jonnybaker

gathertown labyrinth

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!

prune back dream forward - first grace of 2021

we spent time over christmas connecting online as family using gathertown which was fun. particularly exciting for the granddaughters was a room i made of a snakes and ladders board where your avatar walked the steps on the board. it was good fun. zoom is great but it was a nice to have a change. 

it got me playing around and i ended up designing a space for the next grace which will be in gathertown rather than zoom. there will be a cafe space and an online labyrinth which you can visit when you like. if you have never used gathertown no problem - it's easy enough.  here is the blurb about it below. a link and more info will be sent nearer the time. please do email the address below if you are not a regular and want to come along as we need to get a rough idea of numbers ahead of time.

Join us for the first Grace of 2021. There will be an online labyrinth and a café space. Rather than Zoom we will be using Gathertown this month. We’ll send a link on the day so email [email protected] and we will send you the link.

There are two things you need to know or do:

a) Gathertown works best with Chrome browser so download that to your computer in advance - it’s free. It won’t work from a phone so you'll need to be at a computer. It may well work with Firefox too.

b) The web site is https://gather.town/ - do go and have a look and sign up with a user id so you are ready to go. It’s fairly straightforward but we will talk through how it works on the day.

For the labyrinth itself there will be a series of stations, several drawn from the labyrinth we have used before and some new ones. You will need to gather a few items in your home to use as follows:

• a stone and ideally a bucket of water but a stone on its own is fine too
• a pen and paper
• bread and wine
• a seed
• a candle (or a few candles)

no idea how this is going to work but risk is part of grace's ethos!

grace labyrinth on saturday 11 jan

join us at grace on saturday january 11th and walk a labyrinth. if you have not walked a labyrinth before it is a lovely prayerful space surrounded by candlelight and ambient tunes. you meditate by walking. it’s a perfect way to start the new year reflecting on what has gone before giving thanks and letting go. it’s a space to be still, to be with god, to place yourself into god's care. and then it’s a journey into the decade that lies ahead with all of its possibility, challenge and adventure. there will be a cafe afterwards as ever with space to chill and catch up. 

labyrinth - a new design

it was a wonderful evening at grace with a new labyrinth designed by adam baxter and made in the afternoon from some cloth and gaffer tape. st mary's in ealing is a wonderful magical space for it and with candles flickering and a playlist of ambient tunes a prayerful meditative evening ensued... if you click on this link and scroll through you'll see some of the labyrinths we have made and run over the years. i think the first was back in 1998 or 1999. this labyrinth web site has lots of info if you're wondering about labyrinths

grace labyrinth this saturday

i'm looking forward to grace on saturday as it will be a labyrinth and it's a brand new design and mat that i haven't seen yet. there will be a cafe so you can sit and chat and then go and walk the labyrinth in your time at any point during the evening. 

a fun morning's teaching

for my teaching session yesterday we mowed a labyrinth for church of the holy family on blackbird leys who turned up the week before asking for help creating a labyrinth. seemed like a good practical session as part of a worship module for pioneers at cms!

event horizon - worship trick 53 series 4

following the last worship trick which was music out of the ground, grace produced an amazing labyrinth type experience at greenbelt on the saturday called event horizon (i wasn't involved as i had a ton of other thing going on at greenbelt). it made use of a perfect location for it with an installation called orpheus which slopes down geometrically to a pool of water. the photos are better than a description. there were 8 stopping points on postcards on the journey down and 8 on the way back. and along the way were pieces of music to listen to. it was amazing. and steve has added all of the reflections here along with a description and a set of photos. so a definite worship trick to add to the series 4.

grace at greenbelt

join grace at greenbelt in the orpheus installation on saturday between 10am and 8pm (though not between 11am and 1pm whn you should be in the allotment gallery at my photography exhibition!). i don't think this is listed in the greenbelt diary so make a note of it...

music out of the ground - worship trick

at last night's labyrinth at grace chris read dreamed up the idea of music out of the ground - at various points headphones were there to stop and listen. ipods (in plastic bags) were buried in the ground with a track set to loop. in fact all the ipods were playing variations on the same track - cello, guitar, vocal, spoken word. they were from a forthcoming ep that chris and harry baker are putting together of contemplative poetry/soulful music combinations - watch out for it on proost later this summer. anyway it's about time for a worship trick - so this is no 52 series 4. steve has a photo set here

the design of the labyrinth is the one at ealing common by mark wallinger

labyrinth and bbq - july 12

labyrinth just keeps on walking

steve collins was the mastermind behind laying out a huge labyrinth for feltham young offenders. it's a curious story. when we first did the labyrinth in st pauls cathedral, a tour followed which visited feltham. my memory of it is that one of the chaplains had read about it in a magazine and got in contact. it went down remarkably well and when the tour was over we gave the kit to the chaplains at the prison. since then it has been run for about ten years a few times a year. we gave a second cloth when the first ran out and now the whole kit has worn out. steve has led the way replacing everything. so saturday afternoon a few of us helped tape it out to be delivered this week.

walk a labyrinth at grace this weekend

grace this weekend is an outdoor labyrinth and bbq - the weather looks set for summer for a while. should be good - come and join us. see the facebook page.

walking the labyrinth

here's a photo from grace at the weekend - i do love the labyrinth. such a simple thing in many ways. this time round the design we had was a bit more complex with turns on all four quadrants which i liked - made it a bit more confusing to know where you were!

walk a grass labyrinth at grace this saturday

this saturday 8pm grace will be walking a grass labyrinth mown in the grounds of st marys church ealing. if the weather today is putting you off the idea the forecast tomorrow looks good at the moment with a sunny day in store! we will gather outside by the labyrinth. there will be a café afterwards in st marys... hope to see you there. 

if you've not heard of or walked a labyrinth before it's a space to be prayerful and reflect on your own journey of faith - it's a journey of three parts - a) towards the centre letting go, quitening down b) the centre - holy space to be still with god c) the journey back out - reflecting on life back in the everyday.

we have mowed a new design for the labyrinth inspired by a church in earlsfield. i passed by it last week when visiting a friend and took a photo of it and have copied their pattern (which is a bit more complex than the one on the photo above).

if you are interested in mowing your own it's easier than you might think - i have written up how to go about it here

labyrinth kit now available as a download

a while back we ran out of labyrinth kits in the uk and decided not to do another batch but make it available as a download. it's taken us a while but finally the leader's guide, movie loops and audio of the meditations is now available on proost. and of course it's made it a fraction of the price. i must admit having re-looked at the leader's guide i had forgotten that it contains some wonderful theory as well as the practical info on how to set it up. for example there is a really good chapter on alternative worship.

if you are in the US you can still get the labyrinth in a kit form as the prayerpath

if you want to experience it online you can do so here

grace labyrinth and bbq

grace labyrinth and bbq this saturday...

labyrinth - illuminating the inner path

brian draper has a lovely little reflective book out on the labyrinth. it's less than 50 pages, full of photos and is not so much about labyrinths as a spiritual guide to walking the path. as well as the overall theme of journey it's structured around the inward path, reaching the centre and the outward journey. brian is one of the people who penned the original meditation that was part of the labyrinth we ran in st pauls cathedral back in 2000. he is a gifted writer. it's a good book to chew over life's spiritual journey, and if you ever run a labyrinth it would be a great addition for people to reflect on it or help you prepare. here's the blurb from the publisher...

Mysterious and alluring, labyrinths have been in use for over 4,000 years as a means of exploring one's spiritual journey, searching for meaning and guidance. The labyrinth is a unicursal or 'one-path' design - not like a maze, where there are decisions to be made and you can be tricked - but a path laid out before you, much like our own spiritual paths, to which we must surrender, following God's guidance. Christian labyrinths date back to the 4th century (in Algeria), although the most famous instances came later (e.g. Chartres in the 13th century). Recent years have seen a revival of interest in this practice as a powerful physical recreation of the inner life. This small format hardback book - illustrated with labyrinths from different designs, locations and ages - is an inspiring, meditative guide to this ancient and modern spiritual practice.

catching up on a few things...

i have some photos in the festival annual

ben edson reflects on moving on from sanctus 1 (scroll down for 4 posts so far) - all the best to alistair who picks up the mantle

i cam across laughing jesus i think through steve bevans. i love seeing representations of christ in different cultures.

chris erdman is back blogging

mark waddington is collating vimeo worship loops

beach labyrinth

got to love how dream's beach labyrinth turned out. the perfect setting with anthony gormley's figures at crosby... see lots of photos here

guerilla worship on crosby beach

on the plane on the way over here i read the improv everywhere book and really enjoyed it. i think there are lots of possibilities for thinking creatively around alt worship type events in public spaces. anyway i just noticed dream are planning a second guerilla worship event on 18 july on crosby beach (a wonderful place to visit anyway) so if you are anywhere near liverpool head over...