibility of gracious alternatives to a broader culture.

i hope/feel i am in one of those in grace. it's not just young people who need to be part of such a circle of grace. this is a really good book. i think this combined with practising passion and contemplative youth ministry would be an amazing approach to youthwork. my only slight criticism of the book is that it doesn't have enough on the presence of god in culture. we need to be communities of resistance but we also need to be communities of engagement and presence...

slavery alive and well even though banned 200 years ago

this year is the 200th anniversary of the banning of the slave trade in british law. expect lots of activity, celebration and campaigning this year. it has a special connection for CMS, as william wilberforce was one of the founders of CMS and the MP who drew up the parliamentary bill. (as an aside there is a really interesting chapter in the spider and the starfish on the abolition of slavery and how the quaker network enabled a series of starfish campaigning groups to be catalysed - well worth a read).

the current CMS magazine focuses on the issue of slavery - the sad irony of course is that there are more slaves in the world today than 200 years ago. you can download a copy from the yes magazine page. gareth (of moot) did the design.

it's always good to hear a story that's good news and this story from bangladesh shows the church in mission bringing good news to women in bangladesh helping prevent trafficking.

the youth team at cms are embarked on a huge cathedral tour free for all that's probably coming to a city near you. if you know youthworkers and schools in those areas make sure you get them to get involved.

am off to northern ireland tomorrow and am looking forward to meeting people at the soliton sessions. will be good to catch up with si and hear the latest developments in protest4 too...

eno installation

brian eno has an installation luminous at selfridges in london until march. it's a visual and sound experience - the images and sounds change such that you should never hear and see the same thing twice. the room is blacked out with several screens on one wall and sofas to sit on. i guess it is what eno would call a secular spiritual space. it's a reworking of 77 million paintings which was at the big chill in the summer. you can get it on dvd - that looks pretty cool so you can run it on your computer...

revver

revver looks like a pretty neat new video sharing company. the neat thing being that they split revenue from advertising 50/50 with you. could be good - thanks andrew for the tip.

liturgy and alternative worship in conversation

mark shivers sent me a paper he has written putting liturgical scholars in conversation with alternative worship. he has now uploaded it as a pdf you can download if you're interested.

hindustan times photo

a photo of mine is used in the hindustan times epaper (posting it for my own record)

creative leadership

gave a lecture for a salvation army conference church on the edge gathering leaders involved in mission and church planting. you can download the pdf of the slides i used if you are interested - creativeleadership.pdf. the title was creative leadership in the new environment: imagination, improvisation and innovation.

one of the slides i used was a picture that was in friday's guardian of a church being moved on the back of a lorry - the caption suggested it was a response to a dwindling congregation somewhere in canada. that seemed to be a metaphor for our problem - if it isn't working we transport exactly the same thing down the road and do it the same way or with a few tweaks rather than creatively re-imaginging what church could look or be like in the new environment. before anyone asks, no i don't have any notes - the slides are what i used to remind me of what i wanted to say. was fun to be able to try out ideas from the starfish and the spider...

surrounded by light

surrounded by light, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

finally got to visit volume - an installation at the V and A museum in london in the john madejski garden, a wonderful setting. it's a light and sound sculpture that responds to viewers movements. it's a collaboration between united visual artists and robert del naja of massive attack and co-writer neil davidge. it was friday night late at the museum with a bar and DJs and other art pieces - a wonderful london night followed by belgain ales at abbaye...

mark has put a video together that will give you the flavour. i have posted some pictures on flickr.

rhythm of life

gareth from moot is at gracelet on sunday night sharing how moot have developed a rhythm of life to sustain and nourish their faith as they seek to follow christ in their lives in the city. it will be an informal evening - a chance to discuss and ask questions. 8pm st marys, ealing

calculate your carbon footprint

calculate what you actual carbon footprint is - this is a really good piece in today's guardian which enables you to roughly calculate what your carbon footprint is. it might be worth doing it with a group and talking about it, and dreaming ways to lessen it? i haven't calculated mine yet as i don't have the bills etc to hand.

the starfish and the spider

alan hirsch recommended the starfish and the spider: the unstoppable power of leaderless organisations to me. it is a wonderful book!

if you cut off a spider's head it dies, if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one and both parts then become starfish. traditional top down organisations are like spiders but particularly with the advent of the internet starfish organisations are all around. a classic example of a starfish would be AA alcoholics anonymous - driven by a simple ideology/vision of addicts helping one another and the 12 step programme, AA groups meet all over the world and yet there is very little centre, very little control other than the core vision. if you become a member you are a leader. anyone can start a group.

the book is full of examples and great stories often setting up contrasts - for example between the big record  labels and the likes of napster, emule, limewire and other peer to peer software sharing groups. the introduction and the first chapter are on the web site.

as always when i read a book like this i couldn't help thinking about the church and mission. the resonances are clear. the church can be an amazing decentralised network. in times of persecution where it has had to go underground this has happened in astonishing ways. and yet in so many places it is also far more centralised than is healthy in my view. i kept thinking about CMS as well - i'll be passing the book round i think... towards the end of the book there is a chapter on hybrids - i.e. organisations that have a centralised structure but capitalise on the vest of decentralised networks as well - ebay is the prime example.

one of things i found most interesting personally was the role of leadership in decentralised systems. it is completely different. the subtitle is a bit of a misnomer as in many cases there is some kind of leadership even if it becomes invisible or is distributed after a while. one of the key 5 legs of starfish organisations according to the authors is a catalyst. a catalyst is the kind of person who gets things going and then fades into the background ceding control to members. as there is often no hierarchy and no headquarters the best a person can do to influence people is to lead by example. the catalyst is contrasted with a CEO. have a look at these contrasts...

CEO | catalyst
boss | peer
command and control | trust
rational |  emotionally intelligent
powerful | inspirational
directive | collaborative
in the spotlight | behind the scenes
order |  ambiguity
organising | connecting

it's not that one is good and one is bad - but they are very different animals. i confess i saw a lot of my instincts described in the catalyst (i think to a degree many of these instincts describe more postmodern sensibilites about leadership anyway).

this type of leadership isn't ideal for all situations. catalysts are bound to rock the boat. they are much better at being agents of change than guardians of tradition. catalysts do well in situations that call for radical change and creative thinking. they bring innovation but they are also likely to create a certain amount of chaos and ambiguity. put them in a structured environment and they might suffocate. let them dream and they'll thrive.

the cms team i am helping catalyse will doubtless be reading and reflecting on what the implications might be for how we go about encouraging mission. one of the warnings i picked up thinking about emerging church was about resources. in a chapter on how to take on decentralised organisations there is a suggestion that movements have been ruined when someone comes along with resources. the apache (see first chapter above) are used to talk about a decentralised system. the thing that ruined them seems to have been giving them cattle!

if you really want to centralise an organisation hand property rights to the catlyst and tell him to distribute resources as he sees fit. with power over property rights the catalyst turns into CEO and circles become competitive.

catching up

a few things i have been meaning to post links to...

blah new monasticsm mp3s

blah manchester feb 8 - spirituality of gen Y

love this photo that joel took

emergingchurch.info has had its january update - includes a report on the site and development plans (pdf) . been amazing to see how the site quickly became a hub for stories. if you know anyone who might like to support the site development send them the report.

nice to hear from nick in montreal who came to a trainging thing that pete ward and i did a few years back and has since started emergemontreal

live.com is quite amazing - gill put me on to it

unusual suspects - new proost project looking for young creatives

i have mentioned before that we are relaunching proost later this year. one of the things we are looking to put on our new download site is the work of young and unknown creatives. if you know anyone who fits the bill, pass this info on. the project is called unusual suspects. you can download a pdf form about it here (2.5mb). i will put it on the proost site shortly as well...

Are you under 25 years old?

Are you a creative person in need of an outlet?

Proost is looking for unknown creatives to produce work for its new download site.
The new site will produce monthly downloads of creative resources for youth groups,
churches and individuals.

Proost produces 3 types of downloadable resource… AUDIO VISUAL, RECORDED MUSIC and BOOKS.
We are looking for young unknown poets, writers, illustrators, animators, film makers, music producers, fine artists, cartoonists etc. to present us with their ideas for media for our download site. If we like the idea, then you will be asked to make your piece of work. maybe a short film, a set of poems meditations or cartoons, a set of illustrations or music tracks…
The idea/s you present to us will be geared towards helping people in their spiritual journey. They will have an earthy reality to them not a churchy religiousness

If your work is selected to go on the site, you will be paid on a royalty basis.

There will also be a really great prize for the best piece of work produced by an UNUSUAL SUSPECT…
watch this space for more details on that one!

At Greenbelt 2007 Proost will be relaunching its website and we will use the event to promote and
showcase the UNUSUAL SUSPECTS (yet to be agreed with Gb but am sure it will happen!)

Send an outline of your ideas and a brief biography to [email protected]
Visit our current website at proost

PROOST, inspiring new resources that fuel faith.

sermons on youtube - categorical imperialism?

i completely agree with gill's thoughts about posting sermons on youtube - why?!

i remember a term from one of len sweet's books - categorical imperialism - i.e. imposing the categories from one world/media into a new one rather than understanding that new media change everything. i'm also thinking about this marshal macluhan quote :

official culture still strives to force the new media to do the work of the old media. but the horseless carriage did not do the work of the horse; it abolished the horse and did what the horse could never do

new job

i have a new job - still at cms, but now as team leader of the mission leadership and communities team. there's a bit of a restructure going on...

open dex at the big chill bar

open dex at the big chill bar, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

joel entered an open dex competition at the big chill bar last night and was brilliant. the winner was a guy playing very leftfield norweigian psychadelia (or something like it). the judges clearly liked that over joel's selection. but joel definitely was up there with his mixing and tunes - a fun night. not sure the big chill bar was used to a crowd of 6th formers turning up either...

mission leadership training

bob and mary hopkins have developed and run a course in lincoln together with ground level for a few years for leaders interested in church planting. the course lasts a year. bob and mary have now developed this course together with fresh expressions to be run in a number of locations round the country. it's now being called mission shaped ministry. cms are getting involved in helping run the course in a few places as well as contributing to some of the content. bob sent me an e-mail with an update on where the course is now being run

New Opportunity for training in Missional Leadership and Fresh Expressions of Church
Do you live in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, South Yorkshire, Essex, Devon, Merseyside or Staffordshire?
A new regional 1 year course is starting near you. It is developed nationally by the Fresh Expressions team in partnership with CMS, Ground Level and ACPI. Over the year the course runs on 8 monthly weeknights, two Saturdays and a residential weekend. For more details ......................
Norfolk starts first on 20th Jan, then Lincoln on 10th Feb, Essex and Devon in April and the others in September.

download a brochure from the bottom of the courses page on the fresh expressions web site.

fresh expressions are also running a series of days called hard questions. i can't find anything about it on freshexpressions web site which is a bit weird - maybe i am missing something?! anyway moot have posted all the details. the series will then be published as a book.

the peoples choice award winner is...

cowforce.com won the peoples choice award - wow! congrats jon and the team. very cool indeed...

the gift [5]: art and prophecy

one of things i remember from reading matthew fox's original blessing many years back was a connection he made between art and prophecy. he pointed out that art is clearly powerful and can be tied up with prophecy because totalitarian regimes tend to silence artists.

hyde makes a similar connection. he says that we think of genocide as the physical destruction of a group. but it could easily be applied to the destruction of the genus of a group by the destruction, or silencing of its art which kils its creative spirit.

in the comments on previous posts there's been some debate on the point or use of art. so i thought it worth throwing that thought into the mix...

that's me done for now on the gift. i thoroughly recommend it. i end with a quote i love from angelou that hyde quotes:

we survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets

the gift [4]: blind gratitude

thanks everyone for the comments on the previous gift posts... 1 | 2 | 3

there are two really good ideas in the first chapter. the first is on motion. the gift must always move. whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again or something else should move on.

the second is related. the simplest gift exchange is reciprocal giving. but gift exchange gets more interesting when it moves in a circle. when a gift moves in a circle no one receives from the person they give to. hyde says this about it

it's as if the gift goes around a corner before it comes back. i have to give blindly. and i will feel a sort of blind gratitude as well. the smaller a circle is - and particularly if it involves two people - the more a man can keep his eye on things and the more likely it is that he will start to think like a salesman. but so long as the gift passes out of sight it cannot be manipulated.

i love this idea. how it applies i don't know exactly. but it would be wonderful to live in a community that applied these two notions. when you have been gifted or given to pass it on, or pass on something equivalent or better - keep it moving, bless someone else, be generous. and even better pass it out of sight so that it goes round the corner so that the community gets surprised and experiences blind gratitude.