jonnybaker

lancaster linkage

if you came to the workshop jenny and i led at lancaster theological seminary hi! in no particular order here's a bundle of liinks to things we mentioned...

alternativeworship.org is a great intro site to alternative worship. this piece how to make it happen (click through the pages) formed the basis of the session i led on the process of putting together worship. and how to get started is another intro piece, this time on the grace web site. i didn't mention this but the grace site has an archive. click on services or liturgy to find a lot of stuff such as communion by numbers or we hang our lives on your mercy

smallfire.org is a collection of photographs of alt worship services and events. it's a great site to get ideas and it's so much easier to see the services than just have them described.

i mentioned the worship tricks that i have compiled on my blog over the last few years. these are now in their third series. these can be a prayer, an idea, a whole service, a movie loop or whatever. have a browse through series 1 | series 2 | series 3

proost is a small company i help run. we produce creative resources out of the pool of wonderful people and communities doing this kind of stuff. there are a mix of movies, books of homegrown liturgies, and albums. the best deal is to subscribe - this gives you access to all the downloadable content when you like plus new content for a year. if you type in the coupon code PRSUBBG that will give you 10 percent off (any other readers feel free to use the same). i plan to set up a US page where people can buy the pocket liturgy books direct in hard copy through lulu but lulu have just changed the weight of paper so we have to redo all our book covers first (aaaargh!). btw have a look at lulu.com - useful for publishing your own book of ideas an liturgies once you get on a roll after this week's workshop!

sophia is jenny's blog which is packed with good stuff.

emergingchurch.info is a site we set up to collect stories of new expressions of church. fresh expressions is the anglican movement encouraging newness which followed on from the report mission shaped church. all these things are part of a wave of mission in our own context(s) - postmodern or whatever you want to call them. i lead a team for cms encouraging mission in the uk and europe, training and networking leaders.

other things we mentioned... flickr is a photo sharing site. some photos are published with a creative commons license which means you can use them if you credit the photographer. choose creative commons from the explore menu. the beauty of flickr is that there are both amazing images and they are often at a good size. click all sizes above the photo to choose a larger size. there are of course a load of other places to access images though create your own as well!

movies - i haven't checked these sources out but these were published in the youthmultimedia discussion forum the other day. it's a pretty useful group run out of australia - lots of useful answers to geeky questions! anyway the links for free movie loops were (let me know if you find anything good as i am yet to look) - archives.org architectsoftomorrow.com lucidhouse stockfootageforfree nara vjvault Of course none of this beats getting your camera out or getting someone else to - have a look at the flip if you want an easy way to shoot footage.

i also mentioned curation as a model for thinking about leading worship. i said i'd send round the notes we use as a guide at grace. well they are included in this blog post . this was the first of 5 posts - this last one has links to the others if it's of interest.

i'll add photos of the worship service to my flickr pages when i get back and get round to editing them...

guerilla worship on crosby beach

on the plane on the way over here i read the improv everywhere book and really enjoyed it. i think there are lots of possibilities for thinking creatively around alt worship type events in public spaces. anyway i just noticed dream are planning a second guerilla worship event on 18 july on crosby beach (a wonderful place to visit anyway) so if you are anywhere near liverpool head over...

think stream

the rise of social distribution networks is a good (long) piece (ht nic). i liked the concept of streams:

A stream. A real time, flowing, dynamic stream of information — that we as users and participants can dip in and out of and whether we participate in them or simply observe we are are a part of this flow...

...This world of flow, of streams, contains a very different possibility set to the world of pages.   Among other things it changes how we perceive needs.  Overload isnt a problem anymore since we have no choice but to acknowledge that we cant wade through all this information.   This isnt an inbox we have to empty,  or a page we have to get to the bottom of — its a flow of data that we can dip into at will but we cant attempt to gain an all encompassing view of it. 

alternative worship in the USA...

jen and i have arrived in the US and are teaching at the summer academy at lancaster seminary. we are doing a week on alternative worship. we kicked off this morning which seemed to go well... each year bruce epperley plans to have a week like this at lancaster with an emerging culture focus. next year i think doug paggitt is booked to come...

so it may be a little quiet on the blog but a few links meantime

run video is a new site launched by run - slightly different emphasis to proost though this makes us look brilliant value!

i can't remember if i have blogged this before or not (old age?!) but rob ryan tells his story so far of starting out as an ordained pioneer in rochester from nothing which is a wonderful read...

and i liked this story surprise surprise from tom brackett - a cheap sustainable way of planting a church in the episcopal setting - pay an ordained priest for doing the essentials and that's it! nice...

maybe i'm catholic?! a review of 'fresh expressions in the sacramental tradition'

fresh expressions in the sacramental tradition is a collection of reflections/essays edited by ian mobsby and steven croft. it's a very welcome book. a fear that is often expressed is that fresh expressions is the play thing of evangelicals but a read of this shows that this clearly isn't the case. i wasn't expecting to think this but it made me think i'm more catholic than i realised! i actually prefer to resist those sort of tribal labels anyway - i've blogged/ranted about evangelical identity before and i don't find that helpful at all - being a follower of christ is enough for me. but here's a couple of the things that made me think i may be more catholic than i knew...

rowan williams opening chapter identifies these features of catholic spirituality:
non verbal expressions of faith
a central place to sacramental action
seeing christian life as taking time and use of the christian year
faith is a community experience and not just an individual one

then steven croft locates the movement in the tradition of catholic mission in the vein of vincent donavon and roland allen - with central themes of the missio dei, incarnation, and the formation of disciples in community

steven croft's chapter is brilliant - he uses the story of gamaliel in acts 5 who cautioned the sanhedrin to wait before judging the early church. steven croft suggests half the clergy in the church might be in that position of caution and writes his chapter to persuade them to come off the fence. he also makes the point that the resistors/conservatives are in every part of the church and my experience has been that conservative evangelicals have been the most resistant group to ideas of contextual mission as they seem convinced that their way of doing things is the gospel itself! steven croft led the fresh expressions team for 5 years, has spoken with every diocese and lots of groups around the country. he is a wise man who brokered so much in what was a relatively short period so i really valued what i see as his parting reflection. he is now bishop in sheffield.

one of the things he talks about is whether the language of fresh expressions is helpful and says we had to have some language to 'talk about this movement of forming new ecclesial communities through contextual mission'. and it was that sentence where i thought - yes that is why this is so exciting!  'emerging church' 'alternative worship' 'emergent' 'postmodern mission' may come and go but if it has helped us recover contextual approaches to mission at the heart of what the church is about then it is an amazing thing...

there are chapters on various communities such as contemplative fire (i must blog about them another time), new monasticism, a couple of helpful pieces on liturgy and sacraments, and a few US authors such as karen ward, paige blair and phyllis tickle in the mix if you are looking for a book to help lever discussion in the episcopal context in the US.

congrats to ian and steven on this book (which i noticed was the window display in church house bookshop last week). it's not just another book on this stuff - it has a particular story to tell and role to play.

sweet notions

sweet notions, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

i recently attended a sweet notions party - sweet notions is a social enterprise recycling jewellery. they collect jewellery and accessories and resell. all profits go to support projects. if you fancy hosting a sweet notions party contact shannon... i took some photos for them at a recent party. it looked amazing. here's one and i have added another here. no doubt more will be used on their web site in the future...

i previously blogged about it here.

true tube

true tube

shalom

shalom - conference for youth workers working with young people at risk

vulnerable mission

mark oxbrow has a piece on vulnerable mission on his blog hope transfigured. his blog is well worth adding into your reader or facebook or however you track the flow of data in your life. he has worked in cms (and now faith 2 share) for decades and is amazingly connected globally with a wealth of experience and wisdom on mission...

what would you have done differently?

i really enjoyed meeting tom brackett earlier this year - we've become good friends in a short space of time. he works for/with the episcopal church in the USA nudging it in the direction of church planting and redevelopment. he connects with, networks and encourages new edges and leaders. he has a great piece on his blog what might you have done differently? . when he was in the UK he asked people the following question:

If you knew twenty years ago what you know today about the impact of secularization on the relationship of Culture to Church and vice versa, what might you have done differently to prepare the institution for those emerging realities, back then?

the answers come down to two dominant themes -

• we should not have let young people drift out of church (which meant we gradually lost sight of the gap between church culture and the wider culture)
• we should not have lost sight of how to nurture the prophetic voice in our midst.

so playing it back to leaders in the USA tom strongly advocates

Invite faith-filled young leaders into your communities. Listen. Try on new ideas. Experiment.

she who has ears to hear let her hear...

the project - if you're in scotland...

the project is on 20 june in edinburgh, a day of

arts – faith – theology – ecology – politics –philosophy - spirituality - justice
…or basically celebration, inspiration, irreverence, profundity, laughter, tears, questions, argument, friendship, shivers up the spine - add your own noun to the list.

there's a listing of the programme here (scroll down) which it includes the likes of beki bateson, doug gay, steve butler, julie wilson, john bell, iain archer. looks wonderful!

the poppies are in the field

poppy fields, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

beautiful fields of poppies en route to ely yesterday - a few more pics on flickr.

gra[ce]ss labyrinth 09

gra[ce]ss labyrinth 09, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

the last few years we have mown a labyrinth in the grass outside st mary's church in ealing. this year it took joel and i only an hour - we must be getting more confident! instructions here if you want to mow your own... saturday night grace was walking this labyrinth with a cafe set up outside under the trees - it was wonderful. if you are nearby it will be there for a month or so. the banner to the far right of the photo has a bit of blurb about walking it and about labyrinths. an ideal way to slow down and reflect in the midst of the busyness called london...

turbulence at the boundary

several years back at greenbelt we did some silent movies for worship - 4 alt worship groups rose to the challenge. i really liked the whole thing...

turbulence at the boundary was vaux's offering. if you never got to experience it that is now up on proost it's silent but there is a recommended soundtrack at the end of the movie and on the movie page. it's 20 minutes long and is a bargain at the regular movie price of £1.99

The M25 is 120 miles or thereabouts of road looping round London often known as a car park due to its clogged lanes of traffic. This film from Vaux turns a trip round the M25 into a meditation on ourselves, on our cities and on God finding turbulence at the boundary. The film is shot on Super8 and has four sequences/meditations:
Looking back
Looking Out
Looking in
Looking forward

If you live in the UK London's M25 is iconic. If you are elsewhere it's urban spirituality that we hope will connect.

free of charge

i love this image which was on the back cover of geez magazine - another great issue btw. if you haven't come across it subscribe! it's by steve lambert - have a browse round his site...

wise blindness and icons of the present

cms publishes a series of small booklets, a similar kind of size to grove booklets which are monographs reflecting on contemporary issues in mission.

the latest one is called telling it slant and is in two parts. the first is by john pritchard asking questions around the arts and how they represent an alternative spirituality and doorway to faith, and how they connect with mission. the second is a response which i have written called wise blindness and icons of the present - i'm quite pleased with what i wrote!

you can either sign up for the series or buy individual ones from the cms shop.

greenbelt photo flash swap

greenbelt is at the end of august and is looking like it is shaping up nicely. one new thing that came across my radar is a photo flash swap which i intend to participate in. take a photo to be exhibited. then at the end of the weekend collect and take home someone else's. so if you want one of my prints i'll swap you!

while on the subject of greenbelt royksopp, duke special, dan le sac and scroobius pip, and sway are all in the music line-up which sounds good...

kore

kore is a new website, care of matt and juls hollidge. i remember sitting in the scooter cafe hearing their ideas about it a couple of years back. it's a very neat looking site. their passion is equipping the church creatively with resources and helping with training. the likes of proost's jon birch and andi mac have helped contribute resources/media. there's lots on there. go and explore....

worship curation [5]: creating a public

worship curation [1]: opening up a series of reflections
worship curation [2]: the making of a world
worship curation [3]: negotiating newness
worship curation [4]: curating beyond the canon

a museum director's first task is to create a public - not just to do great shows, but to create an audience that trusts the institution

so says pontus hultén in a brief history of curating. this struck me quite forcibly for the simple reason that most of the people i know involved in curating worship at least in the alternative worship tradition (?!) are most interested in the creative process. i include myself in that. the processes of articulation, imagination and continuity are energising. dreaming up ideas and working out how to make them happen out of few resources, both alone and in a group of artists is like breathing air - easy and we don't have to think about it too hard. but there are a lot of events and installations and so on that are wonderfully creative and take my breath away but there is only a very small group who is fortunate enough to find this gold mine.

it's true you've got to do more work to engage in this kind of worship - it requires more than sitting in a pew and singing some songs and listening to a sermon. and i think there's something about taste - [good taste obviously!] - it's a marginal pursuit for arty types who like the leftfield rather than the mainstream. these are probably scripts we play in our minds as to why events are small. but i think it's probably that the kinds of people creating this worship simply don't get round to or think about creating a public.

i had a meal with someone new to ealing recently who was involved years back in abundant, a huge christian network and club in london 15 years or so back run by my younger brother steve and others. for that they used to have reps in every church they could think of, send out fliers and campaign like crazy. so the first question this person asked about grace was how people in other churches might know about it, did we have promoters, how did we advertise locally... i mumbled somewhat embarrassed that we didn't really do a lot of that. we had a web site, an e-mail list, an annual flier (but even that doesn't get used properly), blogs (and some of those are not bad). but it was clear to me that we haven't prioritised creating a public (or a tribe if you have read seth godin's tribes). don't get me wrong we do have a public, but it's smallish...

that's it for this post - it's one thought, one blind spot i think in many people who are curators of worship or artist-curators. maybe it's time to apply the same creative energy and process to this as to the construction of a wonderful worship experience/event?!

surprising wedding

the kingdom of god is like...? here's a parable that is as good an answer as i've seen for a while.

on a mission to cause scenes of chaos and joy in public places improv everywhere do a load of stuff but this surprise wedding is simply wonderful.