time whizzes by! it feels like we have only just got started in the northern centre with the cms certificate of pioneer mission. but we are already thinking towards the second year which will start in september.
if you are in the north anywhere then do come and find out more about it next tuesday. this year has included people from cumbria, sheffiled, scotland,northumbria so it's definitely pan northern. info and book in here
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.
gathertown is minecraft or habbohotel meets zoom (take your pick depending on your age). chances are you'll hear about it at some point. i like it - it's fun and whilst i think zoom is great a change is also good especially if you have been on zoom for work. and it especially suits some things - a more dynamic social space for example or an event where you want different things in different spaces. it's also dead easy to use or get started in. you simply login and choose a space - a lounge, bar, conference room or whatever and can then invite some people and hang out. it's easy enough to create some interactivity through the objects. i confess to finding the videos a bit exasperating in the tutorials - i'd rather just have a plain old manual than have to go through loads of videos - that makes me sound old i know! but over christmas i set up a space for family and we met and hung out in it with interactive pictionary and the like. i also worked out how to create a room that was a snakes and ladders board so you can roll the dice and move your avatar round the board. the grandkids love it (and the rest of us to be fair).
because rooms are designed on a grid it made me think that the labyrinth we created for st pauls back in 2000 would work because that was designed on a square grid. anyway a day of messing around over christmas and i figured out how to create a labyrinth room with interactive stations. so grace on saturday was our first on gathertown. of course it takes a bit of getting used to but it went really well. we had a bar/lounge area and a portal through to the labyrinth so you could do that when you liked. the timing felt good because the online interactive labyrinth version that has been running for twenty years is no more as of this month i think due to flash no longer being supported so it was good to give it a new lease of life. the labyrinth tracks are still magical twenty years on. we invited people in their homes to have various objects that they needed to make it work for the reflections - stone, pen, paper - that sort of thing.
it's free to create things so you can just try it out and remains free for up to 25 people. we just stayed below that number.
this of course has to go down as a worship trick - no 83 series 4!
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.
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
i get asked a lot about how you come up with ideas. so i have set up a series of four webinars for one hour each exploring that question. each one will take one idea for exercising creativity and play with it. there will be three guests each time - an artist/creative, a church leader and a pioneer. whilst the ideas explored will be helpful to anyone wanting to think about how you exercise creativity, the challenges and exercises we do will explore church and the practice of the christian faith today. this is inspired by a comment that struck me from a friend that the church’s greatest challenge today is a lack of imagination. rather than bemoaning that fact this is an attempt to help get imaginative, get the creative juices flowing as it were. please do not think it’s only for people who think they are creative. the whole point is that it is for anyone interested and not just those who already think they are good at exercising creativity.
it’s free - simply register and you will be sent zoom links nearer the time. if you sign up you're not obliged to come to all four!
each week there will be a mix of stories and interviewing guests around exercising creativity and how they come up with ideas. there will be creative exercises for the guests to engage in live each time that explore the theme of the week. you will be invited to contribute via chat if you would like but will not be put in small groups to do any work or anything so you can relax about that - you can sit back and enjoy it. i hope it will be fun, generate ideas and give you some tools and approaches to exercise creativity yourself.
if you like the ideas and want to explore further i have written six short pieces on exercising creativity at the end of each chapter of imagining mission with john taylor.
it was a lot of of fun working on the book imagining mission. one of the things i did earlier this year when i was working on it was lift out some phrases that i really liked and put them with some of my photos. i think of taylor's phrases a bit like marshall mcluhan - provocations or discussion starters to ponder - that were ahead of their time and seem as poignant now as they were 50 years ago. it's also i hope a fun or creative way to give a flavour of the book. cathy and i will take turns in reflecting on those - probably twenty or so. i will add them to a photo album on flickr which you are welcome to downlaod photos from and use. i have made them into a set of moo cards for myself which make good discussion starters (though the fonts are a bit small on some - they work better on a full screen). if anyone is interested in a set of those let me know and i can order a few - they aren't that cheap but you can have them cost price. message me if that's of interest and i'll compile a list.
first up then: an adventure of the imagination.
this comes from a reflection on an extended time he spent in africa living in villages. taylor is thinking about how different the culture of paganism is on the african plains and he wonders if christ came into the world of africans in an african way whether the rest of the church would recognise him? he says that any attempt to look upon the world through african eyes must involve an adventure of the imagination. i absolutely love this way of conceiving of mission. as we are all too painfully aware the sharing of faith has often gone with the sharing of culture because we mistake the good news of jesus christ with the cultural clothes that the church expresses faith in. the challenge should be to simply share the story and let insiders to a culture respond to that in their way. that is essentially an imaginative act. and i do like the thought that it should be pushed to the degree that we might not even recognise it.
it's no longer news to say that the west is a context for mission. and we have exactly the kind of question taylor was pondering in africa here. church is foreign to many people - they way things are done is just different, strange, inaccessible - and that's the case whether it is pentecostal, liturgical, or contemporary. things need to be done in a way that is as close as possible to peoples natural way of being and doing life - it's obvious isn't it!? the adventure of the imagination is to let go of our way of doing things, our religious sweet tooth and simply go on an adventure of the imagination to see what emerges. the last 30 years or so in england and other western contexts have seen a wave of experimentation and a loosening of wider church structures with emerging churches, fresh expressions, alternative worship and so on but there is so much more possibility, so much more adventuring that could be done. and sad to say there is still way too much fear, anxiety, defendedness and control in the structures that make the simple error of confusing the gospel with the way we do things round here.
[i have some books and happy to sell you one if you are nearby but with coronavirus that is unlikely i guess but you can order here from the publisher or any other bookstore online i imagine]
there is a taster day (online of course) for the pioneer course starting in september in penrith. sign up for the taster day here if you want to find out more. the course is the certificate we designed at cms for pioneering mission which we have run in a few hubs now. it's pitched at people working full time. it's not linked to any university or anything - it's designed for people who are interested in both learning about and doing pioneering mission where they are. i just got sent a summary of feedback today actually from students who have finished the course in bath and wells and that was hugely encouraging saying it had given students confidence, sparked creativity, given them language around what they were doing, been amazing, changed them and so on. i loved reading the responses.
the structure of it is 6 modules that run through to july with a weekend for each and a small group to be part of for the duration. given the current situation we have decided to run half the modules online and we'll see about the rest so actually if you are anywhere in the north of england or even in the south of scotland this will be even more accessible than before. the small groups will also be online.
if you want to know a bit more about it there is nicely filmed video about the northern centre on this page but if you want a more homely chat type video allison who is part of the team in cumbria and i have a chat about it for around 20 minutes on the same page - just scroll down.
it feels great to be getting to this point of being able to offer some training and encouragement in the north where there is so much brilliant stuff happening. i am looking forward to it - maybe see you on the taster day?!
i attach a leaflet about the taster day if you want that or want to pas it on to anyone
steve taylor was celebrating the launch of first expressions last night. sadly i couldn’t join him as it was in new zealand (though i am hoping to see him next week as i am off on some travels!). first expressions is a reflection on some of the first wave of new expressions of church that back then were either called alternative worship or emerging church. the language of fresh expressions had not yet landed. steve researched these back when he was doing his phd in 2001. he then revisited the communities in 2013 and met with those involved. i have a personal interest as grace is one of the communities in the research, one of the first expressions, and steve came and had a meal and conversation with a group of us as part of that.
it’s so interesting and such a gift to have someone external take the time to research and write and reflect back to you on what they observe and notice in the sense making they do of what was really you and a bunch of others making some stuff up as you went along. steve posits that the birthing and becoming back then has contributed so richly to the wider life and mission of the church, to the becoming of the church in the west. steve is a creative thinker, writer, and theologian who is close to the ground as someone involved in mission practice and someone who also can navigate the theory. this is what makes it have such a ring of authenticity.
he frames the whole book through a lens of innovation and the mission of god. i really like innovation as a frame. i have blogged about others writing on innovation and mission - it seems to be a growing conversation. steve takes four approaches to innovation - growth, ecology, indigenous and craft. this immediately begins to open up a broader ecclesiology than the usual narrow ‘gathered and grow’ one that seems to dominate (not that there is anything wrong with gathering or growing per se), what he calls a woven ecclesiology. in conversation with tim nash of nomad i recently explored the wider ecosystem of church life and think this broadening of the landscape helps see that trying new things, innovating, making fresh connections, building communities, sharing ideas and so on seeds all sorts of things in the wider environment. in the natural world it is entirely normal that things grow and age and die and seed other things. i can’t help wondering if a big part of our church challenge is there is not enough permission for dying as well as birthing because we have so many buildings we just seem to have to keep going for ever!!!
steve researches 10 first expressions. half of them no longer exist. steve explores this in detail as he too founded a fresh expression that no longer exists as a gathered community. and it’s lovely to read research that is able to show the immense value in birthing, trying and becoming and how it contributes richly to the wider church producing lots of good in and of itself. it’s hard to know what impacts what but these first expressions have been followed by an amazing amount of innovation and life through fresh expressions and so on. steve takes an organisational look with an interview with rowan williams, a reflection on fresh expressions and how that has helped institutional change, and also how mission is organised. i found the last part very interesting as i work for a mission organisation. it is interesting how challenging the way that first expressions structure and organise is for institutions to marry with their institutional ways ways of being and organising. steve comes back to this in a further chapter where he uses the eucharist as an example of the relationship between innovation and order and how existing governance structures might need to be broken and remade.
there are so many layers and ideas and reflections in the book. this is really just a hasty blog post to say the book’s out and it’s really worth a read and conversation with others. i think it’s valuable for those of us who were involved at whatever stage, there’s loads to learn for those who have pioneered and are pioneering since, and there is plenty for the wider church in mission to ponder. steve concludes by suggesting that ecclesial innovation is the ants in the pants of the body of christ!
Ecclesial innovation is the ants in the pants of the body of Christ. Ecclesial innovation enables a becoming as one, apostolic, holy and catholic church. It makes visible the reality that is the conversion of the Spirit in individuals, communities and organisational structures. Hence innovation has value as it makes the church be the church, awakening the essentiality of becoming as one, apostolic, holy and catholic church. Such is the mission of God through first expressions.
big thanks to steve for taking the time to do the research and offer this into the wider conversation. and it was a reminder to me of how much fun it has been to be part of a first expression grace, and my life since has been committed to enabling that innovation in mission to be encouraged and catalysed and multiplied elsewhere. i guess i have never thought of myself as the ants in the pants but it's probably fairly accurate :) . there’s lots of hope but also a long way to go, and a lot more becoming to be done.
in the cms pioneer training at undergraduate level students do a module on missional entrepreneurship which is a week long module called 'make good' where students come with an idea and explore and develop it through the week making a pitch at the end of the week. it's a really fabulous module. anyway we have done some research into it. we wanted to find out what was being started as a result of students doing it. i actually can't quite believe the percentage of people who have started projects - 76%. the other thing we were interested in was how students were making the connection between mission, theology and business. as part of the research we also looked at other courses who had run the module in durham common awards but i am afraid gdpr and all that made it pretty tricky. but we did at least have some comparison. and there are actually not that many places that choose to run this module. anyway i am pretty happy to find out that the learning is translating into tangible outcomes. there's a blog about it here on the pioneer site which has links to the full report and a one page summary and info graphic summary. the one pager and graphic are just based on the cms data.
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!
happy ten year anniversary to nomad podcast - it's wonderful and a massive achievement to have produced such an interesting and dynamic conversation, communication and community.
it explores christian faith in today's world. their strapline is stumbling through the post-christendom wilderness, looking for signs of hope. it's honest, searching, and on a genuine quest. each episode carries an in depth conversation with someone for about an hour and is topped and tailed by the hosts chatting about it. typically the people interviewed have published a book though not always. i have by no means listened to all the episodes but every so often catch up with it and dive in. sometimes i might listen to a big hitter like walter brueggemann but another time i stumble across someone i have never heard of because the theme grabs my attention. one of the recent ones i listened to was edwina gateley on missionaries, mystics and mother god which you have to listen to if you haven't. i loved her and her story - she is a northwestern english saint for sure. she probably wouldn't use the term but she is an incredible pioneer with some classic elements of a pioneer's journey in her story. i noticed she has a poetry collection called there was no path so i trod one! because they are not bound by the constraints of pleasing a political church environment or denomination there is a great freedom in exploring issues fearlessly and honestly - the interview with vicky beeching was one example of that. i have also had the honour of being interviewed a couple of times which i have enjoyed.
but rather than going through my favourite episodes to celbrate, i have been reflecting how people are interacting with it and how it is becoming quite a thing...
at one level it is just a podcast and because the content is consistently good it's growing followers. it helps that tom wright has been interviewed and drawn in listeners as is explained in their epic 10th anniversary edition of 3 hours and 37 minutes (i was driving to cumbria so found myself listening to the whole thing!).
at another level it is part of a changing environment in which people are working out how to follow christ and connect with others. there are huge numbers of people who follow christ but do not engage with traditional patterns of church attendance but they do meet with friends to discuss faith over coffee or the meal table, they listen to podcasts, they attend festivals and read books and chat online. the podcast interview with steve aisthorpe, the author of 'invisible church' really lifts the lid off this area of a new kind of practising of christian faith. the stats are huge on this in both the uk and america - there are a lot more followers of christ not in church on a sunday, not because they have given up but they are making faith in other ways and often because church as they have known it is not working for them any more. i have written elsewhere that this is one of the current mission movements that not many people are paying attention to.
for some of those people nomad and things like it are so helpful - people in that space identify with it and feel they are not alone or mad. nomad have developed a listener map so that you can add your postcode and then be connected with other listeners and there have been meet ups and gatherings. there is also now a listener lounge and a book club online.
it is also interesting to me that tim nash who is one of the key players and who puts energy into this full time (i think) was part of an experiment in the methodist church called venture fx who invested in around a dozen pioneers to go and experiment with new forms of church and mission over 5-10 years. this has allowed tim the space to invest in this which has been a great gift and i hope the methodists have taken note and are feeling good about it. in a year or two that money will run out so nomad have been developing a business model whereby people can donate and in exchange for that get access to the listener lounge and other content. i have no idea of the scale of that but it is an enterprise model along with some merch they are selling.
on monday we are hosting a conversation/research day on mission and church at cms which i am looking forward to (it's sold out so if you're not booked in there are now no spaces - sorry). i am looking forward to the day very much and it will be great to catch up with pete ward who is a good friend but now lives a long way away so i don't get to see enough! it seems to me that this is a great example of what he has called liquid ecclesiology. he has developed a way of thinking about christian community that takes seriously the fluid nature of culture. church is always constructed in relation to culture and must remake itself in every age. pete draws on missiologist lamin sanneh to suggest that the church tends to absolutise its own way of doing things and resists the call to translate afresh. but if the church is to move forward it must engage in that translation and needs prophets to lead her there.
anyway all that is to say that as best i can tell as i pay attention it seems to me that christ is present in what is spinning in and out of nomad. it is a kind of liquid ecclesiology as far as i can see, a translating afresh. on their tenth anniversary podcast a listener asks if it is church and they say it is just a podcast. i think that's a wise answer but it's not really true or at least there is a lot more going on! in parts of the church huge sums are being spent on big churches - we're talking millions of pounds on city centre buildings, staff, sound systems and so on. the rationale is that these churches will grow fast and reach new people and they will also then plant out other churches. i don't really want to get into a debate about that here. but i would imagine nomad is resourcing thousands of christians and seekers and it costs peanuts - well a salary.
anyway happy tenth anniversary nomad! thank you for what you do and make. i agree with a quote on the web site - flippin love nomad!
congratulations to jenny, grace and daisy on the launch of out of the box cards today - the web site is now live and you can go order cards. i love the strapline creating intelligent and playful cards that expand horizons. the cards look great (and are currently filling our lounge!). the official launch is tonight. i have chipped in photography - the photo above for example - and will no doubt be taking some photos at the launch party.
people often associate me with the word pioneer for obvious reasons seeing as i have written and teach in that area. but in an interview the other day jenny was described as a pioneer and she really is - she makes things happen! i always love it when ideas that have been brought to our make good week and developed as ideas come to birth often a few years later. this is the latest!
i went to university in bath and lived there until i was 30 during which time we did a load of youth work and mission. i have a big soft spot for it and many fond memories and indeed many friends there. so i am doubly pleased to let you know that a holy rumpus is taking place as a partnership between bath and wells diocese and church mission society (who i work for). this will be a pioneer hub that initially will run a year's training over weekends and evenings i.e. will be good for those working full time. it all kicks off in may - more details are here. go sign up!
the latest issue of anvil journal is out today and themed on pioneer ministry and innovation. paul bradbury is the guest editor and has done a great job. i am loving being an editor of anvil together with cathy ross because we have worked out it is more fun and less work if we invite other people to edit issues (though we do edit some ourselves!). it also makes for a richer journal overall. it has honestly surpassed my expectations for what we would do with it.
innovation has become a live topic in missions at the moment - it's certainly an area i love instinctively and i have blogged about innovation a few times (scroll down here see four pieces on innovation). mike moynagh's latest book explored innovation so it's great to have him contributing an article on the six processes of innovation. paul bradbury's article is a taster of his forthcoming book - i have had a sneak preview of the book which is fantastic. he considers the old testament prophet ezekiel as an example of the kind of leadership which might spark our imagination - leadership in exile from a place of relinquishment. i have seen some discussions this week about ordained pioneer ministry and think paul's thinking really offers some clues for people puzzling that out. richard passmore, whose thinking is always so interesting, talks about the growth of fresh expressions in third spaces in cumbria and how cultivating newness can be helped by a second operating system. i confess to a vested interest as we are working with richard to help develop it - watch this space. i also loved the quote "i may not be doing anything as mad as richard but i'll give this a go"! then there are some reflections on practice from lucy moore and katrina moss and an article on the role of enabling or advocacy to support pioneers and innovators. all topped up with the usual book reviews and it is free, downloadable as articles or as a whole and nicely put together by the comms team at cms. anyway enjoy and massive thanks to paul who is becoming one of our best reflectors on pioneer ministry (as well as being a practitioner of course) in this country i think.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,there is a field. I'll meet you there. Rumi
it was this quote by rumi that sparked ric stott and i to have a conversation about imagination and creativity in mission. that conversation is published in missional conversations: a dialogue between theory and praxis in world missions which comes out today. i am very excited to be part of this book which has been pulled together by two of my friends and colleagues at cms - cathy ross and colin smith. the book takes nine contemporary contexts for mission such as the environment or migration and two writers explore that theme, one from a theoretical and one from a practice based approach. in our case ric and i couldn't work out which was which so we went for a slightly different approach going to and fro between us in conversation.
there is a book launch on nov 27 at cms in oxford at 4pm - see invite below. if you're anywhere near oxford do come along. it's currently reduced price on scm web site i noticed.
steve bevans gives it a lovely endorsement:
Cathy Ross and Colin Smith have put together an amazing collection of essays in these pages. Not only does their conversational method match their understanding of mission. Their content is fresh, exciting, imaginative, and in some cases groundbreaking. This is a pioneering book in every sense of the word. It's certainly the best collection of essays in missiology that I have read in a long time.
download the invite to the book launch here
an advocate for pioneers, lover of all things creative and an explorer of faith in relation to contemporary culture
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