jonnybaker

a light through the noise

at grace on saturday night we had an amazing evening. 10 people created something in response to advent, picking a passage from a prophet or a theme. i am collating all the pieces and we will add them to the grace archive at some point. joel baker made an amazing video - his intro is below. the track he played with it was ben frost - theory of machines which has been switched out for putting it online as we don't have permission for it. but do switch it for yourself if you can. i honestly thought this was amazing (not just in a biased parent way!). it's been added to the proost advent series here. anyway here's the spiel from joel to go with it...

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned." Isaiah 9:2

When reading a few verses / passages for inspiration this one really struck out at me.
As we come to the end of the year we reflect; pulling together end of year playlists, highlights and lowlights, miles run, walked and cycled, goals and achievements. But one thing I haven't particularly wanted to reflect on is what's going on in the wider world. It’s pretty depressing.

Sometimes it feels as if we are walking in darkness and could really do with seeing a light. This then was my visual response & exercise. By scraping various headlines from the past year or so, I tried to see if I could shine a light through the noise and give us something to hold onto as we move into 2025.

lino water

a lino print of water from saturday's advent grace. the (intentional) blur gives it a sea like feel. 

grace: remember - sat 9 november

the next grace is close to remembrance sunday. we will be taking the opportunity to pause and ponder what has happened in the last year in gaza and the west bank following the hamas attaack on october 7 2023. chris rose who is the director of amos trust will be joining us. he is very informed so do bring any questions. i will be playing a few spngs from backbone, an album i recorded in 1999 with jon birch as jonnys in the basement. they seem as poignant now as then so have reworked them for acoustic versions. there will be a cafe afterwards - everyone is always welcome.

grace

we kicked off a news season of grace last night revisiting the liturgy from wounded in all the right places. this time we all contributed some broken pieces to make 'grace', a sign that our own brokenness can become something when we come together with others who are broken. westill have the communion table we made from broken pieces in 2008 which we used last night. we topped and tailed it with a couple of nick cave tunes - joy and as the waters cover the sea. my playlist is here if you are on apple music. 

grace new season gets underway sat evening

grace is back sat night 8pm st mary's ealing. it will a communion service with a cafe afterwards. for us it always feels like the start of a new year. do come along.

music is sacred

this room is in the vinyl factory reverb exhibition at 180 studios. take your shoes off - a sure sign this is holy ground. sit in quiet in what feels like a sacred space and an album takes centre stage to be played for everyone to listen to. music is spiritual or can be. my own experience is that i find music has played an important part in the soundtrack of my life. It can speak to me, inspire me, help me express emotion, touch me, put into words what i don't know how to, be a prayer, accompany a prayer. i loved it - so simple, one to do at grace at some point. it got me wondering what a playlist would be of spiritual tunes. i may come back to that...

grace labyrinth at beyond in brighton sun march 10

if you are down brighton way come and say hi at beyond on 10 march 7pm. we (grace) will be running a labyrinth.

settle - ambient prayer 2

the second ambient prayer at grace on saturday went really well. the whole thing is here - ambient prayer 2 - including the playlist, card, exercises, movie and slides. we have made sure we put everything up so if anyone else wants to try it out it's all there. feel free and let us know how you get on. i am hoping to develop say a series of 6 over the next year or so. it will be quite a nice off the shelf intro to contemplative prayer.

i have enjoyed thinking about a visual idea to go with each one. this time it was an old grace idea reworked - shake up a jar and watch it settle. i  loved how it came out orange which was to do with some christmas left over syrup from making candied grapefruit - it had a bit of campari in it which helped the liquid be a bit thicker! it definitely slows you down - you know it's slow when a drip of water falling from the lid feels like some action. it lasts around 4 minutes so the challenge is to watch it all!. the average length of viewing on instagram so far is 16 seconds which tells you everything you need to know about social media and attention span.

i am adding the jar as a worship trick - why not?!

 

ambient prayer 2

grace on saturday february 10 is another ambient prayer. this one will be similar in format but with different images, movie, playlist, prayers. over time we'll develop a series with a repeating form but different approaches to contemplative prayer. i have even made an ambient video loop for it! nothing will be demainded of you other than sitting in silence listening to great music and being invited to pray. 

new forms: ambient prayer 1

[photo: steve collins]

it's lovely when something comes together. i have had a playlist called ambient prayer for a few years so it's an idea that has been brewing. but last night's grace saw the first ambient prayer. 

we have created a frame/shape for ambient prayer around 5 sections - settle, descent, meditation, silence, ascent. ambient music plays throughout (apart from silence). within that there are two guided prayer exercises - one a centring/stilling prayer and the other a meditation/contemplative exercise. those can vary of course. then each time there is a visual idea - ideally expressed in both still and moving image. we also made a card to give to people who came. that has the image, section titles, and prayers. a screen has the visual idea and the name of the section at that point i.e. also minimal. it was low lit with a candle in the centre. 

for ambient prayer 1 we used a breathing prayer exercise with christine sine's lovely prayer and the lovely be still prayer from st hilda community. the visual idea was the tidal pool in margate as one side of the wall was still and the other choppy which seemed a good picture for the attempt to settle and be still. i took the movie on a phone camera so it's a bit shaky but now want to go back and shoot it with a tripod but whether the conditions will repeat i don't know. it was a very compelling image.

the outline for ambient prayer 1 has been added to the grace archive here, including an explanation, the prayers, the playlist, the postcard and so on.  

the opening and closing prayer written by steve collins were written especially for ambient prayer. i am adding those below:

opening prayer

turn towards god
with all of your being
throw your turbulent concerns, your anxieties and joys
into the calm and unfathomable sea of god
let them sink down until the ripples have ceased
do not look for them
or cast lines into the depths to fish for them

holy god, holy and eternal
maker and sustainer of all things
calm the storms of our hearts and minds
carry us in the ship of your love
across the reflecting sea of prayer
guided by your Son

amen

closing prayer

return clean from prayer to the world
and love it more
let calm trust in god be rooted in you
like a tree that stands secure
become shelter and healing to those around you
bear fruit

holy god, holy and eternal
maker and sustainer of all things
fill us with the strong hope of your spirit
help us plant the seeds of your love
into the broken ground of the world
watered by your Son

amen

the playlist is here on apple and here on spotify - i think these tunes are really wonderful but then i did put it together. 

i hope over time we'll build up several of these.

i have tagged this new forms. that has been on my mind for quite some time to blog/insta new forms of worship, community, church. i have of course done that for years and it was the name of a venue we hosted at greenbelt for years. anyway i hope over time to add a few things to that conversation as we need them as much as ever. grace is not new and yes we have done things like this for a while but this is a new form/shape which others are welcome to pick up/adapt/reinvent so i think it fits the bill.

this can go on the worship trick 4 series list too!

ambient prayer

january and february’s grace are ‘ambient prayer’.

expect something minimal - ambient music, low light in the dark of winter, an image to ponder, space to breathe, a candle, silence, a few guiding thoughts for prayer.

followed by a café.

if you have never been to grace, or are not used to church spaces this would be a lovely one to attend as it will be very quiet. you won't be called on to do anything other than sit in the quiet with ambient music with space to be still, to meditate, to pray. it's at st mary's in ealing 8pm on saturday 13 january. wear warm clothes as even when the heating is on it is never hot in winter!

i absolutely love ambient music and will be curating the playlist so i can't wait.

grace christmas labyrinth

come and join us for our grace christmas labyrinth on saturday night. 

Join us for a meditative and prayerful Christmas labyrinth, a peaceful evening before the hectic part of the season gets going.

When we first did labyrinths in the 1990s, there was a four-part structure about our relationships with God, Self, Others and Planet, with the labyrinth itself being about God and the other three as stations. Given current situations this structure seems very relevant.

There will be mulled wine and mince pies in the cafe afterwards.

grace - a slideshow and a revamped ethos

at grace's 30th birthday steve collins had compiled a slideshow of photos from most of those years. we don't have any photos of a few of the early years but they scroll through in chronological order. the link to a pdf is here. it's 67mb. it's a wonderful reminder. there is also a section in the archive now for slides from various things

we have also spent a bit of time reflecting on what has been our ethos for a long time now and that has had a bit of a revamp. what has surfaced in those discussions is the value of a hospitable and welcoming community (which you might expect if you call yourselves grace!). risk has been demoted to a sub section which i hope doesn't mean we are losing our edge! here is the ethos

 

grace - the BIG 30!

the next grace marks our 30th birthday. i wasn't there when it started - jenny and i joined in when we moved to london a couple of years after that. but it's been home for us, a wonderful creative christian community in which to work out what it means to follow christ in today's world. i think the creativity joel and harry flow in was really nurtured in the air breathed at grace, alternative worship and greenbelt over those years. during that time we have created and curated some really wonderful worship, music, liturgy, movies. all the while there has never been anyone employed to lead it - it's a collaborative venture. i'd love it if you wanted to come even if you haven't ever been but especially if you have been part of that journey at any point. thanks to st mary's ealing for giving the permission and space for grace to be a congregation over those years and trusting us to get on with it. it would be hlepful to know rough numbers so if you plan to come let me know in a comment or something.

here's the blurb on the web site - 

11th November is Grace's 30th birthday service - to mark the occasion we will be meeting around a table for a service of Communion by Numbers. Meeting around a table has been a large part of the Grace experience and sitting at a table with food and conversation we meet our companions, ourselves and sometimes God.

We'd love to see old friends and new around the table on 11th November - there will be food, drinks and music. It would be great to know if you plan to join us.

we are ready for grace

it's a new season of grace. in november grace will be 30 years old. put nov 11 in your diary if you'd like to join us for that celebration. but the next two we are looking at the theme of grace itself. sept you are invited to bring something - a poem, song, prayer, photo or whatever. see you there.

grace easter vigil

grace conveniently falls on holy saturday this year so we will be hosting an easter vigil. we’ll be beginning with the cafe open at 9:30pm and then grace will begin at 10pm mixing the traditional fire lighting, candle procession and readings with grace’s own take and flavour on proceedings. hope to see you there.

grace saturday - praying with a lump in our throat

continuing our grace lent we have a prayer focused evening on saturday with a series of stations praying with and for those at the edges. do join us. the title is inspired by claudio carvalhaes book that we are reading through lent.

grace open table

the next grace is on saturday - an open table. the blurb is as follows:

Join us for Grace where there will as ever be an open table.

We have always been inspired by Christ’s welcome of all around the table, especially those at the fringes. We will be gathering to continue that practice, and remember him.

You are of course welcome!

this tees up our lent. lent has always been a season which we enjoy as a space to dig deeper into something related to following in the way of christ. this year's reflections are inspired by claudio carvalhaes book praying with every heart which is possibly the best book on prayer i have read (it's not cheap though reasonable on kindle and is on perlego if you use that). we will focus on praying from the edges and there will be conversations around those at the edges due to sexuality, empire or race who we will endeavour to pray with and for with a lump in our throat as claudio would put it. i am really looking forward to all of that. maybe see you saturday...

labyrinth - grace next saturday

it seems to have become something of a tradition to walk a labyrinth for the first grace of the year. do join us. it will be simple, meditative, with a soundscape of ambient tunes followed by a cafe - saturday 14 jan 8pm st mary's ealing

advent grace saturday night

grace saturday night (yes i know it clashes with football so we'll catch up in the cafe afterwards!). here's the blurb

If it's hard to see where God is in current events, and hard to feel hope for the future, imagine what it was like to hear nothing from God for four centuries. Centuries full of empires and atrocities, with only the long-unfulfilled words from the past to feed faith.

And then something happened (so small that hardly anyone noticed at the time).

Join us for a quiet reflective service on how that long Advent sheds light for today. Café afterwards as usual - mulled wine and mince pies of course.