jonnybaker

...and if you are in melbourne, sydney or dubai...

harry is also coming your way...

the road to missional

over the last year i have read quite a lot of books and i have also been sent quite a few books. i never ever guarantee to review them but usually would like to. there's only ever been two that i have thrown in the bin as i thought they were so awful (which shall remain nameless). my problem like so many others i suspect is busyness. but post christmas and before terms kicks off fully with students i am under the illusion i might find time to review a few. i'm going to try and do one a day for a few days and see how i go. some reviews may be a sentence, others more full - we shall see.

so first up the road to missional by mike frost. i've become more and more a fan of mike's work over the years. exiles is definitely up there as one of the best books on mission in the west in the last ten years. it's been a favourite book of cms pioneer students and that's in spite of it being rather ominously large.

i quite like the word missional but mike is at pains to point out in this (much more distilled and slimmer than exiles) book that anyone and everyone is now using the word to describe their church or what they are doing. and it's in real danger of losing its bite and being domesticated as a way of tweaking a church to make it better and to make it grow. i suspect this is more of an american problem...

what mike wants to do is it use it to describe a whole paradigm shift that reorientates the church around mission. that mission is then focused on transformation in the world and not obsessed with church for church's sake.

with a hefty influence from david bosch and lesslie newbigin he opens up with a chapter on the missio dei calling for mission to be much more than evangelism. the metaphor of the kingdom of god is closely aligned with what mission is about. he suggests a core question is what the reign of god might look like in our own neighbourhood and where we might see evidence of it and join in with what we sense god might be up to.

evangelism is then unpacked some more. i think lots of us have had bad experiences of evangelism so i welcome conversation about it that shows that there is nothing wrong at all in good news, and nothing wrong in sharing good news. but it does require a rethink of what the gospel is and what might be ways of sharing that story with friends and neighbours.

then he tackles head on the church's co-optedness into the logic of the market - with faith individualised, commodified, pacakaged and sold by ceo type church leaders running churches on the lines of big businesses attempting to grow market share. this seems to be addressing a particular segment of the church in north america (it is an american publisher) but we have all experienced and to some degree been co-opted by this kind of thing i suspect. mike paints a vision of a different kind of church that is quite inspired - it did remind me of his chapoter on missional community in exiles which i also loved.

other chapters explore the cross as a paradigm - counter to a culture of success; shalom - such a brilliant way of thinking about justice, beauty and healing; and simply being neighbourly - i.e. focusing outwards to neighbours and community as the heart and locus of where christian faith is embodied and make flesh.

he concludes the book explaining in a long sentence that he is going to keep using the 'm word'...

to describe the wholesale and thorpough reorientation of the church around mission, a mission that includes evangelism but more: a mission that is anchored in alerting people to the rule of God through Christ and which can never be reduced to the recruitment of new attendees at our meetings; a mission that hopes in the ongoing work of God to redeem all things and set everything right in accordance with his will; a mission that by its very nature must be lived out incarnationally, in close proximity to those to whom we've been sent; a mission that is cross shaoed and calls its followers to the disciplines of sacrifice, service, love and grace; and a mission that delights in beauty, flavour, joy and friendship, that lifts us up and fills us with the same fullness of life we see in Jesus.

if you like that sentence you'll like the book. it's a good distilled summary. it's a meaty popular style of book. i'm still not sure it's up there with exiles and the shaping of things to come but that may be because i am more oriented around being missional now myself so the impact has lessened than when i read those two books.

changing world balloon prayers - worship trick

i'm always interested to see what is going on elsewhere in the world particular in contexts where there are similarities to our own - shifts in culture, decline in church attendance, new interest in applying an approach from contextual mission. so it's good to track a little bit wat is happening in south australia and it mainly comes to me via steve taylor who is such a prolific blogger at the moment. a new course has started inspired by and using some of the material from mission shaped ministry which has around 45 people signed up which sounds great.

anyway all this is by way of saying that the worship at their last session involved people texting words that captured the changes in culture they perceived and then using the trailer for 'up' and it's balloons and putting those words and a mix of scriptures on mission in or on the balloons. i'll let steve explain

As Jesus breathed on the disciples in the sending of the Spirit (John 20), so the invitation is to pray by breathing on our world, to blow up the balloon, praying for the mission of God in our changing world... [and] ...As Jesus breathed on the disciples in the sending of the Spirit (John 20:21-23), so we are to breathe thanks, to blow up the balloon, thankful for the mission of God in which we participate.

so it's the first for a while but this is worship trick 9, series 4

way to go england!

amazing performance from england to retain the ashes so convincingly!

alt worship and communities wiki if you are in aus...

cheryl lawrie has got a wiki going so if you are into alt worship or a community in australia go and add your details...

fresh expressions in uniting church in south australia

good to hear that the uniting church synod in south australia has accepted resolutions to invest in mission in in its own context. steve taylor blogs about it here...

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...

landscape of desire

landscape of desire from jonny baker on Vimeo.

i finally got round to looking at movies i took at the landscape of desire exhibition in adelaide and putting them into a sequence that follows the journey round...

jesus cools me down

jesus cools me down! from jonny baker on Vimeo.

with the grain

with the grain, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

 

kinglake park

kingslake park, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

i got to drive through kingslake park, the area where the fires were so devastating in victoria north of melbourne in 2009. it was one of the most striking landscapes i have ever seen with blackened trees and almost a post apocalyptic feel in places. what it must have been like nearer the time i can only begin to imagine. the fire was taller than the forest and moving at 100km per hour at its height. and yet over a year on, whilst it is stark (and strangely beautiful), new life is emerging. trees are growing leaves, the undergrowth is shooting up. it's amazing how resilient the earth is.

i have now added a set of photos from australia - some of the installation, some of the coast, some of the forest and a few random ones...

salt from a long forgotten sea

salt from a long forgotten sea, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

i have added a photo set of images from the landscape of desire exhibition to flickr which will give you the idea of how it looked. i've written a few words of explanation with some of the photos. (for some unknown reason i never photographed the opening part of the exhibition which included two projected movies and a pathway of stones/gravel before turning into the area with the perspex lightbox).

australia - different context similar questions

the time in australia ended up pretty busy with the installation and the workshops/teaching so i never got round to blogging much unlike my last visit. anyway for what it's worth a few thoughts written on the flight as once i get back i am sure i'll be busy catching up on other things...

there seems to be a move in lots of places to try and shift some of the alternative worship approach to installations into public space. i have really enjoyed seeing this happen with the likes of stations of the cross, beach hut advent calendars and so on. this move has been happening in australia in a few places as well as the uk through the likes of cheryl lawrie and the other guys who form part of a team who have done things in melbourne and elsewhere, and mark pierson when he was in melbourne (i'm sure there are others but my knowledge is inevitably limited). so it was good to be part of that and have an installation that was advertised in the adelaide fringe programme. we had visitors come along on that basis - 25-40 each session it was open. i think being in the fringe was a first thanks to craig mitchell but hope it will be followed on by others locally next year.

the workshops we were taking part in were part of an event in adelaide called spirit of wonder dreamed up by craig in and around the edges of the uniting college there. they all seemed to go pretty well as far as i could tell (though its' not always easy to know). craig has blogged about a few of the events - re:generate was the first i did. but the thing that i was reflecting on was how similar some of the themes/questions being asked are in different contexts round the world.how much the internet is to blame i have no idea or are we all just riding the same wave or is it what happens in slef organising systems such as the church?! in the uk i am currently developing pioneer mission leadership training that is trying to reconfigure an approach to training that is through a mission lens. well it turns out uniting college, a training institution of a different denomination on the other side of the world, are basically on a very similar journey. they have reshaped or are reshaping their training in this way. it was good to cross paths again with steve and lynn taylor who i haven't seen for a few years who have moved from new zealand. steve is on staff to teach/create learning around mission. it was good to compare notes. it was also fun to do a double act leading a communion service with steve at the college.

on the denominations thing, i hadn't quite realised that forge, a missional training network in australia, was no longer happening. it seemed to have a lot of energy before... i guess that energy will have gone into other things. but it does intrigue me that maybe the denominations that some had written off in terms of mission may be some of the spaces and networks that catalyse change and newness for the next phase? that's not really a thought through comment as i don't have an overview of what is happening in australia and i'm sure it's a mixed picture...

i managed to catch a coffee with mark sayers who has a new book out called the vertical self looking at holiness/character. i enjoyed the book and suspect he's on to something. it's a theme that is going to make a comeback in certain circles. he writes with his usual blend of mission thinking, reading the zeitgeist, and accesible stories. the challenge with thinking about holiness is that it often tends into an anti-cultural territory or at least identifying and majoring on the negatives in culture. i still think mike riddell's notion of the sin of holiness in threshold of the future was a refreshing counter to that...

talking of coffee australia is a great place for coffee and has influenced my drinking habits both last time around and this...

we had an interesting discussion around the word pioneer. whatever language you use is problematic but there was a very split opinion around whether this was a good word or not in the australian context. but there was a shared sense that with a refocusing on mission, recognising the gift that pioneers/entrepreneurs bring into the mix is timely. i felt it was a pretty useful conversation at least.

after all the workshops it was great to spend a couple of days down at the coast on mornington peninsular with the team who create installations in the basement in melbourne and to eavesdrop on dreams and plans (and visit wineries and beaches!). i also got to see a 4 ft brown snake slide across the drive in front of me - apparently venomous!

we returned to the airport via the long route through the forest where the fires were last year which was one of the most astonishing landscapes i have ever seen. its an incredibly beautiful forest (apparently where some of where the wild things are was filmed). i can't begin to imagine what it must have been like with fire moving at 100kmh as high as a forest consuming everything in sight. it must have been so desolate afterwards. but it is an amazing world we live in and in many places the blackened trunks (still haunting) are sprouting green as new life is returning quite rapidly in places.

although i have now been to australia twice it wasn't until the final evening this time that i finally got to see a mob of kangaroos. anyway now looking forward to home. photos to follow...

landscape of desire - exhibiting at adelaide festival fringe

so we (cheryl, blythe and i) have spent two solid days creating the installation landscape of desire with more to do today. it's coming together. it's part of the adelaide festival fringe and is at pigrim church. the photos i brought with me are mounted on foam/poly board suspended across the main space in pilgrim church from fabric and spotlit and will look wonderful. it's open from 7:30-9:30 tues, weds and thurs evenings. i will no doubt take photos once it is finished but here's the 11 photos of mine that are part of the exhibition...

thanks to everyone who came last night to the pub to hear about grace and alternative worship.

this afternoon i will be taking a workshop on fresh expressions of church as part of the spirit of wonder week.

off to aus... [and pioneers taking control]

heading off to australia this morning to take part in a few things (see previous blog post here). i am officially an artist as part of the womad fringe which is a first!

i spent the last two days with several ordained pioneer ministers in the church of england and several people involved in diocesan structures in the central south area of england to have a dialogue about how things are working (or not) and can be improved. pioneer minister is still such a new official category that there are a lot of unknowns. but it was certainly good to have the conversation, and it was one that wouldn't even have made sense several years ago within the church structures.

two thoughts came up that struck me. the first was that the category of mission was only added as a criteria for selection and being ordained generally in the church of england a few years ago. of course this now seems like a glaring omission - how did that happen? but now the conversations (and for me this demonstrates how much has changed) are based on the assumption that all leaders need to be missional and to help their churches be. so rather than the church having added a few pioneers in the mix the outcome is as much that the whole has been affected - like some yeast or salt has got into the whole mix.

the second thought was something that bishop colin flecther said to pioneers which was an encouragement to take control. the backdop to this was him suggesting that there seemed to be a danger that pioneers had too dependent an expectation that as he put it mummy church and daddy bishop ought to provide salary, house, job, pension etc. but there was much more possibility if pioneers seize hold of things in a good way to take initiative with ideas, mission opportunities, sustainability and so on. of course the retort could be that the same challenge should be issued to all leaders in the church. but i welcomed this encouragement.

with all this support from the institution we still need plenty of pioneers to not fit the structures, not get ordained and find new edges!

womadelaide and other events down under

next week i am headed to australia for 10 days. i'm looking forward to it a lot though it's crept up on me quicker than it should... i am taking part in various things in adelaide organised by craig mitchell and the uniting college and will briefly be in melbourne.

together with cheryl lawrie i'll be helping with landscape of desire [click on image for info] an installation that's part of womad fringe 2010 at which amongst other things i'll have some photos to exhibit...

and then with cheryl, steve taylor and tim hein taking part in a series of workshops and lunchtime talks called spirit of wonder [download pdf info here]. this includes conversation about spirituality and popular culture, pioneer leadership, mission and fresh expressions of church.

taking part in a pub conversation with steve taylor about grace, altworship and church and whatever comes up in the discussion [again click on the image for info]

and catching up with friends, gleaning as much wisdom as i can on teaching from a missional perspective at uniting college, and maybe see some sunshine which has been a little absent from a grey january and february in england!

fractured or networked - depends on the lens you look through!

one of the most thoughtful mission thinkers out there in the blogosphere in relation to mission and the emerging culture is mark sayers who i really enjoyed meeting last year. he has just posted a piece that i have been thinking about for the last 24 hours the emerging missional church fractures into mini movements. initially i thought he was writing as though this was a problem but on  re-read i'm not exactly sure. maybe he is just trying to map something...

here's my thought on this. if you look at this through an old lens - denominational or tribal - it looks like a problem. but if you look at it through a network lens it's exactly what we should both expect and hope for (though i wouldn't use the word fractured as that sounds very negative). i blogged previously about small world theory which i don't want to go over at length again. but to recap a couple of points. people can only hold a certain number of meaningful relationships, most people are locally focused (in their small world), it only needs one or two people in any small world to be connectors to other small worlds and suddenly the insights across the various small worlds (or movements as mark calls them) can flow around the network.

the key point therefore for any movement is having a particular edge and practice, connecting with others but then encouraging some to focus externally so that that movement isn't insular.

my fear around mark's post/headline is that people will think fracture, spilt, difference, disagreement. whereas i'm looking and thinking diversity, network, connectivity, flows, insights etc... it all depends on the lens you look through!

i wrote a piece on the spirit in which this might be conducted called the network of christ which you might like to read if you didn't catch it.

of course australia is a different context which i know less about in terms of how networked/fractured it is. but my impression in the uk is that there are plenty of small worlds but lots of connectors and lots of generosity...

christ has no body now but yours

came across christ has no body now but yours on phil's new blog and am adding it as a worship trick

Christ has no Body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which he looks
Compassion on the world
Yours are the feet with which he walks
To do good
Yours are the hands with which he blesses
All the world.

Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are his body
Planning in the Kingdom
It helps, now and then, to step back
And take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts
It is even beyond our vision.
Lord, we know in whom we believe
We accomplish in our lifetime
Only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise
that is God’s work
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying that the
Kingdom always lies beyond us.

Lord, we know in whom we believe
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith
No confession brings perfection
No pastoral visit being wholeness
No programme accomplishes the Church’s mission
No set of goals and objectives includes everything
Lord, we know in whom we believe
This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
Lord we know in whom we believe

We cannot do everything
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well
It may be incomplete
But it is a beginning,
A step along the way, an opportunity for the
Lords grace to enter and do the rest.
Lord we know in whom we believe

We may never see the end results,
But that is the difference between
The master builder and the worker.
We are workers,
Not master builders,
Ministers,
Not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future
Not our own.
(Oscar Romero)

Lord, we trust in you
To eternally renew our belief in you
In ourselves and in each other
In this is our joy. Amen

Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are his body.
Christ has no Body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which he looks
Compassion on this world
Christ has no Body but yours.

discipleship and a revolution of the self

having recently linked to mark sayer's post on 5 things the emerging church got wrong in australia, he seems to be on a bit of a roll. i like the challenge of his need for a revolution of the self where he suggests some ways that we have been more co-opted than we realise by consumer culture...

• the lure of the hyperreal world
• commitment phobia
• therapeutic faith
• life as acting
• double lives
• choice anxiety

essentially these are questions around discipleship. (i confess i am a bit bored with the discussion around whether the term emerging church is over. for me it's always been around gospel and culture and mission. the terms are bound to change. the kinds of people into emerging church always want to be on the front end of the curve so whatever it was called we'd get bored when it became too mainstream and want the latest thing. it's kind of ironic that in a critique of consumption mark can't resist newness - isn't this part of being co-opted by taste cultures - hip vs mainstream?! anyway that's a small aside on a great post...)

5 things we got wrong in the emerging missional church - reflecting on the australian context

i met mark sayers for coffee in melbourne earlier this year...

he is a brilliant thinker and reader of the zeitgeist as well as someone bringing a good missions head to all the emerging church stuff.

he has just posted a piece 5 thing we got wrong in the emerging missional church. this is about the australian context, not the usa or uk. but there are excellent insights to learn from. it's the most thoughtful piece i have read about emerging stuff for a while. here are the headings but go and read the article.

1. Failed to define what is meant by “attractional”

2. Failed to define what is meant by “incarnational”

3. Being overly defined by a reaction to mass/popular culture

4. Failing to understand “low fuel tank faith”

5. Being wed to Gen-X culture.

thanks to scott where i picked up the link to the article who i met in tasmania and who has since started blogging on tasmission