thanks to anyone who came to the session in the long barn at greenbelt's prospect farm. here's some follow up info.
imagining mission with john taylor is here - i loved working on it. john taylor really sparked my imagination and we have tried to write in the same creative vein and i hope it will spark your imagination if you dive into it. each chapter ends with exercises on creativity you can try out.
pioneer practice is here - this is a mix of stories and very short practical articles - ideal if you have an idea to work on, and ideal for a group to use together to dream up something. it's full colour - there are sample pages on the web site. the discount code i gave out will work until friday. if you have forgotten or weren't there and want to know get in touch.
thanks to jo howie for taking part in the session and telling the story of sacred bean. go look at their web site and order some coffee! and as i said in the session we have added the wonderful sacred bean eucharist to getsidetracked - simply click on the page spread that says sacred bean eucharist which is in pioneer practice. i am sure jo would love to hear how you get on with that so do message me or her about it. i am making that a worship trick - remember those? it would be about 86 in series 4....
jo wrote that liturgy as part of a worship module at cms on the pioneer training essentially thinking how you might create a ritual/liturgy that reflected the culture of the community gathered around sacred bean. the training is wonderful - do have a look at the pioneer mission leadership training web site here. it's quite late for this year! but we have certificate, diploma, BA, MA, DTh options as well as simply picking modules to do. there are now quite a few options online as well. if you are interested for this year get in touch immediately! we also have hubs round the country offering training which is not accredited - again see the web site for those.
and thanks to ali for coming and sharing about the social supermarket and other adventures getting going in rotherham.
above all i hope it sparked your imagination around what you might be able to participate in or catalyse.
i was so chuffed today when the korean edition of curating worship dropped on the doormat. i love the cover. it was published here in 2010 so it's quite a surprise that it's got a new lease of life. having said that i love curation as a way of approaching worship and there are some wonderful conversations with people about their amazing creative practice in it which without doubt was ahead of its time. i hope it sparks some creative things in korea. a huge thank you to hong-il kim who was the person who first invited me to korea, keyongmoon kim for friendship and believing in the book and publishing it (and the others - this is the fourth book i now have had published in korea!). also big thanks to younha hwang for translating it. and to the brendan insititute for their commitment to pioneering in korea.
it was great to read a first review of pioneer practice from russ bravo at inspire. he says
Pioneer Practice manages to both provide inspiration and motivation for the pioneer, while being hugely pragmatic and realistic about the cost, the struggle and the challenge of doing things differently. Full of wisdom, deep questions and electrifying examples of what God can do when people who don’t fit the established order get stuck into changing things.
you can read the full review here.
i also wrote up one of the 'electrifying examples' from the book for an article for inspire too - church for people who want to punch stuff
i am running a zoom workshop on 8 july 7:30pm for 2 hours on getting started in relation to pioneer practice. place are limited to 25 so we can see one another and discuss your ideas and practice. i will be joined by two pioneers who feature in the book and know all about the challenges of building something from an idea to becoming tangible in the world. they are andy freeman and kim brown. tickets are only £10 or there is an option to get it with the book that will save you something on the regular price. i haven't pushed it before the book launch as the images looked similar and i didn't want to confuse anyone!!!
at the book launch for pioneer practice when he was interviewed, jon birch said his favourite quote in the book was from ann-marie wilson (see above). she is an incredible pioneer. i remember when i first met her and she said her vision was to campaign to eradicate fgm from 28 countries in africa and i thought - wow that is a big vision and challenge. she subsequently has pursued that vision and path with incredible courage and determination and set up the charity 28toomany. she is part of a conversation in the book about change where we discuss how you create the change you want to see and culture change is a big part of that challenge - i loved that conversation. ann-marie has a book just out telling her story called overcoming: my fight against fgm. and there is a launch on facebook live this friday with a video and then space for questions.
this is the first in a series of blog posts on pioneer practice. how it will unfold i have no idea! i hope they will be a sort of oblique link to the book without re-presenting the material in it too directly. but i will explore some of the ideas and themes.
on friday i went to the cinema in socially distanced fashion, mask wearing and all that. it was a sensual delight. i was so moved by the film that i couldn't tell if it was because i hadn't been so long or that the film was really good! it certainly was a great feel good factor movie which was great to experience. we went to see dream horse which came out last year. it's a tale set in a depressed village in the welsh valleys and is the true story of jan vokes who organised a community syndicate to buy a racehorse that they named dream alliance who was broken in on the allotment and went on to win the welsh grand national.
but here's the thing - it's a wonderful story of pioneer practice. it may be that my head is just too full of themes of the book at the moment so i am seeing it everywhere but bear with me. the big themes i explore in the book are BE YOU, SEE, BUILD, and CHANGE and they are all at play in the film. btw warning - plot spoilers so watch the film and come back!
jan works at the local co-op and helps at the local community social club. having some experience of animals before through competing with dogs and pigeons she has the crazy idea of getting a mare who could give birth to a racehorse. it's a ridiculous idea - it's incredibly expensive if you go the usual route. but she SEEs a possibility. for me pioneer practice is a gift of sight. others don't see it but she can. she also sees that what is needed is hope and something to live for - it's not about the money. this adventure could be just what the depressed community need. in fact it's just what she needs.
once you see something you have to work out how to make it happen or BUILD it. it doesn't seem like it would stack up but crucially she does the maths - gets a spreadsheet and works out how many people she needs to pay £10 a week over a few years and puts her and brian's retirement find on the line so they can get started right way. she then persuades the most unlikely local community pub goers to join in the adventure. there are of course various important things about training a racehorse and when the time comes they find the best trainer and persuade him. pioneer practice is this work as well as the vision - it's making the idea have legs through a spreadsheet, building a team, navigating curve balls, finding a way when there is no way. it's also fascinating to hink that this is a built from somewhere that writes itself off and others assume is hopeless. but jan sees the assets in herself, in howard davies who is local and knows a thing or two about racehorses and in the community everyone else writes off. and then slowly it grows - the first race and so on. like every pioneer project i know they hit the desert on several occasions where it seems like the whole thing will collapse but they stay true in spite of some doubters and pull through.
there is a lovely scene where jan talks to dream and says that before he came along she was never able to be herself she was always her dad's daughter, her husband's wife and so on but never herself. but since dream came along she is jan. the adventure with dream has enabled her to find herself and come home to who she is. BE YOU is right at the heart of pioneer practice. it's always tempting to think we need to be like someone else who we think of as entrepreneurial but actually things always go best when we are able to be ourselves. this is in some ways all of our quest. and jan is quirky, lovable, and at her best when she is being herself.
racing is of course an elite rich person's sport. so to pioneer a racehorse from an allotment into that world meets challenges from the powers that be. but jan and the syndicate do enough to navigate that world. CHANGE is the last theme in pioneer practice - how will this practice make a better world. you assume that with a racehorse making some money would be the goal but it''s not about that and when offers come they are turned down, that distraction s resisted. the change is about hope, about being able to dream. it's kind of cheesy but i loved the way that at all the races the group would be shouting 'come on dream!', a sort of prophecy spoken to themselves where they had lost the memory of dreaming. the change is about community - there are wonderful scenes of the syndicate in the bus on the way to races, including all sorts of characters, and then the local community who get on board with dream too. there is a momemt late on in the film where jan has doubts but the community carry the vision and her - she has passed it on so well. after winning the welsh grand national the victory parade with the whole village singing bread of heaven is just a delight. you might say it's also a parable of the kingdom of god - the kingdom of god is like a horse called dream raised on an allotment!
the last thing i thought was terrific about it as an example of pioneer practice is that jan is not a professional community worker or pioneer minister, not trained. she is someone in the local community who simply sees a possibility and then makes something happen out of that seeing using the resources that are at hand. that sets in motion an adventure that brings hope to a struggling depressed community and she comes alive in the process.
BE YOU | SEE | BUILD | CHANGE - these are the big themes of pioneer practice.
pioneer practice is available here
come on dream!
i am so pleased to be able to tell you that pioneer practice is now available to buy here. it's taken a while to get the web site up and running but it is there now and looks great and hopefully is simple enough to use... and we can ship anywhere. it's only £13 for almost 200 pages full colour which we hope you'll agree is pretty good value. you have to pay via paypal at the oment though that will take cards - we are adding in another card payment option too.
the web site is home of a new partnership between myself, jon birch and joel baker - GETsidetracked. we've even applied for a registered trademark which i have never done before. i love how this came about as a result of running the webinar series on creativity earlier this year. pioneer practice is our first project. here's an image of the site - cool eh?!
we are celebrating the launch of pioneer practice with a book launch online on thursday june 10. it will be about an hour. jon and i will be there of course talking about the book with some guests who have contributed. we'd love to have a crowd to celebrate with - the book has been a lockdown journey for me at least chipping away week by week. so it has been wonderful to see it come to fruition. register here and then you'll get sent the link - it's free of course and you have to provide your own drink to raise a glass at home!
it was very exciting on friday to take delivery of pioneer practice - 89 boxes filled the lounge!! i have spent the weekend packing books into boxes to fulfil all the kickstarter orders. thank you everyone who has supported this project - your books will be on their way this week. it's printed beautifully - we worked with park communications who were great.
today i am heading down to bath to celebrate with jon birch who did the design - we'll be having a socially distanced catch up in the garden with jen and clare...
several people are asking where you can get it - the short answer is my lounge :) but seriously it will be available through getsidetracked.co with a week or so. watch this space - i will let you know when that goes live. we're getting the kickstarter ordders done and then will be landing that, lining up a book launch and a webinar series. if you can't wait contact me via email or a comment.
i was very moved when this landed - partly relief that it printed so well, but really i feel this book brings together so much of what i have worked on and reflected on together with the rest of the team i work with and with many others. this is what i am passionate about. so yes a tear did come to the eye... but a joyful satisfied tear. it's been a lockdown project chipping away over the last year in my non work days. it's now that weird moment where you want to know what people think but it's time to wait...
now to finish it off and get the book printed...
happy easter!
two hours after sending last week's kickstarter update we had reached the target. wahoo! thank you so much to all of you who have backed the project. it still has two weeks to run and we hope to reach our stretch target so we print 2000 copies so if you are still pondering do go and pre-order copies of pioneer practice. the two offers of 'inspire a friend' and 'network catalyst' are deals that won't be available after the kickstarter.
the project has steamed ahead since the last update. jon has done an incredible amount of design work. having now laid out and designed the pages with stories and articles he is now working back through and begun to add photographs. have a read of the kickstarter update if you want to see a few more spreads.
i thought this is a good point to tell you about GETsidetracked. the idea ironically came out of a series i was doing on creativity in january. one of the themes explored was that often people come up with ideas when they get knocked off course or provoked in some way and find themselves sidetracked. so if you want to be creative being sidetracked is a good thing. the name GETsidetracked fell out of that process. what amuses me no end is that if you look up books around it they are titles like 'How to stay focused and not get sidetracked!' and to be honest at work i am quite often in meetings about focus.
lo and behold a new idea was born and we have set up a new partnership between jon birch, myself and joel baker. GETsidetracked will be a platform on which we can publish any projects we have that sidetrack us! it is in itself a side project. pioneer practice will be our first release. so after the kickstarter you will be able to order copies or point other people to GETsidetracked.co . at the moment there is just a holding page with a fun image from joel.
one week in and the pioneer practice kickstarter is nearly there. it's going to happen! thank you to everyone who has backed it, pre-ordered, and cheered us on. watching the kickstarter total ticking over turns out to be a new kind of addiction.
it's also been a really fun week for us as jon has got cracking with the design. every day he has done several spreads and sent them over to me to look through and edit and send back and day by day it's coming to life. we are loving it so far! to give you a flavour of what to expect here's a few spreads
the rewards of inspire a friend and network catalyst have proved popular and rightly so because they are a good deal that won't be available after the kickstarter. if you are one of the no doubt hundreds who thought to themselves 'o yes i like the sound of that must back it' but hasn't yet then go for it - now is the time.
i have been working on pioneer practice for a year and am self publishing it. i have set up a kickstarter which runs until easter to raise the money through pre-sales and other rewards for the cost of printing and design. please have a look and i'd love you to back it. it's a full colour book meets magazine - one of those chunky coffee table ones. and i am working with friend jon birch who is doing the design. thank you in advance!
proost is still going strong i am pleased to say hosted as it is now by space to breathe. there are two recent books that are available as free downloads or you can buy as printed books
the first is a collection of liturgies collated by heather cracknell for fresh expression called opening the doors. mark berry, ruth wells, tim watson and dorothy woods are the contributors so i am sure it is good. i gave printed copies to a couple of people at christmas.
the second is the long promised return? by tim watson, a set of poems and prayers written in the latest lockdown. i have just downloaded it.
i also noticed future present is currently in the free downloads section so if you have never got yourself a copy of that it's definitely worth getting hold of.
i got a copy in the post of missio dei in a digital age edited by jonas kurlberg and peter phillips. i attended a conference back in april 2019 on the theme and presented a paper there which i called mission: an adventure of the (digital) imagination. all those have been worked up into this volume. at the time no one knew that reflecting on mission in relation to digital communication and connection and community would be such a big thing come 2020.
in my chapter i explore how the currency of mission is imagination in relation to culture. the wisdom gleaned from intercultural work is a great resource to reflect on in relation to digital spaces. in a section called imagination, seeing and inventiveness i look at examples from winson green and nomad podcast. my chapter is also a dialogue or riff on pete ward's liquid ecclesiology. love to know what you think if you read it!
it's the kind of book you can dive in where you like and where your interests lie - i found it a really interesting read and think my takeaway was katherine schmidt's down to earth suggestion that "most Christians should be in digital spaces as themselves witnessing to God's mercy through relationships".
that's me done for a while on books i have contributed to (apart from the one i am working on right now of course!)
following up on yesterday's post, another really wonderful book of reflections, prayers and liturgies is seeds of hope. this is produced by amos trust, a charity focused on human rights, justice and solidarity. it's in a similar space to liturgies from below organised into sections such as solidarity, protest, planet. i got it for christmas and am reading it through it daily. i am going to make that and liturgies from below the two books i use to pray and reflect during lent this year. it's also only £10. there is something really good about organisations/movements like amos trust articulating their spirituality. it began as a series of daily reflections in lockdown but it's great they have turned it into a book.
i have a new book out imagining mission with john v taylor which i have co-authored with cathy ross
