jonnybaker

people walking in darkness

for the first time in a while the advent grace was nine, where we take the traditional nine readings from nine lessons and carols and invite nine people to choose a piece of music and do something else - a reflection, ritual or whatever.

this year was great with a whole range of contributions. a favourite of mine was the first ever contribution from dave and helena who are new to grace. they made this wonderful film to go with the reading from isaiah 9 about 'the people walking in darkness'. 

we have quickly added this to proost so it's available to anyone now - it may be a bit late for this year but tuck it away for next if so!

like the wind

like the wind is a beautiful magazine for runners. jenny has an article in the current issue about her running with friends to chemotherapy. the article is accompanied by this fantastic illustration by jon birch. there's also this lovely quote on the back of the magazine from jenny. amazing...

nine - grace advent service this saturday

if you are around this saturday why not come along to grace at st mary's ealing. we take the christmas story as outlined in a traditional nine lessons and carols framework but rather than carols nine people will select a piece of music or art and something to reinterpret or tell the story. we have had some great times over the years. i am one of the nine and will be performing a song...

being licensed as a lay pioneer in the church of england

eighteen months ago i was recognised by the church of england as a lay pioneer. this morning i am going to be licensed as such by the bishop of willesden. the way the church of england works in relation to those who are in leadership is a two step process.

(you can simply read the first sentence of each of these steps below but if you are interested what on earth that means i have tried to explain further below each.)

step 1 - you are admitted into an order of ministry (order simply means category).

in the canons (rubric) of the church of england the order i was admitted to is 'lay worker - for those interested canon E7'. this is different to lay reader which most people seem to think is the only category available - in my view it is a broader description of ministry and includes evangelism so suits lay pioneers better than the category of reader. to be admitted in this way you have to demonstrate that you meet certain criteria. the criteria we use are in this document here which has been approved for use by the ministry council of the church of england and shows what is a good direction of travel in my view - recognising some core dispositions but then subsets for various types of ministries such as pioneer rather than a one size fits all. (i actually helped write the pioneer subset!) what is curious about this document is that hardly anyone seems to be using it - they still seem to be using an older approach but i am guessing that will gradually change. the recognition is like a kite mark of training and quality i guess that is able to be trusted across the church. the way the church of england is governed is episcopal which means that a bishop is trusted to oversee procedures - so to be admitted a bishop needs to approve and admit you. this is where i think it gets interesting. cms has become a religious community of the church (which i blogged about here) so rather than being a parachurch agency it is in and of itself a church (mission) community. as such we have a bishop who is linked as a visitor to cms - so we are able to admit people as lay pioneers through cms rather than through a diocese. in my case this makes perfect sense - my identity and calling in the church is mission focused and the majority of what i do by way of leadership is done through cms of which i am an enthusiastic member. the order (category) is a national one so once admitted you don't need to go through the process again if you move to another diocese for example. i apologise if this a bit technical but i have studied it to try and open a way for lay pioneers to be recognised in the church in a way that makes sense and this is the best use (legitimate hack) of the codes i could find.

step 2 - you are licensed for a particular local role/ministry 

licensing is the way the church entrusts ministry to people who have admitted to an order. this is how it works for vicars - they get admitted to the order of priest (step 1) and then a license for a particular parish or whatever. so i am being given a license to be a lay pioneer with grace at st marys ealing (as a member of cms) by my local bishop. what does this mean? to be honest it won't change much - i think i may be able to do a few different things such as bury the dead. but i have been leading, preaching, as a member of grace and st marys ealing for about 20 years. like many churches a lot of ministry (rightly) flourishes and continues without being licensed. in my mind the license is simply affirming what i already do and bring - nothing more. but what i bring and do is strongly tied up with who i am and my own sense of calling. it is the recognition of the word pioneer that has made me think this is worth doing because it is affirming a ministry that is not simply pastoral with those in the church but affirms the gift of seeing and building things beyond the edge of where the church currently is. the main part of what i do as a leader in the church actually is through cms in the pioneer training i lead but the licensing system in the church is such that i think it would be too complicated to license someone for a role that is essentially a national one. the church of england still imagines ministry quite geographically i think. that's not a complaint - just explaining why the license is linked with local stuff in ealing rather than everything i am involved in. 

so there you go! all that to say i am being licensed as a lay pioneer in the church of england this morning and if you've read this far i hope that sentence makes more sense. 

research into new things in the church over the last decade shows that at least half of the new expressions of church have been started and led by untrained and unrecognised and unlicensed leaders - looking back i think 95% of alternative worship grew that way. all that is great in my view! so in doing this i am not for a moment thinking the church needs to license things before they should happen. i quite like it the other way round actually - it's a way of affirming something that has emerged rather than controlling it. but for me part of the reason is that the church nationally is trying to work out what lay pioneers are and how to encourage and recognise them in a way that makes sense. so we have done that through cms and this is simply showing how that can that work with the way a diocese tends to operate around ministry (i.e. a precedent of sorts). we have admitted 12 lay pioneers through cms so far and intend to keep that rolling over the next decade. i hope where cms pioneers land in a diocese that will be welcomed by bishops as a gift to the church rather than a threat, and that lay pioneers who are members of cms are both trustworthy, faithful and hopefully dangerous (in a good or prophetic way) because they are called beyond the current edge of the church in mission.

i also want to stress that this does not mean the way we operate in grace will change or the way i am in grace. the church tends to imagine leadership in one or two people. grace has a very distributed model of leadership which i like so i will carry on in the community there exactly as before. (it would actually make sense to license grace as a whole but i don't think the church of england quite thinks that way!)

margins to mainstream, mainstream to margins

a couple of weeks back i was invited to lead the opening worship/reflection/prayer at the fresh expressions gathering at southwark cathedral. (the last time i led anything there was with grace at the time of our lives festival in 2000!) the title of the conference was from margins to mainstream which i think is provocative - i am certainly trying to get the gravity flowing in the other direction in most of what i do. anyway i posted something in facebook about what those at the margins might say by way of blessing to the mainstream and vice versa. of course lots of people refused to play the game and deconstruct the whole thing which i get. but anyway i asked harry baker to take what had been said and weave the comments into a blessing which he did. several people have asked for it so it's posted below. 

the worship pieces for those who asked were 

but in silence by flock (chris and harry) which led into silence

before the silence i shared that the reading for the day was one phrase 'christ with us' inspired by sam wells latest book (which is amazing btw) a nazereth manifesto in which he says the word 'with' is the most important theological word. during the silence i shared some images of christ to reflect on that notion of christ with those at the margins and those at the mainstream - christ the king which i suggested was a mainstream image, and christ the migrant a more marginal representation (i like this take of the holy family as boat people). 

we then prayed by writing prayers on luggage labels with the word hope on one side and grief on the other - and placed them in a suitcase to offer prayers for the journey in whichever direction of travel we were heading (margins to mainstream, mainstream to margins).

and then harry concluded with this blessing

Margins to Mainstream, Mainstream to Margins
Mainstream to Margins, Margins to Mainstream

Can you hear me?
Lean a little closer.
Let’s talk!
Would you like a cup of tea?
We need you and we want you.
Wish you were here!

Margins to Mainstream, Mainstream to Margins
Mainstream to Margins, Margins to Mainstream

I Inhabit both and I don't feel at home in either
One persons margin is another persons mainstream
One person's edge is another person's centre.
Some of us were made to be edge-dwellers
We are all on the margins of something
Let us do our thing
We are so very much more than a label.
There's enough God for everyone
Come inside and learn from previous mistakes.
Come outside and learn from something new.

Margins to Mainstream, Mainstream to Margins
Mainstream to Margins, Margins to Mainstream

May we be open to embrace other people’s margins
May we be open to embrace them into our mainstream
Some of us were made to be edge-dwellers
Some of us are at home in the centre.
Margins to Mainstream, Mainstream to Margins
May we be open to conversation between the two

i am making it all a worship trick - no 60 in the very sporadic series 4!