jonnybaker

edinburgh 2010

there was a famous missions conference in edinburgh 1910 - famous in some ways for all the wrong reasons - who wasn't there and whose voices were not heard. but somehow it lives on in significance in the missions world. 100 years on and this week is edinburgh 2010 which will probably be a significant moment for the wider missions world to reflect on what is happening and what god might be saying... i'm not going but thought it worth mentioning as there are papers/reports on the nine themes which you can download from the study process pages of the web site. they are on foundations for mission, mission and other faiths, mission and postmodernities, mission and power, forms of missionary engagement, theological education and formation, christian communities in contemporary contexts, ecclesiology and mission, mission spirituality and authentic discipleship.

come home

a few years back sanctuary created an installation in bath, at bath festival and then at greenbelt called come home. it was a simple idea - four rooms of a house recreeated as an installation with interactive meditative activities in each. it was very powerful at greenbelt. together with sanctuary we published it in the US in a kit format for churches as come home. well the rights have now reverted back to proost so we have made it available as a download which is much much cheaper. it's in two parts - the experience which contains leader's guide, movie loop, files to print of the various bits and pieces of instructions and so on, and come home meditations a series of audio tracks to go with the overall theme of homecoming and each of the room themes - community, confession, creativity, hosiptality. both the kit and the meditations are £6.99 each. if you subscribe to proost you can access these in the download area. [subscribing is only £60]

rob's day at mind body spirit

rob's day at mind body spirit...

rob's a pioneer in rochester and looks like a fledgling community is emerging which is great to see

pentecost meditation - worship trick 89 series 3

mark berry used 3 of the video loops i filmed for VJ loops2 with some prayer/liturgy/meditation he wrote for a pentecost meditation which i am adding to the worship trick series 3

fighting over preaching

well today at cms is a gathering of people from traditional religious orders and newer ones. around 65 people are coming along for a conversation - big group for a conversation?! i'm really looking forward to it...

i pulled a book off the library shelf on religious orders in the 1200s and 1300s in england. in it there was a chapter called the apostolic work of the friars (a friar is a monk who lives in the world/community as opposed to in a monastery). this paragraph made me raise an eyebrow.

The emergence of the friars as an official preaching and absolving body brought them into collision with bishops and parish priests which issued often in mutual recrimination, sometimes in lawsuits and occasionally in acts of physical violence.... It rose to its height on two principal issues: the validity of the spiritual ideals of poverty and mendicancy, and the theological justice of the friars claimn to exercise the apostolic functions of preaching and adminstering the sacraments. The conflict was destined to endure for more than a century...

physical violence and confilct for a 100 years over who can preach and administer communion?! maybe red tape has been an issue for a while?... it also made me think that what the likes of cms and others are up to in creating a new mission community that is recognisably church is bound to rattle some cages. let's hope there aren't too many fights!!!

[the quote is from p188 Religious Orders n England by Knowles 1948]

west end boys and west end girls

chris moxey has a solo exhibition opening tonight at lauderdale house west end boys and west end girls. she joined the ealing photography group on the same day as me a few years back. her street photography has just grown in wonderful ways. this will be a really good show i think - go see... if you are free tonight see you there.

25 years on the missions road...

congrats to tallskinnykiwi on his silver anniversary of being involved in global missons - that's quite something and he's still loving it

may the energy be strong in our booth!

today we are setting up the dekhomai stand for the london mind body spirit festival. we've run a stand for several years now. what we do is simple - listen and talk with people and offer prayer for healing or blessing. we also make prayer cords, and do jesus deck readings and massage hands and feet. it runs for 6 days starting tomorrow. there are a mix of people involved from the likes of grace, moot, church army, cms, contemplative fire. this year in addition to the stand we will be leading two meditation sessions in the wider festival and philip roderick is playing the hang drum and leading body prayer on main stage mid day sunday which is exciting.

it's a spiritual marketplace and it's good to be there in the mix sharing from the christian tradition offering the gift of prayer. in previous years we have had comments along the lines of 'the energy is strong in your booth!'. i guess that shouldn't surprise us if the spirit of god graces us with her presence. if you are a spiritual seeker come and meet us at stand 43 at the festival. if you are someone who prays please pray that the energy would indeed be strong in our booth!

labyrinth - illuminating the inner path

brian draper has a lovely little reflective book out on the labyrinth. it's less than 50 pages, full of photos and is not so much about labyrinths as a spiritual guide to walking the path. as well as the overall theme of journey it's structured around the inward path, reaching the centre and the outward journey. brian is one of the people who penned the original meditation that was part of the labyrinth we ran in st pauls cathedral back in 2000. he is a gifted writer. it's a good book to chew over life's spiritual journey, and if you ever run a labyrinth it would be a great addition for people to reflect on it or help you prepare. here's the blurb from the publisher...

Mysterious and alluring, labyrinths have been in use for over 4,000 years as a means of exploring one's spiritual journey, searching for meaning and guidance. The labyrinth is a unicursal or 'one-path' design - not like a maze, where there are decisions to be made and you can be tricked - but a path laid out before you, much like our own spiritual paths, to which we must surrender, following God's guidance. Christian labyrinths date back to the 4th century (in Algeria), although the most famous instances came later (e.g. Chartres in the 13th century). Recent years have seen a revival of interest in this practice as a powerful physical recreation of the inner life. This small format hardback book - illustrated with labyrinths from different designs, locations and ages - is an inspiring, meditative guide to this ancient and modern spiritual practice.

bordertown

bordertown is a story/fiction/photo essay unveiled in a series of chapters through the month of may. it's the creative work of mark sayers, spiritual aussie zeitgeist writer/speaker. he describes it like this...

it is a film noir inspired fictional piece/photographic essay about a allegorical world called Bordertown.

follow the chapters here...

do not cross

redtape-5, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

a few photos from my installation red tape. this is the blurb that went with it...

Red Tape

Mission is a border crossing experience whether geographical or cultural - into new areas, risky spaces, out of the comfort zones onto other peoples turf. In those spaces we are likely to be guests rather than hosts. Someone else is throwing the parties. When we make that journey invariably Christ is already there ahead of us.

Red tape (that great symbol of heavy handed control and stifling beaurocracy seemingly so much loved by religious institutions) explores how easy it is to forget this.

Do we cross borders or create them?

Whilst Christ plays in ten thousand places the church time and again has done her best to keep him wrapped in red tape.

silence and the jesus prayer

so next week we (dekhomai) are back with a stand at the london mind body spirit festival offering the usual mix of massage, conversation, healing prayer, blessings, jesus deck readings...

every year we add a couple of postcards to the dekhomai collection

this year's are silence and the jesus prayer (thanks tim, dean, seth, steve who worked on various bits of them)

i am making these worship trick 88 series 3...

network weekend

for a few years there has been a network of leaders/communities that initially got together off the back of al hirsch and michael frost's visit back in 2005 and following on from various blah... events round the country. it grew out of alt worship and emerging church friendships. every so often there is a gathering of the network and there is one coming up in june. it's a pretty low key affair - mainly hanging out and conversation with some space for talking around issues and some prayer and worship. we usually stay in a youth hostel to keep it cheap.

the next gathering is in june - info is here. if you think you fit with the description around the network below you'd be welcome to join us - just book in or e-mail me if you want to know more. there are spaces left on the weekend that we'd love to see filled...

The tautoko network was originally formed out of friends connected with alternative worship, emerging church, or missional communities. Why? Well mainly because we love hanging out together. The network was made a bit more intentional/formal recognising that there were plenty of others involved in the same kind of stuff who didn't necessarily have the history of friendships but could gain a ton from being part of it. These were the words we put together to describe why it exists and they still seem a pretty fair reflection...

• To share the journey with others who face similar mission challenges.
• For mutual friendship, encouragement, solidarity, support, gift giving, discernment, resource sharing, ideas and learning
• To see what emerges as creative people connect.

And the ethos/values we try and shape the friendships around are...

Open set | Spin free | Generous | Vulnerable | Questioning

meaning in movies

meaning in movies

a bit late but this looks good tomorrow

licc have a couple of days - tomorrow with andrew smith on cross cultural mission. he is excellent.

and then on 23 june with richard passmore on church on the edge. that will also be excellent. richard is one of the best mission thinkers around youth ministry i know.

details of both are here. follow the links to book [and if like me you have pencilled in world cup dates you'll have time to get back for england vs slovenia!]

[update: having now followed the links to the events page i see tomorrow's is cancelled! maybe see you at richard's?]

prezi - for a different sort of presentation

a friend [thanks martin] put me onto prezi, an online presentation piece of software. it's easier to see than explain so just go and have a look at their samples. you basically create a big map or flow chart of your presentation that you can add images and text to and group into frames. then follow the path in a linear way or click on any image or text to zoom in on that at any point. and whenever you like zoom back out to see the big picture...

i have put together one so we'll see what people think when i use it - i'll let you know in the comments next week! it makes a change anyway from keynote or powerpoint. like all these things the free version has limited storage and options but you can buy a version fairly cheaply. i'm sticking with free. it was very intuitive and easy to use.

urban smiles

waterloo characters, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

this graf is beneath waterloo station where i was passing a week or so back... there are a few more photos here

red tape - taking part in an art exhibition in oxford next weekend as cms celebrates the shift to community

next weekend is a cms celebration of the shift to cms being a community and the joining up with SAMS. entitled day50 there will be a mix of workshops and a celebration in oxford. come along if you are around... as i have blogged before i am excited about this shift and have signed up to be a member of the community.

as part of it there is an art exhibition with around 14 artists. the theme is christ plays in 10 000 places which is a quote from gerald manley hopkins. i am putting in an installation called red tape - i'll say no more! but there is a private view on the friday evening. so any of you oxfordites who fancy coming along you are very welcome. let me know if you are coming. the facebook page is here

if you have e-mailed me in the last week...

...i've lost your e-mails. so if you happen to read this please resend or if you are expecting me to do something remind me!

after a very frustrating day where my e-mails had crashed i have finally managed to restore them but with a gap of the last week in e-mails. and i had so many other things to do today (aaaaargh!) - we've all been there i know. anyway i am very happy that mac have time machine these days or it would be a lot worse.

nick i haven't got your e-mail. your gift arrived - thanks so much! hope you read this or you'll think i'm ungrateful... buzz me an e-mail if you do.

foundations for mission

ben edson spotted this report from MTAG (think tank in the c of e on mission - a good one at that). the report has researched some churches and mission agencies around mission praxis, language and theology.

there are interesting issues around language in mission – transformation, hospitality, openness, generosity being the most warmly received terms.

my favourite section was from ann morrisey who concludes with this...

Jesus lived his life in a very distinctive way. This included:
• Eschewing Power – Being alert to how easy it might be for him to become powerful in the land. He seems to make a point of resisting the thingsthat would lead to him becoming powerful in the world’s terms. (Being
powerful and being authoritative are not the same thing.);
• Willing to risk being overwhelmed – Always risking the possibility that he might be overwhelmed, not feeling he has to be in control all the time and being willing to take risks that might make the establishment people
furious with him;
• Subverting the ‘status quo’ – Challenging the taken-for granted ways of doing things and understanding things, including religious practice;
• Wide ‘ fraternal’ relations – Seeing our concern for others as going well beyond our own family or neighbours or ‘tribe’. If God is our heavenly father all his children become our brothers and sisters;
• Avoiding tit-for tat’ behaviour – Avoiding escalating differences and trying to get one’s own back and have the last word – but also standing his ground;
• Investing in the most unlikely – The people whom Jesus chose were not the most obvious ‘top team’, in fact very often they were people whom others had written-off.

My thesis is straightforward:

When we muster an intention to do things like Jesus, i.e. to follow Jesus – even in the most modest of ways – we arrive at the portal into the economy of abundance, where virtuous processes flow and grace cascades; By doing it like Jesus (even just a tad, and even just with the intention – because there is so much grace around) we trigger virtuous processes that gain momentum;
This relevance and transformational power of faith make it urgent to articulate and promote the resources at the heart of faithfulness that lead to human flourishing. And we need others to help us pass the test of public reason – it is not sufficient for our theologians or evangelists to simply assert the virtuous processes that faith sets in train.

[for those people who were at apple last night with pete rollins maybe this connects with the ensuing discussion about once we have been de-narrated how we then live a live without having to morph into mother teresa?]