jonnybaker

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

the future of church - tune in to a webinar conversation between me and rick lawrence tomorrow

i am on a one hour webinar tomorrow (thurs june 4) exploring the future of the church and creativity in that regard. it's hosted by friend rick lawrence at group publishing and it will be great to catch up with him. it's free, is at 5pm uk time and 10am mountain time in the usa and canada. the link to sign up is here 

flipped church

the flipped classroom is a simple idea. you use technology to make available content for individuals to access for their learning before you meet and/or afterwards – this might be video, reading, presentations and so forth. but when you gather as a group you use the time or the bulk of it for interaction and dialogue. i've taken this approach to teaching online. 

but i began wondering could you think the same about church and what would the flipped church look like? my thoughts are on the pioneer blog - click on the link. i have been pondering these things in preparation for the webinar on wednesday reimagining church

this got me trawling back through blog posts from 2005 and 2006 and i found this post and set of questions i posed wondering about the implications of the online environment for church. well here we are 14 years later asking the same questions...

can we imagine...
church beyond gathering?
church beyond once a week?
church as always on connectivity to christ and one another?
church where community is the content?
theology and resources of church being open source?
church valuing the wisdom of the crowd rather than the knowledge of the expert?
our church/spirituality being easily found by seekers because we tag it that way?
an ethos of low control and collaboration?
an economy of gift?
church as spaces for creative production and self publishing?
church as providers of resources for spiritual seekers and tourists?

 

musings from the other side of the world 4: when church collapses

[see part 1 kiwi and proud | part 2 am i in england? | part 3 smug statues and street art saints]

i loved this piece of street art of a quaking church in panic mode. further down the mural the trickster wiley coyote is spotted with some tnt!i am sure it was terrifying to experience the earthquake in christchurch when many buildings wobbled and indeed fell down. and surveying the landscape makes you realise it takes a long time for a city to rebuild. there are still buildings being repaired and many pieces of land where buildings once stood. one area is a whole zone that has been cleared of where house stood. the shapes of gardens and streetlights are there but no people. the land there has lowered so is prone to flooding so is now simply a red zone.

christchurch cathedral is a centrepiece of the city - the settlement was very much church of england centred so it's no surprise to see this central place. but the cathedral (and indeed the catholic cathedral too) were seriously damaged by the earthquake. you can see in the photo above. by any stretch of the imagination this is an interruption or provocation. whilst you wouldn't wish it on anyone, whenever you get provoked in this sort of way there is an opportunity for creative thinking. many writers on creativity suggest you should programme interruptions into your routine because it's how you come up with ideas. i read the book messy by tim harford recently and the first chapter in that is really good on exactly that point. you can listen to a podcast here cautionary tales which effectively rehearses that first chapter - it's the episode bowie, jazz and the unplayable piano.

well the church did get creative. realising it would take a long time to sort out, a japanese architect shigeru ban was commissioned and designed the cardboard cathedral. this is a light structure that might last 50 years i guess. it has been a big hit - i loved it. the interior structure looks like it's made of and held up by cardboard tubes though i am not sure exactly what the material is. but i noticed while i was there that work seemed to be starting to repair the old cathedral. perhaps this is inevitable but i also was disappointed. why?! i like the new one a lot better and it's a sign of travelling much lighter.

one of the church's biggest challenges certainly in england is its buildings. they are old, inflexible, often cold, and not really fit for purpose. sure some of them look beautiful and have been reworked well. usually that is the case where there is a large congregation. but most are a chain round the neck of a small community and would be better given away as heritage sites. in many villages in england there is a small community of older christians - maybe a dozen who put so much energy and effort into keeping the roof on, the lights on, the heating working. in my view it would be amazing to wake up one day and find that the buildings had wobbled and collapsed. what a relief - the people could get on with being the church as a community of people! i am honestly not just being flippant. i genuinely think that. somewhere along the way church easily forgots the why of its existence.

what i had not forseen when i was in new zealand was that when i got back church buildings would soon be shut albeit for a different reason - coronavirus. the church has literally left the building! so people are having to reimagine how to be church, how to connect to one another and encourage community, worship, discipleship, mission. they too have been provoked, interrupted from business as usual. what are the creative and imaginative opportunities for churches in this season? there have been a lot of social media comments about making more of the opportunity than simply broadcasting church services online. and i admit whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with that and it is probably comforting in its familiarity in a time of crisis, it does lack imagination. but my impression is that people are connecting in all sorts of more liquid ways connecting to christ and one another. but i wonder when the crisis is over will they be like christchurch cathedral and go back to the old, to business as usual or will they inhabit the new in an ongoing way?

i have been reading mark's story (gospel) of jesus life this lent - in fact i have been thinking about mark for a year or so. today i laughed out loud when i read the part where jesus' disciples are admiring the temple in jerusalem and saying something along the lines of 'look at these magnificent buildings' to which jesus replies saying they will be demolished and not one stone will be left on top of another! at that stage the disciples really don't seem to get what jesus is about. he is starting a new community of people following in the way of jesus. they largely met and gathered in small groups and communities in homes in the early days. there's no reason why that might not still be a brilliant idea...

when i was in new zealand one of the things i found really inspiring was the imaginative approaches to being church amongst young adults. i got to visit wellington for one day and hang out with some pioneers over breakfast and catch up with bishops eli and justin who are great. it was also good to meet scottie reeve, catch up with jethro who studied with us at cms for a term and others including one follower of my blog (small world and all that) and hear about a network of homes that are community houses for church in a different way. they share life, prayer, mission, food together. in the background seem to be a few decades of a deep rhythm of prayer and radical discipleship through urban vision. i apologise if my description is a bit clunky or not quite right but i was only there for a day - do leave a comment if you are part of it,

the anglican church in wellington have embarked on an experiment in one neighbourhood led by scottie and anna where they have bought a building which is on the high street which can house a residential community, have a small chapel, and run a community space and perhaps an enterprise or two. sadly i didn't take a photo of it as i got there late at night and left first thing (that's my excuse) so can't show you but i thought it is exactly the kind of imagination that is needed - so refreshing to see. the regular church building i assume is being sold or decommissioned. it is just in the throes of beginning so there is not much more to tell on that particular community yet.

i picked up a daily prayer book: he taro ma - tatou daily prayer, that those communities use which i have been using since. though i am on the other side of the world it feels good to unite in spirit and in prayer. i couldn't find where that is available online - let me know in a comment if it is. today's morning prayer was on peacemaking and non violence and references some of the maori prophets and cms missionaries. i'll get back that in the next post...

candid beer launches today - another make good idea finds legs!

excited today for mark and jess bamping who launch their community hub - candid in stafford. yes mark loves beer and i am sure will brew as well as serve up decent local and creative independent craft beers. but the driver is community and rather than calling it a cafe or pub it's a community hub. mark brought the idea to our make good week a while back now and when he made his pitch he was coincerned about loneliness and thinking that men in particular will gather around doing stuff together (such as brewing beer) so it seems thayt this has developed into the design of the space and there being a room for groups and activities as well as a larger table to gather round. i was hoping to get to the launch but couldn't make it but will raise a glass of craft beer today to toast candid beer on their launch and hope to visit before long.

there is a make good week coming up at cliff college 13-17 may and there are a few spaces left so if you have an idea for a project or enterprise to make good in the world then sign up!

art [pioneering] matters

i love artists - the way they see, think and make. so much so that i am happy to say 'yes' if anyone asks me if i am an artist. i have blogged before about books about artists - notably think like an artist, and the creative stance. as you probably know if you read this blog regularly i train pioneers people who have ideas for making the world a better place, people who see possibilities and then build things out of their seeing, people who imagine and can gather communities of people who follow christ which don’t require them to leave their culture behind. whenever i read a book about artists or art i find myself replacing the word art with mission or pioneering. it’s quite a fun game to play. for christmas this year my son harry gave me a book art matters which has four essays or reflections by neil gaiman illustrated by chris riddell. one off the pieces is called make good art and is the text of a speech neil made in 2012 at the university off the arts - the text and video are here. it’s absolutely brilliant - do digest it in full its own right. but i have taken the liberty of taking a few of his quotes and switching the words the arts or art for pioneering or pioneer. i have placed them in brackets so it’s obvious. anyway see what you think…

When you start out in [pioneering] you have no idea what you are doing. This is great. People who know what they are doing know the rules, and know what is possible and impossible. You do not. And you should not.. If you don't know it's impossible it's easier to do. And because nobody's done it before, they haven't made up rules to stop anyone doing that again, yet.

If you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here to do, then just go and do that.

When you start off, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thickskinned, to learn that not every project will survive.

I decided that I would do my best in future not to [pioneer] just for the money. If you didn't get the money, then you didn't have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn't get the money, at least I'd have the work. Every now and again, I forget that rule, and whenever I do, the universe kicks me hard and reminds me. The things I did because I was excited, and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I've never regretted the time I spent on any of them.

I hope you'll make mistakes. If you're making mistakes, it means you're out there doing something.

Do the stuff that only you can do. The urge, starting out, is to copy. And that's not a bad thing. Most of us only find our own voices after we've sounded like a lot of other people. But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So [pioneer] as only you can.

Where would be the fun in making something you knew was going to work?

People keep working, in a freelance world, and more and more of today's world is freelance, because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don't even need all three. Two out of three is fine. 

That was the hardest lesson for me, I think: to let go and enjoy the ride, because the ride takes you to some remarkable and unexpected places.

The rules, the assumptions, the now-we're supposed to's of how you [pioneer], and what you do then, are breaking down. The gatekeepers are leaving their gates. You can be as creative as you need to be. The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are. So make up your own rules.

And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. [Pioneer]

on innovation 4: get yourself a side project

like me i bet you have bought someone a present because you secretly wanted it yourself? if you live with that person it's quite a good strategy! anyway i bought jen a zine called the side project report - she is working on a side project so i thought she'd enjoy it and hopefully find a bit of practical wisdom and encouragement. she has now read it (and loved it) so it was time for me to sneak it away from her desk and read it. i couldn't put it down and i think i pretty much read every word. i would love to get a copy for every pioneer training at cms because it's so helpful whether you are running a project as a sideline or as a main thing.

it's published by the guys who run the do lectures which has been going nearly 10 years and was founded by the people who set up howies. their web site is really worth a look and you can order the side project and a whole load of other cool looking books from there as well as watch what look like some really interesting lectures. i'll be popping back. 

but in terms of innovation i think side project is a really interesting thing to pay attention to. it made me realise i always have some ideas spinning and usually am getting one or two going - i jotted down a list of a dozen things i have done over the years that are sideline type things - books, exhibitions, networks, proost. i am actually working with a couple of others on a zine publication right now called future present (watch this space). side projects can be a spare time ting that you fit around your main thing and the challenge can then be finding the time, but it is also the way i have got new things going within my work - start them on the side and let them grow until they can't be ignored. it was great to read something that said side projects are a brilliant way to get a project started. it also made me reflect how helpful that could be for pioneers. of course there are some people who will have a pioneer project that is a main thing - they manage to raise money or there's a paid role. but i suspect a large percentage of pioneer projects might better fit the idea of side projects. the challenge with sidelines is time of course and it needs determination to focus on doing what needs doing. but the big plus is that they don't have to bear the burden of putting bread on the table - they can run alongside other things and the best driver is passion or love not money anyway.i also think that there is very little threat in the idea of a side project - if it doesn't take off no problem. but if it does then that can be the time to give ore investment and resource to it. 

there was a really interesting (as ever) article by george monbiot in this week's guardian on volunteering and how in our changing world for many people meaning making may be associated with volunteering as much as with work. that combines perfectly with the notion of side projects.

there is some research, some stories and a kind of earthed practical wisdom in areas like time and money and  habits/behaviour (and what i think could be described as spirituality). 

i think i am going to be thinking for quite a while about side projects and i have arranged a catch up with someone next week where among other things we want to have a conversation about how long it's been since we did something creative so we need a new side project!

on innovation [2] - the creative stance

my son joel studied at chelsea art college. i was really inspired by what i observed of the course he did - it was creative, assignments were stretching and nearly all done as teams, people from various sectors in the creative industries and arts would come and speak, students were encouraged to do real work alongside their training, and the graduate show was mind-blowingly good. i was also regretting having studied maths rather than art myself i think! he was there at the same time that i was designing training for pioneers and i remember thinking that i thought an art school or innovation school was more like what i hoped we could create than a theological seminary. of course we would teach theology, mission, ministry but the environment or air that students breathe needed to be risk taking, creative, free. so when i was last in the institute for contemporary arts bookshop in london i couldn’t resist buying the creative stance. this is a collaboration between art college teachers in london on what makes for a flourishing creative student who trains with them. through their reflection they have come up with seven behaviours and the book is laid out in a series of chapters on each behaviour with a short essay by an artist followed by a discussion on that behaviour with three lecturers often in relation to a particular course. i really loved the book. the seven behaviours are essentially a kind of formation for art students. they are:

rigour, risk, imagination, provocation, agency, resilience, and ambiguity.

i discuss these behaviours with rick lawrence on the podcast i blogged about a few posts back. but i’d like to reflect on them here thinking particularly about theological education because that was the discussion i was in this week - what’s the relationship between theological education and innovation (and by extension ministry and mission practice and innovation).

to take one behaviour, rigour has an essay by grayson perry in which he reflects on two internal characters - hobbit and punk. to be a good artist the hobbit is the character who puts in hours to develop brilliance in skill in a craft - in his case pottery. hobbit alone can make nice pots but in terms of art can be a bit boring. so he also needs punk who is the character who messes with things to make them interesting. this interplay between hobbit and punk makes for a creative approach to art that combines depth of skill with risk taking imagination and innovative practice. the essay is actually available in the latest edition of creative review and is free if you sign up. it’s totally brilliant! when asked what advice he would give to an artist student perry says - ‘turn up on time, be nice, and put in the hours’. you can see where i am going with this - this is so resonant with pioneers. i suspect they are more attracted to punk than hobbit. but in theological education (and in the church generally) i bump into a lot more hobbits than punks. but it’s a great idea to nurture both aspects.

i won’t elaborate on all the behaviours - you can get the book but here are a few quotes and ideas i jotted down that caught my attention.

curiosity is foundational. if you are not curious you’ll stay on a safe path. 

Curiosity is the substrate of creativity, overlaid by an appetite for risk, necessarily followed by determination

i fear that safety is a problem in theological education and the church - we are generally risk averse which is ironic because probably the theologians and saints we admire are/were curious and risk taking. but various traditions of theology have systematised it and made it about information and right doctrine rather than a quest that is creative in response to the tradition and context and the spirit. and i think there can easily be an atmosphere of anxiety and fear about getting things right rather than one of exploration and play. art school gives people the confidence to make a dangerous decision - does theology school i wonder?

risk is… 

the enemy of your own and other peoples certainty. A state of optimistic dissatisfaction, of relentless questioning. A preoccupation with quality without regard for the established order.

how do you involve students in risk? 

You show them things that they probably haven’t thought about before and that aren’t necessarily part of that central canon.

the authors suggest that art schools should be creating the kind of graduates that can rock boats rather than row boats, that question and push. and they lament that the curriculum is currently too related to industry because of pressures. has play been ruined because it has to be turned to money? we might say the same of ministry students who are under pressure from industry a.k.a. church growth. the authors suggest that playfulness should be applied to everything and every moment you’re alive… a way of being.

ambiguity is fascinating i think. it requires doubt and where there is doubt there is great space for imagination. art students need to learn to transgress rules and fixed boundaries and conventions forging new paths where no one has trodden before. this sounds like a mantra for pioneers and cross cultural mission. but i have not seen this in much theological education i have visited so far.

for a world that is changing and in need of change creatives need flexibility, adaptability, openness, vulnerability, resourcefulness, avoidance of monocultures (which are fragile rather than resilient). the church needs the same - it really does. 

and i found it interesting that the exact same challenge i described in the last post of people who remake the world in order to create solutions is nurtured in arts students. they

reshape the world to contain the artwork you make, to create a new reality - because it’s never been enough just to make the art

(substitute the word theology for art)

there is a lovely section where a lecturer from chelsea art college ponders the percentage of students who go on to be artists and make a life in it which is quite small. but he then lists what they do go on to do in a wonderful list of enterprises, community development, change agents, educators and so on. in other words a creative education enables them to have agency out of who they are to participate in making the world a better place. 

anyway you get the point. when you look at a formation that nurtures a creative stance there is so much for theological and mission education to learn. but the contrast with what is valued and in the air in theological colleges is stark. if we want innovation maybe we need students to breathe different air, art school air?!

this reminded me too of will gompertz's book think like an artist which i have blogged about before. in that he has a whole section on education generally and why it should be like art school which i loved. he says 

Art school or not students need to leave education as independently minded, intellectually curious, self confident and resourceful - prepared for and excited by the future and what they might be able to contribute to it. The future depends on us taking a different approach.

i couldn’t agree more.

(thanks to the baptist theological educators forum who invited me to reflect on formation and theological education with them earlier this year that enabled me to develop this particular sideways strain of thought)

on innovation [1] - we do things differently

i keep talking to people about innovation. i have a ton of thoughts that have been knocking around my head for a while in the areas of change, newness, innovation, imagination, pioneering, mission and changing the world! so i will try and find some space for some blog posts. life is sadly too busy to blog enough but i must blog! i was prompted by this today because i was having a conversation with some good friends about theological education and innovation and whether they do or don't go together easily. i'll come back to that in another post. several of the posts will be about books i have read. 

i have pondered several times in the last few years why i spend more money when i am in an art bookshop than a theology one - see a tale of two bookshops where i suggest that it's because they seem concerned with changing the world and not just art. i have found myself almost repeating that exact same experience only with a different set of books - all of which i hope i will say something about in these posts...

i love people who come up with ideas that solve problems. i especially love it when to solve a particular problem you actually have to reimagine the world in order to solve the problem because the paradigm itself is part of the problem. it's akin to the future present imagination that i have blogged about before.

we do things differently is a book of stories of outsiders rebooting our world by mark stevenson. i nearly didn't buy the book because it has a terrible cover but i am glad i got beyond that. it is an incredible book that filled me with hope. let me mention two stories from it to give you the flavour. one that i mentioned at the new parish conference is of peter dearman who has invented an engine that emits zero carbon. he initially began by messing around with his lawnmower and antifreeze. as an engineer he figured that what drives a piston is temperature change and you could drive a piston by moving the temperature from sub zero to zero if you used liquid nitrogen (along with isothermal expansion). i won't bore you with the details but he has invented an engine that is not oil dependant, and has a bi-product of refrigeration which in hot climates with a lot of food wastage is brilliant. you can read about the dearman engine here.

i also loved the story of the indian scientist samir brahmachari. finding new medicines is and has been a really interesting and potentially life saving area. turberculosis is a disease of the poor so drug companies simply haven't come up with new new medicines to treat the increasingly drug resistant types. further the way drug companies go about it is a multi billion dollar expense to find a new drug which involves thousands of failures. samir's approach was to find a new process by tackling the genome annotation for tb - over four million letters. for one person to do the work would take 300 years. so he effectively created a wikipedia for science students in india to work on particular aspects of the task. through this process they found 350 people who were good and to cut a long story short the results were amazing - the most comprehensively annotated tuberculosis genome in history completed in four months and published online free!!! through this he then found people to create a computer model of tuberculosis bacterium that he could experiment on virtually. once they built that (which was complex) they open sourced it. and through participation 11 weaknesses to explore in the code were identified and the latest was that a cheap drug which already exists for diabetes can be used for tb. i don't claim to follow the details of the science but i found this story compelling. it's compelling because samir who is clearly a genius has to break through the old ways of doing things and imagine very differently to come up with a solution. you would think that the drugs world would be all over it but unsurprisingly he meets incredible difficulty - he is maligned in journals, poo pooed by experts and of course his whole approach is a threat to the economics of the system. it's hard to argue with him though when he says -

'we don't believe in the western concept of knowledge being proprietary. i'm not in this for wealth but because i would like to see  reduction in death'

wow - i am on board!

the book is full of stories of such people who have to reimagine the way the world is organised in order to come up with a solution to the problem - the stories relate to energy, education, drugs, agriculture, engineering, the environment, food production, cities...

thank god for the gift of such seers/innovators - i love that they exist and it fills me with hope. of course i am reading a parallel with pioneers in my own context.

the amount of difficulty they all have is extraordinary - whether it's farming or oil or drugs industries they do not like a threat to the existing system even if it's clear that system needs to change because there are vested interests (and money!) and frankly a lack of desire to even listen to or see the new solutions. (so it's not just the church that is resistant to change as it happens - it's normal for  pioneers all over to experience this kind of resistance sadly and i think we should all wise up about that).

connecting people together becomes really important for support, for encouragement, for hope. this is why i was stressing the importance of getting yourself connected in my last post on the value of networks.

two web sites that are connecting people producing the kinds of futuring solutions in this book are really worth looking up - 

the league of pragmatic optimists and the atlas of the future 

a conversation about imagination and creativity

when i was in colorado recently i got invited to have a conversation with rick lawrence on his podcast. we had been talking about creativity and imagination in the car so that was what we dived into (which happens to be one of mine and rick's favourite subjects i suspect). the flow of the conversation relates imagination to faith in jesus, the challenges facing the church today and how to nurture creative practice. the framework for the conversation is seven behaviours in the creative stance, a book put together by people teaching at art colleges in london to explore what helps someone creative flourish. i am sure i'll come back to review that book on the blog another time...

anyway the podcast episode is here - it lasts about 50 minutes

discordant zine

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

radical imagination: prefiguring the world that is not yet here

i appreciate that this blog is currently something of a slow burn, such is my busy life! but a massive thank you to those of you who still patiently hop onto the flow whether via a feed, twitter, facebook or the occasional digital drop in. i hope as you look back on 2014 you have some consoling thoughts and find hope for the year ahead even if it is against the odds.

a while back i posted a tale of two bookshops in which purchased four books at the ICA bookshop. i have enthused about two of them so far - feral (my book of the year i think and george monbiot is the person i would most like to be put in charge of running the country), and exploring everything.

well the third of the four is radical imagination. i bought this because i can't resist anything about imagination - one of the most underrated and undervalued aspects of what it is to be human. but i didn't read the small print - it turns out it's a book about social research amongst activist movements. but i ended up loving it and learning a load. there is a web site related to it that aims to study, broadcast and celebrate the intelligence, passion and creativity of social movements. of course the church is a social movement (though of course it is curiously part of the establishment in places too!). this book has lots to say to those of us interested in the transformation of society especially seeking to imagine a different kind of society and world that does not have to be the way it is now, and as part of that those of us seeking to effect change in and through following in the way of jesus christ (one heck of an activist!).

the single idea that has stuck with me the most and anyone who knows me well will have been subjected to it over a meal conversation or a work discussion is prefigurative research. what the authors mean by this is to design the present on the basis of an imagined future that is not already here. in their case they are based in universities and don't like the way the academic world is configured so they imagine how the university might be and design research on the basis of that - i.e. it prefigures it rather than settling for the current status quo. brilliant eh? 

so on the first day of the year what kind of world, society, economy, neighbourhood, community, business, or church do you imagine might be possible? and how can you live in the present in a way that flows from that radical imagination? i feel challenged about the training of pioneers i lead at cms - have we done enough imaginative work of what is possible out of which to design our training? we do love imagination but i am stirred up to do some more. i am sick the culture of greed in the wider powers that be and the systematic grinding down of the poor and it seems to me that here more than anywhere we need this radical kind of approach.

i also like the positive and yet honest way that haven and khasnabish talk about social movements. it's interesting to overlay this with whatever networks or movements yoiu have been or are part of such as transition towns, emerging church, pioineering mission or whatever. here's a few notes and quotes i jotted down for myself when i read it...

Take social movements seriously as fecund ecologies ripe with possibility

Movements can be alternative spaces of social reproduction, places where individuals and communities can re-create themselves and find support for doing so.

Social movements are driven by and co-create the radical imagination: shared landscapes of possibility and contestation that confront and contradict the reigning imaginaries of capital and power.... It is not something individuals have but is something networks, groups, movements do. It emerges from and guides collective doing...

Hope is important to balance struggle - fun, joy, celebration, acceptance, humour...

it reminded me just how important communities are in which conversation is happening about the world and change. three things i do that this has helped me continue to value are meet with friends over a meal most weeks one evening to linger at the table, talk, share life, dream and pray; a couple of times a year through the team i work with host a 24 hour dreaming space in which we go away and take on a theme or idea and explore it; and connect/network with others who share similar vision and passion around transformation. this is all part i guess of building infrastructures of dissent as they are described on the web site (i love that phrase - reminds me of the great mission thinker john taylor's notion of cells of dissent).

the book is also a reminder of how valuable research is. they see research as part of how movements are carried forward and propose the idea of a solidarity research strategy that opens up a commions for the imagination through community and participation. so their research involves facilitating focus groups, hosting events, and even a radical imagination festival. one of the issues for activists and i suspect a lot of us in many walks of life is that you get bogged down in the day to day task. one thing research does is pull people together to reflect and talk about what is going on with others. it opens time and spaces in a cycle of imagination, strategy and tactics. the kinds of questions researchers facilitate conversation about are 

• what events or ideas brought you to pioneering work and (how) have your thoughts changed through your involvement?
• what is the role of the imagination in your movement and your own pioneering?
• what would it mean to win? What’s your vision of a better society? Do these visions matter to you and your movement?
• what are the barriers to the radical imagination that you face?

i have changed politics to pioneering in the questions above to see how it crosses over into mission. i should have said that the project is grounded in the particular - in hamilton canada - so it's not just an abstract set of ideas. it really is involved in a movement for change.

so go prefigure! hopeful new year :)

 

hello america i have news for you!

proost now has a us site at proost.us!

for years we have had this cool little thing in the uk called proost which is home to wonderful inspiring resources that have been produced from artists and communities doing creative things. this includes movies, books of authentic liturgies, music, experiences such as the labyrinth and so on. but to access the resources you no longer have to come to the uk site and negotiate foreign currency of pounds - it's all in dollars. 

the big deal (and you guys love both big and deal) is that you can subscribe for a hundred dollars for a year and that enables you to log in to the back end of the site and download anything you like. 

we have some friends in the usa but not enough! so if you know about us do spread the word - in many ways this is still a hidden gem. but thought you'd like to know...

...and we will become a happy ending

occasionally something comes along that is a wonderful surprise. this happened to me recently when a book arrived in the post called and we will become a happy ending. it's a collection of stories and sayings, ponderings and pictures that describe a church called theStory in canada - it fuses meditation, liturgy, prayer, art, theology. it's laid out beautifully like a coffe table book. it really is amazing. you can preview the book here

when things like this come along i find myself filled with hope. it's a real labour of love. it's available on proost i am delighted to say - proost exists for precisely this sort of creative publishing that comes from the bottom up. it's available as a downloadable pdf. of course if you are a subscriber it's available as part of your subscription! i actually have 10 physical copies that i have bought - they cost me around £15.50 each by the time postage is added. i am very happy to pass them on at cost price so if you know me or bump into me just ask. or you can order it through amazon.

creativity in youthwork

tomorrow i am leading a training day for youthworkers in london on creativity which i am looking forward to. details, the flyer etc can be downloaded from here. i am sure it's not too late to just turn up!

small ritual postcards

steve has produced some brilliant small ritual postcards - he kindly gave me a set. i see they are also being contextualised for the dutch...

click to light the olympic torch! wonderful...

joel was contacted by bibliotheque design and asked if he could turn this poster design into something animated for the olympic opening day. click on the torch to light the flame and then drag your mouse across the screen to move the flame - let the olympics begin!