jonnybaker

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.

gather for the day in bristol - march 21

we are hosting a day in bristol on march 21. the focus is around pioneering mission with and in places where people are experiencing poverty. that experience has risen dramatically. pioneers love the edges and i know lots of people present in those spaces. 

we used to host what we called conversations days - exploring a theme with a range of presentations and workshops. i have always loved those. this is one of those only we are now using the name 'gather' as it seems to be what we are doing. somehow post lockdown the name has changed! part of the reason i love them is it is a chance to catch up with people pioneering who i have not seen for a while. but also the days have always been inspiring and challenging. this one will be no different. 

ash barker will be presenting on his book tour no wastelands. he is an absolute legend. i can't wait.

rosie hopley is a pioneer in bristol who has worked with people at the edges in a couple of social enterprise and charity projects. 

eunice attwood is a champion of people experiencing poverty - i was very moved and challenged when i heard her present on this

clean for good will be bringing a posse - this is an enterprise model that is good news for the cleaners working for them. they now have reached around the one million pound turnover mark which is exciting.

there will be more conversations too. and of course it's the gaps, lunch and so on that will be good too. we'll doubtless be going out for a drink afterwards so book a late train back so you can join us.

would love love love to see you there.

you can find out more and book here 

the big one

it was great to take part in the big one, extinction rebellion's protest in london. i joined in the discussion, service and march hosted by christian climate action and then things around parliament square. here are a few photos from the day - extinction rebellion the big one

easter and empire

nomad podcast's easter special easter and empire is amazing - thank you guys! i am a big fan of ched myers. but this take on easter is so powerful and reminds why i am a follower of the way of christ. i also really loved the gauntlet he throws down at the end to listeners who deconstruct - essentially that is fine and good but reconstruct because we need new communities of hope following in this way! as an aside what a brilliant take on the original ending of mark's gospel which ends without the resurrection. 

we quit

i have so much respect for those putting their bodies on the line to protest the climate crisis and the government's continual ignoring of the gravity of the situation. i got the latest email update from extinction rebellion and they are making a change of tactics away from disruption of the public and to prioritise attendance rather than arrest and relationships over roadbloacks. see we quit. put april 21 in your diary to be in london. 

the big issues for 2023 are the climate and wealth inequality - we don't have to organise our world the way we do. a new imagnation is required. 

seeds of hope

following up on yesterday's post, another really wonderful book of reflections, prayers and liturgies is seeds of hope. this is produced by amos trust, a charity focused on human rights, justice and solidarity. it's in a similar space to liturgies from below organised into sections such as solidarity, protest, planet. i got it for christmas and am reading it through it daily. i am going to make that and liturgies from below the two books i use to pray and reflect during lent this year. it's also only £10. there is something really good about organisations/movements like amos trust articulating their spirituality. it began as a series of daily reflections in lockdown but it's great they have turned it into a book.

liturgies from below

this book is simply brilliant. you have to get it! one of our students put me on to it last week and i ordered it straight away and it does not disappoint. if you want to get a feel for it and indeed access lots of the liturgies for free head to reimagingworship.com . these are liturgies in the context of empire written from its margins in places of oppression, poverty, injustice. it's a project of the council of world mission.

i write and curate liturgies and love that in grace the community i am part of that is part of what we do rather than just take worship off some centralised shelf. as i have reflected on why that is impotant i have come over the years to think of liturgy as world making. we live in a world and indeed church that is run on particular logics and imaginaries. where do we find spaces where the world gets unmade and remade? where dominant narratives get subverted and resisted? one place is the arts. but another should be the church. this collection is most definitely world making. as sudipta singh says in the preface

the book is an invitation to resist the temptation to be co-opted by the empire and to find the nerve to come out of the empire creating counter imperial alternatives

honestly this book is so refreshing. so much worship and liturgy can frankly be vacuous. this is anything but. 

i submitted my communion prayer on jesus and the powers and it has been accepted on the web site which i am pretty chuffed about too. it feels an honour to contribute to such a project.

one thing that is intriguing is that there are two covers and subtitles - one is praying with people at the ends of the world and the other is prayers in defiance of empire. i love both but the one that arrived for me has the former - does that mean that the uk and usa can't cope with the second title? i have no idea...

thank you to claudio carvalhaes who is the artful curator of this collection and project.

grenfell tower beattitudes

really enjoying getting to know paul bradbury more over the last few months. he has posted a poem/lament over on his blog

the grenfell tower beattitudes

words of hope

i have read a stack of books this year and always mean to mention them on the blog and don't seem to get round to it so alongside editing photos from the summer in the next month i'll add a few books i have read that i think worth a mention...

first up words of hope from amos trust is a collection of prayers and liturgies and reflections - it's delightful and poignant. amos trust is small human rights organisation challenging injustice and cultivating hope. the words capture their spirituality wonderfully well. it's such a refreshing change to read words that you can echo an agreement to in your own heart. i find the arriculation of spirituality in much contemporary worship is either very focused on individual relationship with god or on proclaiming how great jesus is on a throne in the sky. it's harder to find songs and prayers of longing and anger and hope that relate to the world we actually live in.

the book is available here

this book is a reminder to me of the importance of communities and movements articulating a mission spirituality not just in mission statements and branding and in news stories but also in prayers, liturgies, poetry, art and longings that are expressed soulfully. it is of course what proost has been about and is about for years!

progress and diabolical regimes

kate tempest in fine form on q and a with a poem progress. it's also worth watching the discussion on diabolical regimes that leads up to it which is here.

babylon's falling

i really hope it is!

i am so pleased that someone has leaked the panama papers. they show what we all know really. the so called democratic world we live in is one in which greed rules. the rich and powerful are able to make obscene amounts of money, hide it out of sight of the system and regulations, whilst at the same time not giving a s**t about the poor. in fact the poor don't exist in their world because they can lived in gated communities and go to private members clubs and avoid them. the thing i hate about it most is the sense of entitlement - people start to believe that they are superior, that they deserve it, that they are entitled to it. i really hope that this exposé will shine a light on at least some of this practice. and to state the bleeding obvious - we do not have to run a society this way. in fact it is a rubbish way to run a society. it makes my blood boil the way it is ideologically driven by the ludicrous idea of deregulation and a free market - i.e. if we leave things alone and don't intervene everything will go well. WRONG! what happens is greed rules the waves as is being demonstrated again and again again. it needs to be addressed through regulation and taxation. i think this economic disparity is the big justice issue of our time (the environment is the other huge one that we have still got our heads in the sand about and of course they are related). it is compounded by the fact that it is hard to make sense of - the financial systems seem so confusing (to me at least) that it is like dealing with smoke and mirrors; and it is hard to know what exactly we can do about it other than tweet or write a blog post. because often those rich and powerful are cozied up with the media and elected to run our governments. i am being dramatic i realise but this is an incredible drama we are witnessing.

i went to see misty in roots in concert on saturday night. they are a brilliant reggae band made famous through john peel's love of their album live at the counter eurovision in 1979. what i particularly loved about the gig was the blend of spirituality and political insight. the opening song was a praise song to god (jah - his most excellent greatness) - i recognised the words as from psalm 150. it was so uplifting (and i'd love a worship band like this!). the second song was 'poor and needy' with lines such as

Deliver the poor and needy from the hands of the wicked
How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked?
Defend the poor and fatherless, 
Do justice to the afflicted and needy.

this was then followed by 'babylon's falling' railing against corruption and hypocrisy of the powers that be through the image of babylon - that puffed up city and empire whose rulers thought they were gods and could never be called to account. but of course like all empires babylon fell in dramatic fashion. and the concert went on flowing with a spiritual and political message of lament and hope. i have been thinking about it ever since for two reasons..

the first is it reminded me of how reduced our repertoire tends to be in today's worship in churches. when did you last hear a song lamenting the state of the economy and calling for judgement on the wicked? at best we will get that in a reading. but the hymnology has generally collapsed into the private sphere where god is close to me but it makes no difference in the rest of my life, or is so abstracted up in heaven on a throne that there is no connection. it is a regular occurrence for me to go to a church and find no connection between the worship songs and what i want to express. (i am reminded of robert beckford's book jesus is dread where he asks whether you can have a black political christianity.) the size of the problem was brought home to me in a sermon i heard a while back that defended stephen green from the pulpit as 'being a nice guy' and a christian whilst making absolutely no comment on the scandal of banking he was involved in - i.e. faith collapsed into private sphere with nothing to say to the bigger justice issues of our time. i regret that i didn't stand up and shout the preacher down to be honest - i was hopping mad.

the second is that this language and imagery of babylon seems so poignant in today's world - and the panama papers is the tip of the iceberg of those who think they are like gods but for whom their empires will eventually fall and they will be called to account.

right i am actually meant to be packing my bags to head off on a silent retreat for the week - see what i hear in the presence of silence

wake up [2] wealth: having it all and wanting more

the current situation of the wealthy elite in our country and indeed even more so in our world is disgusting and something has got to change. at times i have felt physically sick when i have read of the behaviour of the rich in the wake of the 2008 crash in their own sector and their attitude to the poor. i fear if it is not legislated to change by governments in countries like the uk and usa then it is like a pressure cooker that is going to explode at some point. 

today oxfam have published a report wealth: having it all and wanting more. this really is saying the same as their october report even it up: time to end extreme inequality, the statistics are mind boggling. the richest 1% own half of the global wealth. their share keeps increasing in the wake of continued governmental belief and practice in deregulation. supposedly deregulation leads to creativity and fredom for enterprise. but it's stark glaringly obvious that deregulation has created a culture of greed and self interest. 

we owe it to ourselves to get informed about this. i don't know if it's just me but it seems like there is a rising anger and awareness. even though it's extremely difficult to fuly grasp the workings of (the god of) the market i have recently been helped to understand it by a few things...

supercrash - a graphic novel by darryl cunningham. this is a book yes in pictures that i wholeheartedly recommend.

capital by piketty - last year an economist who did some counting that caught bthe world's attention as it highlighted how inequality was rising but hugely problematic. it's rather a large book sadly so here's a four paragraph summary!

the new economics foundation are an amazing think tank - follow their work. think tanks have been extremely important for the rise of neoliberal capitalism. so it's a relief to find one or two who are doing the thinking on economics out of a different imagination. this paper is very important because it makes the case that inequality does not lead to flourishing in the economy. it's obvious it doesn't lead to flourishing in life as a whole!!!

ann pettifor's work is genuinely brilliant, a prophet i would say - she now works for another think tank - policy research in macro economics (PRIME) - keep an eye on their work.

the book to get your blood boiling but also highlighting so many shocking things about our society in relation to power, money, politics and privilege is the establishment by owen jones - totally brilliant. i can't recommend it enough. i have two chapters to go and will review it then. 

i also try and read most things george monbiot writes as he seems to have a pretty good sense of things.

there are also growing numbers of documentaries of the superrich on their yachts and islands and castles and palaces and private estates living in their own bubble. honestly sometimes it's like watching a james bond villain - epstein and his island for example - just hideous. is it going to get to the stage where they build their own armies to defend their stuff from the rest of the world???!!! that seems to be the way it's heading.

what can be done? a lot actually! it's not hard to work out that you don't have to run society this way. we need to manage the financial sector to address it's immoral greed and that needs international as well as national involvement. it also requires separating the vested interests of the rich from government - it's all too cosy cosy. we need jobs for all and invest that way including reducing inequality. we need fair taxation that hugely shifts inequality and invests taxes in arts, education, welfare. simple! who in politics has the courage to do it? oxfam and others all have theior own take but essentially it's in this kind of direction. i don't hear a lot from the main parties. they seem afraid. who is going to rise up and have the courage to make a better society? 

wake up!

last night i watched charlie brooker's screen wipe 2014. it's a month by month roll through the year with him taking pops at virtually everybody in his perceptive and sarcastic fashion. i laughed out loud several times. part of me wishes he would rant less and shift the tone as i think he has things to say to a much wider audience but i like it none the less... but in the middle of it was an extraordinary five minutes by the wonderful adam curtis who is the most brilliant documentary maker, at least when it comes to taking a helicopter view of the narratives in the wider culture. turns out that that segment is on youtube so take five minutes of your life and watch it.

i've called the post wake up because it's one of a number of things that i have read or watched recently that have reminded me of how much things need to change and i need to wake up and (together with others) imagine and work towards a different kind of world and society than the one we have now...

marginal losses

wonderful article from jenny baker on marginal losses . she has just finished a book on equality between men and women that will be out in the new year. i have had a sneak preview and it's excellent... you can feel the passion behind the book in this piece.

surviving at 16

richard passmore offers a very moving reflection on memories of being 16 and that he wouldn't survive today with the latest government proposals on young people which demonstrate

a society that has lost its way, a society of selfishness, greed and power

shannon hopkins making an impact

congrats to shannon on being in the 100 unseen powerful women who change the world list over at one world action's blog - i guess that makes her seen now?!

sweet notions

Sweet Notions from ilovepinatas on Vimeo.

sweet notions is a brilliant project and i love this video about it.

sweet notions

shannon hopkins sweet notions has been revamped...

in the thick of it

rene padilla hung out with cms for a few months earlier this year as a missiologist in residence. one of the phrases i picked up from him which is the title of one of his books is the church as an agent of transformation. his basic point is that the church doesn't exist in and for itself but to help transform the local community in response to whatever social or spiritual or physical needs there are. i was reminded of this today when i read tearfund's report in the thick of it. there is lots of stuff around (and i contribute to it from time to time) on the challenges the church faces in relation to the cultural changes often finding herself stuck in a world that is passing. it can end up in a bit of a negative spin. those challenges are real and i am not wanting to deny or minimise them but it was good to read a very different kind of critique of the local church that is saying what good news it is!

the local church is uniquely placed, in the thick of it, around the world in local communities acting as an agent of change in relation to HIV, poverty, education, environmental challenges, justice and advocacy to name a few issues. in many ways the local church has a reach and connection to the local community that ngos find much harder and more expensive to gain. this is the opening to the report...

A dramatic untold story is unfolding in some of the poorest places on our planet. Here, at the heart of HIV epidemics, at the epicentre of disasters, the church is bringing transformation to some of the most vulnerable and remote communities on earth – sometimes singlehandedly. Often the church is reaching these places in a way that other institutions do not – and cannot. Its long reach and presence extends even into war zones, refugee camps and mountain hamlets. Crucially, it is tackling poor people’s material and spiritual poverty to bring development that is truly sustainable.

gospel means good news of course so it's good to hear the church can be good news in this way. and of course it raises the question for any of us in a christian community/church how we are bringing transformation in our own local communities?

o little town of bethlehem - the gospel under occupation

i have visited bethlehem once in 19998. the trip i went on was amazing - hard but really good. i went with the amos trust, a small charity who punch beyond their weight standing in solidarity with the oppressed and campaigning for justice. because they are small they invest time in particular areas and relationships. palestine and israel has been one of those areas. anyway all this by way of saying amos trust are organising a trip the gospel under occupation in may next year. kester brewin and chris rose will lead the trip. and here's some info

The trip is from 22nd to 30th May.

It's just over £1000 all in from the UK, or £500 from the US/elsewhere if you book your own way to Tel Aviv.

As you know, it's an amazing opportunity for anyone of faith to 'walk where Jesus walked', as well as see some great Banksy's ;-)

Plus, on this trip in particular, we are wanting to focus on the leadership needs in the area. That could be theological leadership - getting some new thinking on the situation - or social/entrepreneurial leadership to help build capacity in the Palestinian economy.

It will be very exciting / eye opening... great opportunities to meet the 'living stones', and peace-makers from all sides right at the heart of so many world events.

i realise i never said anything about the last grace which focused on bethlehem. it included a 26 foot screen to show the actual height of the now walled city of bethlehem. and there were various segments of an amos trust video that were shown and a set of stations for prayer. one included standing in solidarity offering messages of hope to residents of the hamlets of humsa and hadidya, in the occupied palestinian territories. more details are on the Amnesty website. and dean has added a set of photos here...