jonnybaker

grace silver

we had a wonderful celebration of 25 years of grace last night.

projections - fairy lights - tunes - 4 course feast - communion shared at the table - memories - toasts - stories - laughter - an amazing cake - 25 year old whisky - nostalgia - hope - gratefulness - friends - church - alternative worship - zine - late night

here's a few photos

grace xxv - the zine

steve collins has put together a 64 page zine for grace's 25th celebration. it's free to download as a pdf - we'll probably do a limited edition print run but haven't got oprganised for that yet. but it's a great collection of photos and memories - largely visual - and organised into sections on worship, people, technology, greenbelt, labyrinths, music and ethos. mike and i had fun selecting a few tunes from each year that have been on the grace playlist. who would have thought - two zines in a year?!

#gracesilverservice

grace - 25th anniversary!!!

it's hard to believe but november will see the 25th anniversary of grace. i wasn't there when it started but jen and i got involved when we moved to london in 1995. it has been an amazingly creative group of people with whom to share life and faith as we have sought to follow christ together in today's world. i'll save a longer post for nearer the time but i am so thankful to be part of it.

to celebrate we are having a meal/banquet. unusually we would like to know numbers in advance for the catering side of it so if you plan to come please can you let us know - email or leave a comment. if you have been part of grace's life over the 25 years do see if you could make it along - we'd love it to be a sharing of stories and memories, of thanks as well as hopes for the future as we are not done yet! 

(there is of course a grace service before that in october too)

labyrinth - a new design

it was a wonderful evening at grace with a new labyrinth designed by adam baxter and made in the afternoon from some cloth and gaffer tape. st mary's in ealing is a wonderful magical space for it and with candles flickering and a playlist of ambient tunes a prayerful meditative evening ensued... if you click on this link and scroll through you'll see some of the labyrinths we have made and run over the years. i think the first was back in 1998 or 1999. this labyrinth web site has lots of info if you're wondering about labyrinths

grace labyrinth this saturday

i'm looking forward to grace on saturday as it will be a labyrinth and it's a brand new design and mat that i haven't seen yet. there will be a cafe so you can sit and chat and then go and walk the labyrinth in your time at any point during the evening. 

the table - next grace april 14

next grace we are delighted to welcome friends from the table in southall. the table is a fresh expression of church that fits perfectly into southall's context gathering around the table over food and conversation and hospitality. friends from the table will be coming and  helping lead grace and cooking up some food southall style - one not to miss. don't eat before you come!

because we'll be catering we could do with knowing numbers so let us know if you are planning to come (if possible).

turn

well it's getting close to the season of lent. it's a time of year when grace, the community i am part of spend some time reflecting on what it means to follow christ in today's world. we'll be having a couple of grace services and then reading various things and discussing them over meals.

 

but if you are around london join us at grace on feb 10th for the first of two services exploring the themes of lent. themes for both are taken from words in the ash wednesday service ‘turn away from sin and be faithful to christ’. first up is ‘turn’ - face down your vices and join us in grace’s very own 3 step programme followed by grace café which will be serving up pancakes.

cumbria, eastbourne, brighton - my next three weekends

this term i seem to have signed up to more speaking things than for a long time. if you are in these parts of the world do come and say hi!

headed to kendal today to join with carlisle diocesan day on fresh expressions tomorrow november 18th where richard passmore is catalysing all sorts of great new stuff around the diocese bold god for all vision.

next weekend i am in eastbourne with st elizabeth's church. there is a public event called mission is which will be cafe style with a meal exploring mission. and sunday morning i'll be speaking at st elizabeth's 10:30 morning service

and then dec 2 i am taking part in a day in brighton on curating pioneering worship along with martin poole, maggi dawn, tim watson, simon rundell, and nick haigh which will be fun and i am looking forward to catching up with those guys as well as hanging out with my mum, sister and nephew who live in brighton...

after that things ease up and it will be time to get ready for christmas!

the power of a simple diagram

i was really pleased to see mark berry and philip mounstephen have written a grove booklet on mission and community. it gets a hefty review here if you want to know what it's about and that saves me writing too much (!). i am particularly pleased because it's part of grove's mission and evangelism series and cms has become a partner in that series contributing a couple of booklets a year - at least that's the plan. this is the first. it used to be the evangelism series but we were keen if cms were to be involved that it become mission and evangelism. i have read it and really recommend it. it's the kind of book you read and think 'of course!' but then realise that what seems obvious often isn't.

the thing in the book that i thought was very neat and powerful was a diagram. they draw on robert warren's missionary congregations book which i really liked when it came out and that had three interlocking equally sized circles in a venn diagram of worship, mission and community saying that all three were important and that in the intersection you'd find the heart or spirituality of a congregation. i remember drafting what grace was about years ago and having those three sections on an older version of the web site.

what mark and philip do is redraw the diagram showing the reality could be very different in practice to warren's nice equal version. it seems quite shocking - community is small and mission is isolated. but the more i have thought about it the more i think that diagram nails something with truth in it even if it is exaggerated.

it's at least worth pondering if you are in a congregation or church what the balance is and where all the church's time, money and effort goes. we have been thinking about this at grace recently and realising that in our case community has grown in importance over the years and we are reflecting on what mission looks like. i guess worship has always been a reasonable size as we grew out of what was then known as alternative worship. i'll blog again in a separate post to say a bit more about this with a diagram we drew for grace. 

 

good - grace next saturday

Jeremiah 29:7: Work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.

Proverbs 11:11: Good people bless and build up their city, but the wicked can destroy it with their words.

What does good look like, in Ealing, in London, in the world? How does Grace support good and how do we support one another as we do good? What is God saying to us at this time? Join us for Communion, conversation and prayer.

grace retreat

did you know that there is an ignatian centre in london that hosts a retreat day on the second saturday of every month open to all? 

next grace we are joining them for the day - see here for info - so if you are planning on visiting grace next month it will simply be a cafe with a prayer space in the evening as the day is the main focus this month.

the god of unwelcome

Unwelcome!

God is here
His Spirit is with us
[but not with them]

so opened last night's provocative liturgy at grace responding to the usa and uk climates of fear and shoring up borders to those from other countries. the start was a liturgy of unwelcome which included the unveiling of an icon of the god of unwelcome which was a reworking of rublev but with the faces of trump, pence and bannon - it was disturbing! we had scriptures reassuring us that god is on our side and will destroy enemies and sang a song to the god of unwelcome which included these verses...

Excluding God
Excluding God
You love me
but not my neighbour
Excluding god

Unwelcoming God
Unwelcoming God
Close the door
Ring fence the table
Unwelcoming god

we then had take two which was a liturgy of welcome and included similar things. the highlight for me was meg wroe's amazing rework of rublev's icon with the three as migrants. we discussed together when we exclude and seem to follow a tribal god rather than the god of the whole world and all peoples recognising that there is a judge or pharisee in all of us as well as someone longing to be christlike with an open home and table. here is a link to the service in the grace archive including the unwelcome icon! and here is a pdf of it for anyone interested - it draws on several prayers, songs liturgy from other grace services. i really enjoyed and was challenged by the experience both of planning and then leading grace. and i long to follow in the way of the god and christ of welcome rather than whatever unholy gods seem to be centre stage right now. i am making this liturgy a worship trick - 69 in series 4.

[massive thanks to jon birch for the icon of unwelcome and meg wroe for the icon of welcome]

[email protected]

next week i am in germany taking part in [email protected], a gathering of pioneers in hannover - looking forward to it...

grace - feb 11 - unwelcome

in light of the mood of escalating unwelcome for those in the margins in britain and the usa, february’s grace will be a space to revisit the story of jesus and see what light that might shed on how we might respond. bring your troubles, questions, conversation, anxieties and prayers. there is room round the table.

saturday february 11, st mary’s ealing, 8pm

progress - join us for first grace of 2017 on saturday

this saturday is the first grace of 2017. come and join us as we progress from the challenging 2016 to look with hope to the year ahead. it's something of a tradition now that chris read curates january - at least it's the third year in a row he has taken on the mantle and harry baker will be joining him. no idea what has been dreamed up but it will doubtless be inspiring and i guess flock will be performing their unique contemplative poem/songs (is that a pong?! or a soem?)

seeking light - it was dark!

i have been meaning to add this since the last grace but don't know where the time has gone...

anyway it was a lovely grace advent service and i know next year is a way off but you could easily repeat this idea so tuck it away somewhere. grace was inspired by ian adams reflections for advent seeking light - which you can get from proost. we printed them off a3 size and suspended them from the balcony in the church space with nylon thread. we used about 20 in total i think. it was handy that having done an exhibition there before we still had the stuff from that. to straighten them out we just clipped a strip of card behind each sheet.

then apart from a central candle and a few candles highlighting the step at the far end the church space was completely dark - we had moved benches from the main space. a set of tunes played quietly in the dark around the theme of seeking light (see below). then the bulk of grace was 45 minutes where people were given a candle to take into the space and read the reflections by candlelight. they could sit quietly in the space or read through them all as they wished. we simply topped and tailed that with an opening and ending prayer/liturgy. these have been added to the grace archive here . it was very simple. the candlelight really made it a magical evening...

the playlist i think was:

lovebleeps - laura b
incense - andy thornton (from labyrinth)
o come o come emmanuel - sufjan stevens
blackout - heights of abraham
shine - dave gahan and soulsavers
a change is gonna come - the fugees live
anthem - leonard cohen
young death - burial
open the light - boards of canada
gathering light - detriot escalator co
searchlight - jon hopkins
the light - album leaf
a light to guide you - clem leek
near light - olafur arnolds
into forever - eat lights become lights
to believe - cinematic orchestra
jesus alone - nick cave
since i - jono mccleery
lighthouse - patrick watson

i have added this as a worship trick - no 68 in series 4

grace advent service - sat dec 10 - seeking light

join us next saturday for a contemplative grace for advent on the theme of seeking light, inspired by and riffing on ian adams proost resource seeking light (thanks ian!)

apollo christmas - new movie on proost

there's a new movie on proost from jon birch - apollo christmas. the latest u[pdate from proost has links to various advent and christmas resources but here's what it says about this movie...

This week we launch Jon Birch's wonderful Apollo Christmas movie.  On Christmas Eve 1968 astronauts orbiting the moon made an amazing broadcast.  With incredible visuals, euphoric electronic music and the words of the three astronauts - this movie takes a different spin on wonder at Christmas.

discordant zine

discordant is a new venture, a creative zine or journal with a DIY ethos inviting contributions from anyone engaging with christianity and culture. it's part of the proost family. the idea is to participate so go and take a look and get involved. the first theme is wonder and you have until february to contribute. there is an example here you can download for free which also has a sampler of 6 tracks free too. love it!

hope is near - proost and advent

proost is actually organised slightly earlier than usual this year for advent season. and there are some great new resources. i think we are likely to use seeking light at grace (though yet to be discussed). anyway here's the proost update with info and links

As we approach the season of Advent we are reminded again that we wait for God to come to us.  We wait in hope for we know that the presence of God with us - that we remember in the birth of Jesus - is transformative in ways that we can only begin to imagine.  We wait in hope.

Writing his seminal book 'God in the Manger' Dietrich Bonhoeffer considered the amazing hope of the birth of Christ.  

"God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.” 

Sometimes we cry out to God 'How Long Lord?" as we wait for him. But we wait in hope.

Sometimes we wait expectantly knowing that God will be with us. But we wait in hope.

Sometimes we wait in confusion.  Unsure what will happen next. But we wait in hope.

All of our writers here on Proost know and share these emotions and experiences.  We are all human beings.  We know suffering and we know joy.  We hope the resources we share on this website may bring hope to you in whatever you face this Advent.

We are pleased and thrilled to share 'Seeking Light' by Ian Adams.  The latest in his series of season reflections - this time focused on Advent, Christmas and Ephiphany.  If you've not encountered Ian's work before then do have a look.  If you have then you'll know this will be a wonderful accompaniment to Advent.

We are also thrilled to share two new pieces of work from Tim Watson.  Journey to the Inward Wild is Tim's second in the Hymnal to the Wild series.  Bursting with beautiful poems it's an honest, vulnerable and hopeful read.  These poems are perfect to accompany your own devotionals and worship or to read for pleasure or share with others.  We are also pleased to share a free resource Advent Thoughts - a series of simple slides taking us through the season.  This is free so what do you have to lose ! 

Advent is a season where Proost has featured many resources to help with your own journey to Christmas.  These are available in our back-catalogue and through the Seasons button in the menu.  On the frontpage we feature three highlights - Alt.Advent (Jon Birch), We Who Still Wait (a collaboration of Chris Goan, Si Smith, Ian Adams and Steve Broadway) and then People Walking in Darkness (a movie from Grace.)  Do check these and other Advent items on the site.

Lastly the best way to access the site remains our Get it All subscription, still only £60.  Perfect for you but also as a gift to someone else.  Take a look.

Thanks for reading.  May your advent season be filled with hope.