jonnybaker

on our doorstep

i loved this anthony gormley exhibition event horizon of figures around the hayward gallery in london back in 2007 which is where the photo is from. this phrase probably seems more evident now but when john taylor was writing it was probably a newer idea because mission was something that happened overseas. i have pretty much oriented what i do around this idea for the last 30 or so years! 

cathy chose this quote to post this week and this is what she says about it

We are learning that the missionary frontier is on our doorstep – literally. Another apt John Taylor saying! At the beginning of lockdown I met daily with my neighbours in our physically distanced meet-up over coffee. We now meet weekly and sometimes more often. We have discussed so many things and shared a lot together. It has been a real gift to get to know one another so deeply. It has been a wake-up call for me to find connection and friendship in the neighbourhood. And it has taken a pandemic to get us there. I think we are waking up to much during this pandemic which is unmasking powers, fragilities and false gods. The missionary frontier is always on our doorstep. What is yours?

imagining mission is for sale here and there is a chapter in it in which we explore mission.

#imaginingmission

not technique but imagination

i have become more and more fascinated by processes of creativity and imagination. when we sent in the first draft of imagining mission we had some push back from the editor asking for some examples of how what we were describing played out. i actually like it when editors push back and think they should do so more to be honest. but i think we felt that wasn't the kind of book we were trying to write or at least some examples might limit the possibility of how peoples own thinking was provoked. but what it did lead to was us thinking that quite often church leaders feel pressure to be creative but don't necessarily know how to do that if they are not used to it or are not in environments where it is encouraged. so the change we did make was to write a section at the end of each chapter on exercising creativity taking a particular idea and then giving some exercises. i really love those parts and think they work as a standalone too. 

as a sort of follow up to that and to celebrate the book i am running a series of free webinars in january just imagine one evening a week for an hour. in those i will have three different guests each time and we'll pick a theme for exercising creativity and play with it. go here to find out more and sign up. there are 500 places i think so hopefully room for everybody! now i need to think what do in the sessions!

when you publish a book it's quite common to invite respected writers and thinkers to read a copy and make a comment. it's weird pushing a book as it feels like showing off or something! but i am going to be very unenglish and say this. stephen bevans made a comment that is on the back of the book. he is one of my heroes and i am happy to say has become a good friend. his writing and thinking in contextual theology and mission is amazing. this is what he said about the book 

This is one of the most significant books I have ever read. Cathy and Jonny have tapped into a source that can revolutionise our understanding of church, and the mission that calls church forth. Tylor's creativity and imagination and Cathy and Jonny's as well can stir up the creativity and imagination that is latent in us all  to leap over the wall. [Stephen Bevans]

when i read that i thought i could retire as i probably can't top it - so kind!

the good news for those of you who expressed interest in the cards of quotes is that i have now ordered decks of cards. they will be delivered to me in early january and i'll be in touch as to how you can get them. there will be a few extras if you missed out but essentially it is a limited edition - i am quite excited about it! this is the top of the box. i have made a slide set of the cards on flickr which anyone is welcome to use - if you do please mention john taylor as the quotes are his and ideally the book that they are from - imagining mission. thanks!

#ImaginingMission

the great disturber

this is a photo i took years ago in the wonderful city of melbourne. it's always amused me that when i have shown it half the people assume jesus christ is a stencil artist and the other half that he is cleaning the place up! looks like a stencil artist to me i have to say...

john taylor calls him the great disturber which i think is hard to argue with. i was speaking at st mary's church last weekend on a couple of stories of social distancing in luke's gospel of healing a leper and a paralysed man. one of the things i was reflecting on was how jesus messed with the dirt boundaries of what is clean and unclean, sacred and profane, who is in and who is out to reconfigure the world as an order of embrace. the religious powers certainly found this pretty disturbing. as we head into advent i thought an image of jesus as the great disturber would be fitting. 

these quotes are from john taylor in the book cathy ross and i have written imagining mission. if i am allowed to admit in in very unenglish fashion i am delighted with how it turned out. 

i have mentioned before that i am going to get some cards made up of these images and quotes. well i have finally worked out how to do that and they will be a set of 30 cards in a box - like large playing cards. it will work out at around 6 pounds a box. i have about 80 people who have said they want a set - it will be a limited run for those signed up. so if you are interested and have not let me know it's not too late as i have not yet placed the order. just leave me a message. if you have let me know i haven't forgotten.

enough is enough

cathy reflects on another of john taylor's phrases in imagining mission

I think we have all learned that enough is enough and that we need to develop a theology of enough. We are learning that we need to respect the planet and not to be so consumerist and extravagant. In 1972, nearly fifty years ago, Taylor wrote "our Western way of life is marked by excess whichever aspect of our situation one looks at – our consumption of food and our accumulation of goods, our wage claims and price rises, our waste and pollution, the concentration and congestion of our cities, our destruction of living creatures and our plunder of fuels and minerals, our expenditure on armaments and the wanton disproportion of the way we use them – excess is the word that comes continually to mind. Ruthless, unbridled, unthinking excess."

Perhaps we are learning to respect the planet, to live more simply so that others may simply live and to take delight and joy in simple pleasures.

#ImaginingMission

get off your high horse and muck in

john taylor did not mince his words when it came to church. and he was directing his thoughts to the church of england. i was reminded of this last week when someone who is not anglican described on twitter their experience of being othered and told 'you don't understand' when entering an anglican debate. it's a church of england problem in my view that you don't get in independent and non conformist churches in the same way. maybe it's the state religion thing? but it's way too easy for the church to come across as pompous, lording it over, superior. definitely still some mucking in to be done! 

you can order imagining mission here #ImaginingMission 

the cross and the lynching tree

the last issue of anvil journal faultlines in mission: reflections on race and colonialism is so interesting, so good and so challenging. i really do encourage you to have a read of it. i wrote a couple of book reviews for it. as the reviews come at the end i am not sure how many people make it that far! so i thought i'd pull out my book review of james cone's the cross and the lynching tree' and add it to the blog so here it is...

On June 3 2020 Chance the Rapper tweeted “Jesus was lynched”. This tweet was liked 62 000 times. He then proceeded to follow it up with some quotes from an article entitled the Cross and the Lynching Tree, which is the title of James Cone’s book from 2011. The article was by Steve Holloway and was a review of the book prompted by Cone’s death. I don’t think Chance the Rapper had read James Cone’s book but I suspect that probably it was the highest profile comment in pop culture about it. I hope it got some new readers as a result. Being America of course the comments were suitably polarised and ridiculous. One accused him of blasphemy saying Jesus wasn’t lynched he was crucified which was kind of missing the point! The reason I mention this as a way into a review is that I think my own education about racism and injustice has been in some significant part through black music - soul, reggae, hip hop, Afrobeat to name a few genres. Artists feel the culture and somehow find ways to articulate something of the pain, grief and mood of the times and where appropriate call forth a different vision, a different possibility. In this regard art and prophecy are close friends. The most helpful response for me personally after George Floyd’s death aside from Al Sharpton’s magnificent eulogy was actually Gilles Petersen’s selection of music and comments and guests on BBC6Music in the two weeks after. I found it a lot more helpful than what i heard in churches - in fact it struck me how few hymns or contemporary songs there are that really spoke into that moment in any concrete or grounded way.

Chapter 4 of James Cone’s book is about literary artists and the connections they made between the crucifixion and the lynching tree. For me it was the most moving chapter of the book and I followed it up by finding some of the pieces online which also led to finding illustrations of the black Christ identifying with the suffering of those lynched. What is particularly striking about that chapter is that it comes in the wake of a discussion about the absence of the connection between the cross and the lynching tree in the theologies of the best white theologians of the day and the pulpits in white churches. Cone devotes a chapter to Niebuhr and goes to great lengths to reflect on this absence in Niebuhr’s work because he was probably America’s most influential theologian, commented on social issues and Cone was very influenced by him following in his footsteps at Union Theological Seminary in New York. As Cone says, it is extraordinary that this connection was not made. He contrasts that with a moving chapter on Martin Luther King who makes those connections and whose life was one shaped by the way of the cross. I don’t know why I say that is a moving chapter because every chapter I mention I will say is moving! A case in point is the chapter on black women’s experience of suffering, their part in activism and black womanist theological perspectives. I was reminded by that of Billie Holliday’s rendition of Strange Fruit which I listened to several times as a result of the book (Nina Simone’s is powerful too). 

The book opened my eyes to how prevalent lynching was. I knew about it but the scale and horror of the experience was really brought home to me by Cone’s book. Between 1880 to 1940 white Christians lynched 5000 black men and women. These lynchings drew huge crowds and families came out to watch. Photos of the event were turned into postcards that you could buy. Cone references an exhibition that shocked America by touring these postcards - I found some of the images online. It is so hard to believe and fathom the reality of that black experience in America and that white Christians did it - I found it important for me to look at it and try and see it as best I could without averting my gaze. 

James Come is brutally honest about his own struggle - white supremacy tears faith to pieces he says. If God loves black people why do they suffer? And yet the heart of the gospel is struggle for freedom and liberation from oppression. The cross is an empowering sign for those who suffer because of God’s loving solidarity with them. It’s also where the powers and principalities are overcome. And it has to be related to our social reality rather than abstracted. So Cone is right to say that Jesus was a lynchee and make that connection. And he says that every time a white mob lynched a black person they lynched Jesus all over again. “The lynching tree is the cross in America”. At the same time he laments that many white theologians theology of atonement (which they are very defended about) fails to name or recognise white supremacy as America’s great sin. It is in danger of being sentimental abstract false piety. 

In the conclusion he quotes from James Baldwin who says he is proud of the spiritual force and beauty of black people in America. Why? Because “It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck”. I was in pieces at that point. 

I love liberation theologies but it was actually as a result of twitter that I read it. It wasn’t Chance’s tweet but Bishop Emma Ineson said she was going to read it. At that point I was so upset about George Floyd’s murder and wondering what on earth i could or should do that I ordered the book and thought I’ll at least read that and try and get a bit better educated. It really has done that in a powerful way.

the long trek [#imaginingmission10]

this week's john taylor quote. cathy's thoughts to introduce it

Another wonderful John Taylor phrase which resonates with pioneers. It certainly feels like we are in a terra incognita currently and it feels like a long trek! Many of the old certainties have gone and we don't yet know what is coming towards us. Are we brave enough to let go and reimagine life anew? What might it look like? How might we reshape our cartographies of lifestyle, community, leadership, mission? What new maps might we dream of? How do we decolonise old maps? And then there is the terra incognita of Christ. Always more to discover. Always more to learn. A lifelong trek. Hope you find our book on Reimagining Mission with John Taylor helpful.

#ImaginingMission

guardians of universality [#ImaginingMission 9]

this photo still makes me smile every time i see it. it was one of our crazier ideas in grace where we were exploring the idea that there is an assumption in various places that to be holy is to avoid the world whereas if you look at the life of christ the opposite seems to be true! so we had some defenders of the purity codes on the door as people arrived. looking back it would have freaked you out if it was your first time.

anyway all that to say that in our book imagining mission we riff on john taylor's ideas. he would have been great on twitter in my view as he just has so many brilliant short phrases. 'guardians of universality' is a trap the church in the west especially falls into as though she is the defender of some universal truth passed down from on high. history has shown that those universal truths usually turn out to be very modern western ideas - in other words a local theology. there's nothing wrong with a local theology - tradition is a series of local theologies. the problem comes when it loses humility and starts universalising.

if you are enjoying these photos with john taylor quotes i am gradually adding them to a flickr album. i also made them into a set of cards for my own use that are a fun discussion starter. i mentioned this in an earlier post or two and now have a list of getting on for a hundred people who have requested a set. if you'd like to be added to the list let me know. i'll get round to it round christmas time i expect.

#ImaginingMission

come as a stranger with everything to learn again [ #ImaginingMission 8]

it amuses me looking at this that at first glance now it looks like it says "come as a stranger with fosters" - why would you do that? it's such a terrible drink! anyway that aside this week's reflection from cathy on john taylor 

Don't you feel like that in these days? We are living in the world but not as we know it. What are we learning in these times? Sometimes I do feel like a stranger in these times and maybe that's good. On good days this can heighten our awareness, sharpen our senses, alert us to things we haven't noticed before, draw us into a solidarity with others. We are learning again how to live in a world where fear, inequalities and injustice have been highlighted. We are also learning that we can be good, we can practise altruism and volunteering is good for us. Taylor's insight also reminds me of some lines from the T S Eliot poem Little Gidding where we are encouraged to explore:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

book still available with discount code:MISSION2020

#ImaginingMission

look to the fringes [ #imaginingmission 7 ]

the church is most surely herself when she is at the periphery with those who are fringe dwellers. jesus was loved by outsiders, fringe dwellers. if the church wants to be renewed she should do likewise and look to the fringes rather than the centre. this theme recurs in john taylor's writing and is this week's quote from imagining mission, the book by cathy ross and i riffing on his writing in his newsletters.

the photo is from a slate headstone in the graveyard of the church of brendan the navigator in ireland where there is a well which i visited on pilgrimage with pioneers some years ago. he too was a fringe dweller...

i have mentioned this before but i did turn these into a set of cards for myself and a number of people have said they'd be interested in a set. so leave me a message if you are and i will add you to the list - it will be a while as we have a number more to get through - probably end of year.

and i am adding them to a photo set here

#ImaginingMission

there is no such thing as safe theology [ #imaginingmission 6 ]

some years back i did an installation called red tape which had a bible wrapped in red tape, a dog collar made of red tape and bread and wine ring fenced by red tape. looking back i think it must have been a moment where i was particularly frustrated with the church and its controls! i am amazed cms let me get away with at a public event - the photos are here. anyway all that to say that this week's john taylor quote from our book imagining mission uses a photo from that.

here's cathy's reflection on it

There is no such thing as safe theology. I wonder why we ever thought there was! God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not safe! We know the Spirit is wild, free and unpredictable. How have we so domesticated Jesus and theology? How have we made it all so tame, mundane and frankly boring?! Is it centuries of patriarchy? Empire? White fragility? Certainly these did not help. But we all collude somehow. Let's free ourselves of trying to protect God, police boundaries and monitor sound theology. But is this anarchy? Is this relativism? Well what did we have before? Regulatory order? Conformity? Hierarchy? Conscious and unconscious bias? I realise this is rather binary but it is only a short post! Let's trust in the power and guidance of the Spirit and try to be free to dream more expansively, imagine more generatively and theologise boldly. Let's live by courageous faith and not by fear. If mission is an adventure of the imagination, then theology is no longer safe.

[ #ImaginingMission ]

how to use your imagination

combinatory play is einstein's term for putting two things together from different spheres which is a fun and playful exercise in creativity. i have an article here exploring that - how to use your imagination.

and.. i am interviewed here by naomi steinberg on imagination and the new book - imagining mission: a book taylor made for our time

#ImaginingMission

thanks

thanks so much to all of you who came to the imagining mission book launch. getting the technology working was somewhat nerve wracking but we managed to both zoom it and stream it to youtube which was a first. the plus of that is that there is a recording of the evening here if you missed it. thanks for all the feedback too - we were so pleased it seemed to have been enjoyable. it was great to see so many friends inlcuding people from several different countries.

leap over the wall or perish [ #ImaginingMission 5]

we titled the first chapter of the book imagining mission leap over the wall or perish because we loved that john taylor phrase so much! that first chapter is about how we imagine church can be. i really loved writing it and found it pushed my own ideas and thinking. i am looking forward to finding out peoples reactions to it. it's easy to get stuck in so many areas of life church included, and easy to get introverted. there's always plenty to do for the internal church agenda which those on the inside can busy themselves with. but taylor flips it the other way round suggesting we need to get out into the community, get over walls that we have built. i think the phrase speaks for itself so there's not a lot more to add really other than to allow ourselves to be provoked by it!

we're posting a series of quotes from john taylor that we use in the book coupled with photos i have taken which i hope you enjoy - this is no 5. (the idea was inspired i think by the book of probes - quotes by marshall macluhan with photography by david carson). i have made them into a set of cards and am collecting names of anyone who is interested in a set - let me know if you'd like one and i'll add you to the list. 

i am looking forward to the book launch tonight - tickets are sold out but it will be livestreamed on youtube here at 8pm thurs 1 october. and you'll get the same experiece. bring a glass of bubbly to your computer screen and celebrate with us.

#ImaginingMission

booklaunch update - livestream added

we will now be livestreaming the book launch for imagining mission at 8pm on thurs night on youtube for those who were disappointed not to get a place for the zoom version - click on this link on the night. it will be pretty much the same. the truth is it had not occurred to cathy and i that we would have 100 people sign up - thanks so much to everyone for your support and interest and we will do our best to be scintillating! we are excited about the book.

what drives the missionary is what they don't know [ #ImaginingMission 4]

cathy writes:

Imagine this. I wish this idea were reality for all of us. I remember an elderly NZCMS mission partner telling me after more than 30 years living in Pakistan that she knew so much less now than when she had arrived there. This nugget by John Taylor encourages a spirit of listening, learning, curiosity and humility. How differently mission might have been - and still could be - experienced if we adopted this posture.

you can order imagining mission here

i am amazed and delighted that next week's book launch has sold out (i say sold - it's free!) - who knew that would happen?! we have a maximum of 100 places. if yo were hoping to come we'll try and work out if we can stream it at the same time...

#ImaginingMission

a good place to start is with whoever is at home [#ImaginingMission 3]

one of the parts of writing imagining mission that i really enjoyed were the sections at the end of each chapter on creativity and imagination. counter intuitively creativity can be helped by having limits within which to work. i was reminded of the quote above from john taylor when the rule of six was introduced. this is a limit but it calls for creative responses. taking church as an example how can church work, grow and be if limited to homes and groups of six? when you stop and think about it there have been loads of times and places where the church has only been able to meet in homes and has flourished. i think i would go so far as to say that households is the most natural habitat for communities of disciples. i realise the photo above is six people plus a foot if you look closely and it's not a home but you get the idea!!

if you'd like to find out a bit more about the book we have a book launch on october 1 which is online and free - register here - love to see you there.

#ImaginingMission

 

book launch october 1

we are having an online book launch on october 1 to celebrate imagining mission being published - you'll have to bring your own bubbly or other drink (sorry!). there are 100 places - click here to register and you will be emailed the link. john taylor's thinking is so relevant for now. in the book we soak ourselves in his mission thinking and respin it for today. we're delighted john's daughter joanna will be joining us. love to see you there.

cherish the weakness of limited means [#ImaginingMission 2]

cathy writes

"Cherish the weakness of limited means" is one of my favourite John Taylor quotations that we reflect on in the book with Jonny Baker. Taylor used it in the context as to how an institution could recapture its dynamism to become a movement again. This seems a word for our times. Let's cherish weakness and vulnerability, uncertainty and inability to fix things. This will put us in line with most of the rest of the world. Let's also use our imaginations instead of relying on assumed ways of doing things. Cherish weakness and we may be surprised what lies ahead.

you can order imagining mission here

an adventure of the imagination [#ImaginingMission 1]

it was a lot of of fun working on the book imagining mission. one of the things i did earlier this year when i was working on it was lift out some phrases that i really liked and put them with some of my photos. i think of taylor's phrases a bit like marshall mcluhan - provocations or discussion starters to ponder - that were ahead of their time and seem as poignant now as they were 50 years ago. it's also i hope a fun or creative way to give a flavour of the book. cathy and i will take turns in reflecting on those - probably twenty or so. i will add them to a photo album on flickr which you are welcome to downlaod photos from and use. i have made them into a set of moo cards for myself which make good discussion starters (though the fonts are a bit small on some - they work better on a full screen). if anyone is interested in a set of those let me know and i can order a few - they aren't that cheap but you can have them cost price. message me if that's of interest and i'll compile a list.

first up then: an adventure of the imagination. 

this comes from a reflection on an extended time he spent in africa living in villages. taylor is thinking about how different the culture of paganism is on the african plains and he wonders if christ came into the world of africans in an african way whether the rest of the church would recognise him? he says that any attempt to look upon the world through african eyes must involve an adventure of the imagination. i absolutely love this way of conceiving of mission. as we are all too painfully aware the sharing of faith has often gone with the sharing of culture because we mistake the good news of jesus christ with the cultural clothes that the church expresses faith in. the challenge should be to simply share the story and let insiders to a culture respond to that in their way. that is essentially an imaginative act. and i do like the thought that it should be pushed to the degree that we might not even recognise it. 

it's no longer news to say that the west is a context for mission. and we have exactly the kind of question taylor was pondering in africa here. church is foreign to many people - they way things are done is just different, strange, inaccessible - and that's the case whether it is pentecostal, liturgical, or contemporary. things need to be done in a way that is as close as possible to peoples natural way of being and doing life - it's obvious isn't it!? the adventure of the imagination is to let go of our way of doing things, our religious sweet tooth and simply go on an adventure of the imagination to see what emerges. the last 30 years or so in england and other western contexts have seen a wave of experimentation and a loosening of wider church structures with emerging churches, fresh expressions, alternative worship and so on but there is so much more possibility, so much more adventuring that could be done. and sad to say there is still way too much fear, anxiety, defendedness and control in the structures that make the simple error of confusing the gospel with the way we do things round here.

[i have some books and happy to sell you one if you are nearby but with coronavirus that is unlikely i guess but you can order here from the publisher or any other bookstore online i imagine]