jonnybaker

turning a dream into reality

fresh expressions have revamped their web site. as part of that i contributed an article turning a dream into reality. drawing on pioneer practice i offer some very simple steps for how to see a possibility for a fresh expression and give that idea legs. if you are unfamiliar with the term fresh expression it is a new form of church formed primarily for people who don't go to church hopefully done in a way they can feel at home in. 

sacred bean eucharist and other follow up from prospect farm

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.

church for people who want to punch stuff + first review

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 

ten years of spiritual direction

i found out today that i have been meeting with my spiritual director for 10 years. not sure where the time went but it has been an absolute gift to be able to chat several times a year with someone wise in the ways of the soul where we have an intentional conversation about faith (and life and whatever else is relevant). it's a safe space and one where there is no judgement - in fact the opposite is the case as I always come away feeling encouraged. for me it is up there as one of the most important spiritual practices that sustains me. i wouldn't normally say who I meet with but michael mitton agreed to have a conversation with me about spiritual direction to include in pioneer practice - i love how that conversation turned out. spiritual direction is a misnomer really but it's what it seems to get called - soul friendship or accompaniment is a lot better description. whatever you call it, he says that "the primary focus of the conversation is to help the person track their own particular journey with god" - sounds about right!

getting started

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!!! 

you can register here

overcoming

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.

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?!

book launch of pioneer practice on june 10

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!

pioneer practice is printed

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...

woop woop - kickstarted!

now to finish it off and get the book printed...

happy easter!

sneak preview - nearly there

last update on the kickstarter - we have reached our stretch target - so grateful to everyone. the design is now finished bar a view tweaks. you can get a sneak preview on the latest update from jon here. the kickstarter finishes on sunday - do pre-order if you haven't and the offers inspire a friend and network catalyst are better than you'll get after the kickstarter!

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.  

what a week!

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.