jonnybaker

the creative act: a way of being

i was given the creative act: a way of being by rick rubin for my birthday and have really loved it. it's a beautifully designed and made book of 400 pages or so. don't let that put you off as it's not linear. it's a series of 78 reflections on creativity which i think you could dive into in any order. rick rubin has taken 8 years or so to write it and it really feels like it is considered with real depth and wisdom to it.

the title tells you that he sees creativity as a posture, a way of being which has an openness to the abundance of life that comes from 'the source'. if we will pay attention and notice we will tune in to all sorts of inspiration that is happening around us all the time. he of course is a music producer so his reflections come from working with artists over many years but he is keen to say that creativity is something everyone can engage with i think of creativity as pretty spiritual so it was good to read a book that seemed to take the same start point. 

he doesn't quite spell out what he sees the stages of the creative process are but i think they distill down to exploration of ideas; through that discerning what idea to work with - he calls that the seed; then there is generative phase of developing that idea; through to completion. what i was struck by about the process is that in the first phase it is expansive, exploratory where you really need to push out as much as possible. and then when you get to developing and towards completion the opposite is the case - it becomes important to distill it down, edit and focus. this makes some of the sections seem paradoxical but it's because they belong in different phases of the process. if you are familiar with writing on creativity (i have a whole shelf of books on that!) there will be themes that are familiar but there is also lots that is original and it's beautifully crafted. 

i found it really inspiring. if you prefer a podcast to a read then malcolm gladwell talks to rick about the book on their podcast broken record

breakout - a new spare room

i have had a desk either under the stairs or in our bedroom in the loft for 20 years or so. that's been great but we decided to change a spare bedrooom into a space i could have a desk in with a sofabed so it can also be a spare bedroom when we have guests. this is the result.

it's a space for creativity and ideas - the whole feel of it is playful and the lightbulb is a reminder.

it's a space for breaking out or beyond the norms - the mural is called breakout by pippo lionni copied from an old book i have of his pictograms. it's also my zoom backdrop now!

trickster coyote is tucked under the desk to remind me to be subversive.

a few pirates are knocking around to remind me to be more pirate!

yes slightly mad perhaps but also very me. thanks to jon birch who took my ideas and put a design together including colours, the suggestion for the amazing bookcase, and designed the vinyls. i am pretty pleased with my paint work on the mural which had a few moments where i wondered why on earth i thought it was a good idea but i got there in the end. and we had an amazing builder who took the ideas and built the bookcase and did everything else we wanted. fun times!

if you click on the photo above there is an album of a few photos. 

after the apocalypse

it is always a delight to discover friends creative projects. i spotted on instagram a new collaboration between poet chris goan and illustrator si smith. chris penned a few books of poems and liturgies on proost, and si is probably best known for the wonderful 40 series of illustrations of christ's journey in the wilderness.

after the apocalypse is arranged in three sections - before, during and after written and drawn in and around the pandemic. you'll find yourself in the words and images - it's a landscape we all traversed. artists have a knack of being the kind of nerve endings of a culture or something - a sort of feeling their way on our behalf or something. the times we are living in have made it hard to feel genuinely hopeful but it does blend grief and sorrow with hope against the odds.

chis blogs at fragile tent and is someone who has really stuck with the blog format over the years and done an amazing job. you can see some illustrations from the book and poems if you scroll down - like i want to live on this post.

while i was looking to see what was there i really enjoyed chris' latest 4 posts which are explorations of theopoetics - spirituality through artful making. this is a link to the fourth - click on that and scroll down. well worth a read...

the book is available from seatree argyll - that's also the site for chris and michaela goan's creative projects working in pottery, words, wood. they both left jobs a few years back now to pursue a simpler life where they could explore their passions and creative interests and make a life from that. it seems to be going pretty well! 

review of jvt quotes in ecclesial futures

thanks steve taylor for a review of jvt quotes (click where it says pdf) - the fact anyone thought to review such a thing is saying something! sadly the cards are sold out. it was a very limited run for a lockdown project. but i did put the images with quotes in a photo album here if you are interested. you are welcome to use them. he picks up on the gendered language - i was in two minds about that but chose to stick with john taylor's quotations rather than change them - he was writing in the 1960s.

ecclesial futures is now online and available free which is great to see

recreation and the fabulous baker boys

heading off to margate for the weekend for a family gathering to celebrate youngest son turning 30!!!! how did that happen? aside from the joy of hanging out with the baker clan we will also be visiting recreate. harry and joel (our two lads) have collaborated together to put on an exhibition. private view tonight but open every day from today until tues 12 april at piefactory. it's words meets maths meets code meets play or something. harry actually gave joel a week in an exhibtion space for his 30th birthday which is a mad kind of present. due to coronavirus it has only just been able to land. no doubt photos will follow at some stage. the blurb says

“Maths is fun”

No, seriously. It is a given that playing is an essential part of the creative process. Recreation uses maths as a base to play with words, images and form. Poet meets graphic designer, rhyme meets code in this interactive exhibition debuting in Margate.

see - week 2 of pioneer practice this thurs evening

thank you so much everyone who came along to last week's webinar and especially the guests. the chat was buzzing! in the poll of which of 5 things best described those present in relation to pioneering the top answer was 'seeing and imagining new possibilities'. so i am delighted to say that 'see' is the theme of week two where we will be exploring how you see possibilities, come up with ideas and use imagination. i have four guests this week related to three projects. susannah baker and khadeja, sue steer, and anna hembury. come and hear their inspiring stories of practice. i am looking forward to it.

if you missed week 1 you are still really welcome. register here and you will be sent the webinar info the day before. and you will get sent a link to week 1 so you can catch up should you wish to though no pressure to do so. hope to see you there. the series is a partnership between church mission society and heartedge.

betwixt and between

been thinking about the threshold, the between space, the limin, the doorway.

pioneer practice is now available!

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?!

sacred cows and sweet teeth - interview on v12 podcast

i was interviewed recently by david cotterill for the V12 podcast. it was good fun and the topic we were talking about was worship and the adventure of making that in creative ways that relate to the culture(s) of those outside of the church. you can find it on whatever your preferred podcast podcast app is - but here's a link on google or here's one on spotify

i got an email this week from someone asking me about how you navigate the liturgy and rubrics of your denomination or church in relation to pioneering with groups who won't relate easily to that - i sent a link to this interview as an answer. it made me realise that whilst some of us who were involved in alternative worship back in the day - navigating the contours of faith in the postmodern turn, these questions are still very pertinent and new to others. in some ways worship has been backgrounded or at least put layter in the mission process but it is still an essential component to explore. hope this helps if that is your question.

GETsidetracked

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.  

kickstarter launched today - pioneer practice

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!

editing and remixing - jesus and the powers take 2

i seem to be on a liturgy theme this week. so in that vein one of the most natural things to do when crafting prayers, liturgy, a service is to play with the words to make them fit well with the context and with the moment. with technologies of cut and paste this is of course so easy to do. so i was delighted when martin wroe who is a wonderful poet and writer and crafter of words sent me a rework of the communion prayer jesus and the powers that i wrote in july - st luke's holloway have used it in their worship.

if you want or need a practical theology frame of reference or two for this doug gay in his book remixing the church has a brilliant schema of audit | retrieval | unbundling | sampling | remixing and pete ward in introduction to practical theology talks about the processes of remembering | absorbing | noticing | selecting/editing | expressing.

that's not to say everything needs to be messed with - some things are beautifully made and crafted and are artful in their own right. but in the tradition i am in there is not enough play - there is an assumption that there are the 'right words' to use which often ends up being one more area of defendedness rather than open source gift of a tradition that is alive. the reality i suspect is that everyone gets on and remixes anyway - i hope so. most weeks i listen to craig charles funk and soul show on bbc 6 music which is an interesting comparison. the tradition, the old classics get played again and again but they also forever being played with, remixed, reworked, resurfaced. the tradition is a living thing.

martin's email ended by saying

I’ll probably remix it more as time passes… probably you’ll remix it too

exactly! anyway all that to say here is martin's latest remix of the eucharist prayer i wrote back in july. see what you think and by all means download, edit, remix, sample and upload/share...

The Prayer of Thanks 

The Lord be with you.
All And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.
All We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
All It is right to give God thanks and praise

We give thanks for your life, on this earth, walking by our side.
How you announced a new heaven and a new earth, found at the margins of this world,
an offensive against the strongholds of oppression, the dawn of liberation.

With signs of healing and deliverance
You proclaimed news of another commonwealth,
you chose a life of nonviolent confrontation with the powers of the age.
You restored wholeness to the sick
and those called impure.

You tore down the boundaries of tribe, gender and sexuality
of black and brown and white,
All the walls we build to exclude those whose difference makes us uncomfortable.

You overturned the dynamics of status and honour,
insider and outsider.

With you there is no longer male or female, slave or free, Jew or Gentile.
Patriarchy, slavery and racism have no place in your new world.
All are made in the divine image,
Everyone included in the revolution
where the last are first.

The powers that be opposed you
We still do.
You chose love over fear.

You were put to death,
lynched and hung on a tree.

In the great reversal of all history,
on the cross you overcame the powers of this world and broke the power of death.

You sang a song of a new heaven and a new earth.

And with angels and saints and all who walk your way.
Still, we join with you, in that song...

Holy, holy, holy Lord,
God of power and might,
heaven and earth
are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

When we forget this song, remind us of the tune.

When we lose sight of your way, guide us.
When we despair and are overwhelmed,
send your Spirit to comfort us.

You call us to a conversion of heart,
to turn away from the seductions of empire,
To turn towards a new heaven and earth,
a community of resistance and healing,
gathering at a table where you promise to meet us.

God of all life,
lighten our path to your new commonwealth,
when there is bread and wine, shelter and security,
for all people in all places
when the good earth breathes easy again
and violence and greed are made history.

May our homes be open, our tables welcome,
May this table today be such a place.
May we live from love and not fear.

Gracious God, present with us now in every place and time,
bless this bread and wine with the presence of Jesus.

Great is the mystery of faith:

Christ has died:
Christ is risen:
Christ will come again.

Among friends, gathered round a table,
Jesus took bread; and when he had blessed it, he broke it and said,

‘Take this and eat it. It is my body. It is given for you.
...Do this to remember me.’

Then later, during the meal,
he took a cup of wine, and when he had given thanks, he said,
‘In this cup is the new relationship with God made possible because of my death.
...Take this, all of you, to remember me.’

We break this bread
To share in the body of Christ.
Though we are many, we are one body because we all share in one bread.

So come to this table,
you who have much faith
and you who would like to have more;
you who have been here often
and you who have not been for a long time; you who have tried to follow Jesus
and you who feel you have failed;

All Welcome.
It is Christ who invites us to meet him here.

rescuing worship from the mundane - with mark pierson

this webinar series - rescuing weekly worship from the mundane - by mark pierson should be excellent - full of great examples, wisdom gleaned over the years, and good engagement with arts and culture. if you are involved in leading/curating worship it's one to go to. mark has been a good friend over many years and explored creative approaches for worship back when we called it alternative worship. we would compare notes between new zealand and england when there were hardly any of us blogging which together with email lists was the extent of social media! the time difference ought to work...

fear eats the soul

the just imagine webinar series has come to an end - thank you everyone who came along and contributed!

break the rules - webinar this thursday

it's the fourth and final just imagine webinar this thursday evening. there are places available - register here. we explore a classic theme in the creative process of breaking rules to come up with new ideas. this is not about breaking moral or civil laws - it's about conventions, thinking habits, patterns, cultural logic. i have three guests and a bundle of creative exercises.  honestly i have had such a great time doing it. do join in the fun! if you register you will get sent the links eventually to all four.

play - third webinar this thursday - more places now available

the third in the just imagine webinar series is on thursday evening. we're exploring creativity in a chat show style with 3 guests each week. i am absolutely loving it - last week was honestly so much fun and the guests were brilliant! it's going to be a hard act to follow but i am getting excited about this week with some more amazing guests and some really fun exercises. i have got slightly carried away myself over the weekend coming up with ideas for them.

it keeps selling out and we keep adding places so we have once again added a load more places. i am not 100% sure if the person running that has added all the extra places yet so if you go there and it says sold out come back tomorrow evening. it is a series but each one stands alone so don't worry if you have missed some. and if you register you will get links afterwards. 

register here is the crucial thing you need to know. hope to see you there. 

100 more places for just imagine webinars

thanks to everyone who came to the first just imagine session which was fun! it was possibly the craziest and busiest chat in a zoom i have ever been in!! we have decided to make 100 more places available for the just imagine webinar series. technically all 500 places have gone but there were lots of spaces so we decided to make more available as not everyone shows up when they book on a free thing. so go and register soon here - if you are registered you'll get the link to previous sessions as well so you can catch up. 

 

but i'm not creative! - first creativity webinar this thurs

i cycled past this sign in london over christmas and had to stop and photograph it. it reminded me of the forthcoming webinar series which starts this week. i am looking forward to it. the just imagine series of 4 webinars run for one hour each thursday evening in january at 8pm. to sign up simply go and register here and you will get sent the link. you can attend 1,2,3, or all 4. and it's free!

i will be hosting and joined by 3 guests each time. the first one we will be exploring creativity and imagination, how you come up with ideas with a mix of interviews and creatve exercises. it is honestly pitched at anyone especially if you think you are not creative - don't think it's the preserve of creatives and artists.

and whilst the series will apply the ideas to the area of church and faith today it will not be overly churchy and you can take the ideas and apply them to any area you are involved in.

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

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