jonnybaker

more imagination, less control please - church online

following up on the last post what i was really saying is we need more imagination!i thought it worth following up with a few further thoughts and links reflecting on what happens when church is online.

this is actually not a very new conversation though it is a new experience for many. i was absolutely delighted to see that tallskinnykiwi has re-emerged online. he is someone who has pioneered, experimented and blogged about this for maybe 25 years? anyway he has started a series on transcoding church. after an intro the first post is zoombombing in historical perspective. he points out that radio broadcasting was innovative and with enforced separation in WW2 broadcasting services became a big thing. fast forward to new digital media and it's less about broadcasting and much more participative (or at least that's the theory!). i love this thought he has 

the greater amount of interaction from participants, the greater the loss of control from those hosting the event.

on the subject of control i have seen what i consider to be absurd conversations online about communion and people sharing bread and wine in their own homes and what the rules might be. of course you can! get on with it - i wonder sometimes what on earth the church thinks it is doing. how has it morphed into this system of control? i think jesus was quizzed by religious authorities about his own practice which threatened their system of control and they asked 'by what authority do you do these things?' to which he gave a genius answer. so if someone says to you 'by what authority do you do these things?' you're in a good tradition! i think i'll come back to some ideas on this in a later post but the table in your own home is a wonderful location for it. 

someone else who has reflected and published on faith, religion and spirituality online is heidi campbell so it was great to see an article pop up summarising her findings about building religious community and doing church online. it's well worth a read.

pete phillips who runs codec has also posted an article the church (has gone) online which is really helpful and a good reminder again that this is not that new actually. 

musings from the other side of the world 4: when church collapses

[see part 1 kiwi and proud | part 2 am i in england? | part 3 smug statues and street art saints]

i loved this piece of street art of a quaking church in panic mode. further down the mural the trickster wiley coyote is spotted with some tnt!i am sure it was terrifying to experience the earthquake in christchurch when many buildings wobbled and indeed fell down. and surveying the landscape makes you realise it takes a long time for a city to rebuild. there are still buildings being repaired and many pieces of land where buildings once stood. one area is a whole zone that has been cleared of where house stood. the shapes of gardens and streetlights are there but no people. the land there has lowered so is prone to flooding so is now simply a red zone.

christchurch cathedral is a centrepiece of the city - the settlement was very much church of england centred so it's no surprise to see this central place. but the cathedral (and indeed the catholic cathedral too) were seriously damaged by the earthquake. you can see in the photo above. by any stretch of the imagination this is an interruption or provocation. whilst you wouldn't wish it on anyone, whenever you get provoked in this sort of way there is an opportunity for creative thinking. many writers on creativity suggest you should programme interruptions into your routine because it's how you come up with ideas. i read the book messy by tim harford recently and the first chapter in that is really good on exactly that point. you can listen to a podcast here cautionary tales which effectively rehearses that first chapter - it's the episode bowie, jazz and the unplayable piano.

well the church did get creative. realising it would take a long time to sort out, a japanese architect shigeru ban was commissioned and designed the cardboard cathedral. this is a light structure that might last 50 years i guess. it has been a big hit - i loved it. the interior structure looks like it's made of and held up by cardboard tubes though i am not sure exactly what the material is. but i noticed while i was there that work seemed to be starting to repair the old cathedral. perhaps this is inevitable but i also was disappointed. why?! i like the new one a lot better and it's a sign of travelling much lighter.

one of the church's biggest challenges certainly in england is its buildings. they are old, inflexible, often cold, and not really fit for purpose. sure some of them look beautiful and have been reworked well. usually that is the case where there is a large congregation. but most are a chain round the neck of a small community and would be better given away as heritage sites. in many villages in england there is a small community of older christians - maybe a dozen who put so much energy and effort into keeping the roof on, the lights on, the heating working. in my view it would be amazing to wake up one day and find that the buildings had wobbled and collapsed. what a relief - the people could get on with being the church as a community of people! i am honestly not just being flippant. i genuinely think that. somewhere along the way church easily forgots the why of its existence.

what i had not forseen when i was in new zealand was that when i got back church buildings would soon be shut albeit for a different reason - coronavirus. the church has literally left the building! so people are having to reimagine how to be church, how to connect to one another and encourage community, worship, discipleship, mission. they too have been provoked, interrupted from business as usual. what are the creative and imaginative opportunities for churches in this season? there have been a lot of social media comments about making more of the opportunity than simply broadcasting church services online. and i admit whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with that and it is probably comforting in its familiarity in a time of crisis, it does lack imagination. but my impression is that people are connecting in all sorts of more liquid ways connecting to christ and one another. but i wonder when the crisis is over will they be like christchurch cathedral and go back to the old, to business as usual or will they inhabit the new in an ongoing way?

i have been reading mark's story (gospel) of jesus life this lent - in fact i have been thinking about mark for a year or so. today i laughed out loud when i read the part where jesus' disciples are admiring the temple in jerusalem and saying something along the lines of 'look at these magnificent buildings' to which jesus replies saying they will be demolished and not one stone will be left on top of another! at that stage the disciples really don't seem to get what jesus is about. he is starting a new community of people following in the way of jesus. they largely met and gathered in small groups and communities in homes in the early days. there's no reason why that might not still be a brilliant idea...

when i was in new zealand one of the things i found really inspiring was the imaginative approaches to being church amongst young adults. i got to visit wellington for one day and hang out with some pioneers over breakfast and catch up with bishops eli and justin who are great. it was also good to meet scottie reeve, catch up with jethro who studied with us at cms for a term and others including one follower of my blog (small world and all that) and hear about a network of homes that are community houses for church in a different way. they share life, prayer, mission, food together. in the background seem to be a few decades of a deep rhythm of prayer and radical discipleship through urban vision. i apologise if my description is a bit clunky or not quite right but i was only there for a day - do leave a comment if you are part of it,

the anglican church in wellington have embarked on an experiment in one neighbourhood led by scottie and anna where they have bought a building which is on the high street which can house a residential community, have a small chapel, and run a community space and perhaps an enterprise or two. sadly i didn't take a photo of it as i got there late at night and left first thing (that's my excuse) so can't show you but i thought it is exactly the kind of imagination that is needed - so refreshing to see. the regular church building i assume is being sold or decommissioned. it is just in the throes of beginning so there is not much more to tell on that particular community yet.

i picked up a daily prayer book: he taro ma - tatou daily prayer, that those communities use which i have been using since. though i am on the other side of the world it feels good to unite in spirit and in prayer. i couldn't find where that is available online - let me know in a comment if it is. today's morning prayer was on peacemaking and non violence and references some of the maori prophets and cms missionaries. i'll get back that in the next post...

musings from the other side of the word 3: smug statues and street art saints

[see part 1 kiwi and proud and part 2 am i in england?]

getting stuck in christchurch in new zealand longer than planned meant i had time to wander the streets a bit with camera in hand. i really don't do that enough - linger in a place with time on my hands and get lost on the streets. it's such a great way to see a place. 

one of the immediate things in christchurch that you see is that it is still very much post earthquake and i'll come back to that in a later post. but the other thing i began to notice was street art. i subsquently discovered that post-quake christchurch has become a hub for street art with various festivals and artists commissioned to paint huge murals.

i began to reflect on the contrast between the more fixed statues in the city and the newer street art. lots of cities have pompous statues - london has plenty! look at this guy john robert godley who was the founder of the canterbury settlement ariving in 1850. i really don't like this statue which is in front of christchurch cathedral! he has a sort of english colonialist swagger about him towering over you. it may be totally unfair and i don't know much about him. but i am not naive about english colonial behaviour either. reading up on him, the canterbury settlement (which is the wider area christchurch is in) was particularly tied up with the church of england and he worked to set up the canterbury association with edward wakefield securing 300 000 acres of land. that involved dealing with the new zealand company. when you read artilces in wikipedia or in encylopedias they are very matter of fact about it all. i am not a historian but i am pretty suspicious about this sort of story - so sure enough a bit of digging and it turns out that the wakefield brothers and the new zealand company were a very shady land grabbing company hustling all sorts of property and land from maori by whatever means legal or illegal or inbetween. they lobbied hard to get the treaty of waitangi dismissed. i'll come back to the treaty in a later post but it is the treaty between maori and the british that gives equal rights to maori and settlers. the new zealand company also hated the missionaries with a vengeance because they advocated for the maori. so even if he was a good guy there were some other shameful things going on.

here's another statue in the road below hagley park - james edward fitzgerald. i read up what i could find on him and to be honest they made him sound a really incredible man. it must have been so challenging to work to build a settlement. but he too worked with the wakefields on the settlement. i was giving him the benefit of the doubt. but then his name cropped up in bible and treaty by keith newman which i was reading which said "when the national assembly first met in 1854 the the colonial office had already agreed that native affairs would be the sole preserve of the governor. premier james edward fitzgerald also used the occasion to to announce his plan to acquire 12 million acres - about forty percent of the north island - for settlement. while some maori would resist, the balance should be acquired." wow! according to this article he was an advocate for maori rights, and for self government for new zealand and wanted maori to take part in government and tried to develop policies to improve relations. but at the same time he was securing as much land for settlement as he could. clearly not straightforward and certainly more swagger in the christchurch landscape.

i got slightly obsessed with street art and have added an album of photos - street art in christchurch. i photographed things that caught my attention rather than everything i saw. but two things immediately grabbed me. the first is that the iconography of street saints inc hcristchurch is so different to the statues. the predominant figure celebrated in the landscape is a woman and by and large those women are indigenous. i love the mural above for example. this is whero o te rangi bailey painted by kevin ledo. she was a local elder who the artist painted from a photograph. she was a teacher, counsellor, and "a humble woman who radiated a peaceful and loving energy which was felt by all" according to her daughter.

here is another. it is painted by erika pearce and is of harlem-croz atarangi ihaia. this brings me on to the second thing i noticed - birds. the bird in this picture is the huia which is extinct - sadly the only place i saw one was in canterbury museum stuffed. in this image the woman is wearing kawakawa leaves which would be worn in mourning so it's an image that speaks of sadness and loss. othe birds that feature are largely indigenous birds - the tui, bellbird and kiwi for example.

there were others too such as this image kaitaki by fin dac with an owl and kingfisher - i'd love to read the iconography of that image if someone has any ideas. i have read up that it is about protection and a warning but the image is so interesting. what do the birds represent? the feathers? the eye mask? the kiwi is obviously a national icon but it seemed to me that the birds in so many murals both mourn something that has been lost and express a longing for something too. the loss is real - through settlement the population of birds has been decimated both through the felling of forests but also through the introduction of predators as this mural bunnies vs birds articulates. it's also a loss of deeper and wider things i suspect. but i wonder if they also represent a deep longing, a longing for a recovery of something, to be at home in the land in an environment where the indigenous bird and people are free to be at home. perhaps the longing is not just for recovery but for a new future?

there is a new mural that went up this year on welles street which is really bright and zingy. i didn't photograph the whole thing but you can see an image of the full mural here. it is called cassandra's dream and painted by yoobee design students caitlin booth, sarah dickie, caleb harris, victoria marshall, kayla salt, and phillipa suckling. it is very celebratory and includes all sorts of aspects of christchurch life - creativity, innovation, nature, food, design, dancing, heritage. cassandra in greek mythology uttered true prophecies that no one believed. i can't believe the name is a coincidence or random though i couldn't find anything about it online (cassandra's dream is also the name of a woody allen film). here is a vision that a new christchurch, a new new zealand is possible but will anyone believe it could be so?!

 

musings from the other side of the world 2: am i in england?!

[see part 1: kiwi and proud which ended i hadn't expected to be confronted with england...]

in lent, the community i am part of grace is encouraging practices of soil, soul and society. for soil i am taking note of trees in my road and on ealing common which is my local park. it will be ongoing but i realised a while back that i had walked past trees for years and had no idea what they were so i thought i'd find out as a way of getting to know the place i am in. i won't share the whole list now but of course it includes classics such as lime, plane, oak, horse chestnut, hazel, poplar, beech, hornbeam, birch.

i don't know what i expected in new zealand but after a few days in christchurch i realised i was confused because these were the trees i could see there. in fact i was running through the lovely hagley park and realised the reason i hadn't taken any photos was because it looked like i was in any park in ealing or cambridge or wherever in england. so in the end i did take photographs because the thing that became of interest was the similarity not the difference! what was even stranger was that in the botanical gardens there was a section entitled new zealand. that was a small area with native trees and plants. i began thinking why isn't there a small section labelled england in the botanical gardens with the rest of the park and country being made up of indigenous or native trees? this was further compounded when visiting orokonui which is a lovely ecosanctuary near dunedin. steve taylor took me there and it is fenced off like a rewilding or wilding project and it's beautiful in its trees and plants and birds. in fact the sounds of the birds are amazing - tui, bellbird and the like. i was in canterbury which is an area that it seems the settlers determined to make like england. and i did not visit the west coast which i understand is more like rainforest or the north which is hotter and no doubt more exotic. so this is a very limited view. but it piqued my interest and got me wondering about the process of colonisation and in particular what was the mindset of those who settled. 

i found out that there are whole books on the subject of plants and animals being taken to other countries - they have a range of ways of describing the process - naturalisation, accilmatisation, intrusion, invasion (which of course are interesting words for the whole process of colonisation). the book exotic intruders is online here. and this article on acclimatisation is a pretty good summary. there were acclimatisation societies that were set up as there was a sort of fervour around the idea of introducing plants and animals that could be of use. for settlers the first motivation was survival and sustainability - in other words food! there were apparently not a lot of vegetables and fruit that was easy to access. polynesian islanders had introduced some plants like sweet potato and europeans quickly introduced potatoes, vegetables and all sorts of other plants and fruit trees along with pigs so they could eat. a lot of it acclimatised well. rabbits were introduced and then stoats, ferrets and weasels to keep the population down. of course you do something like that and it has consequences - the native bird population which was not used to these predators struggled through that and the decimation of the native bush cleared for farming. the kiwi is now endangered for example. darwin when he visited said that he thought many of the native plants would not survive the onslaught of the new competitors. it sounds very much like his 'survival of the fittest'. he said 

If all the animals and plants of Great Britain were set free in New Zealand ... in the course of time a multitude of British forms would become thoroughly acclimatised there, and would exterminate many of the natives.

boats came out with blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows, partridges and so on most of which died on the way! i can't get my head round why you would take a sparrow!!! two thirds of new zealand was covered with native bush when settlers arrived and now maybe one fifth is. huge amounts of forest were cleared, swamps drained and so on and the landscape gradually changed. whose to say what is good or bad about this process? i certainly don't have any idea of the wisdom or not of introducing plants, trees and animals. and hindsight is something you only have after the event. in london we have a mix of native and introduced trees such as the plane tree. we know a lot more now than we did then. new zealand is a very fertile country exporting all kinds of things so at some level it worked well. but the cost in terms of creatures and plants has been high too such that some species are now extinct such as the huia (more on that later). new zealand today is a very different prospect and tight on bio security aware of the risks of introducing unwanted plants and creatures that might attack a particular tree for example. 

the thing i hadn't quite appreciated is that colonialism at least in canterbury in new zealand did not just export people and culture. they sought to recreate home, to recreate england almost as a total environment and landscape down to the sort of birdsong they could hear. it is quite a scary imaginary. i have found it quite hard to think myself into it. it doesn't take much of a leap to see how if native species were valued so little then native indigenous peoples and their way of life and culture could be seen in similar fashion. rework darwin's  quote above changing 'animals and plants' to 'people' and right there is the colonial mindset i fear. 

i like to think i would have done it differently. listened, taken time, worked with the local culture, been careful about the introduction of plants, trees and anaimals and their impact on the environment and so on. but i am pretty sure that if i had been alive then i would have done the same thing and thought it was great. so i am not standing on a high horse in judgement. but it's surprising where noticing a few trees takes you in your thinking.

christchurch has a reputation for being very english and that englishness is really a particular kind too - oxford or cambridge - perhaps this is epitomised by this photo of punting on the river. 

i was in christchurch longer than expected due to coronavirus - the rest of my trip was cancelled and i had to rearrange flights. this meant i had a bit more time to wander the streets and see what else i could see...

 

musings from the other side of the world 1: kiwi and proud

this is the first in a series of blog posts which i have called musings from the other side of the world.

i have spent a couple of weeks in new zealand - part holiday and part study leave. i have just got back and i am going to post a series of reflections inspired by the trip. i am a little cautious about it because i don’t know a lot about new zealand and there will be people who have studied and reflected at depth on the things i touch on. i am also english and we english are part of new zealand’s story back in the day as colonialist settlers. i also work for church mission society (cms) and cms missionaries landed in new zealand pretty early in that story and are tied up with its founding and treaty and, as i discovered, that is in quite contested fashion.

i am deliberately writing these as blog posts because blog posts are in the moment, journal like, sharing some thoughts that soon scroll down the page. but i welcome any push back or conversation. i loved talking with people i met in new zealand about these things.

my experience of friends i know from new zealand is that they are super proud of it. they love talking about it. they love making a connection to anyone or anything from new zealand. in fact if there is a chance to claim someone has a connection to new zealand they make it. i love that. i think i particularly love it because i have never felt that way about england - as far as i am concerned there is too much shame in our story! so for example i can never bring myself to wear an england shirt.

anyway all that is to say it is a beautiful country. i loved it! i only really got to see some of the south island (plus a day in wellington) and even then i did not make the north or the west coast of the south island. at some stage i hope i can go back and spend some more time there. a friend roger who used to be a neighbour and is now retired lives there for a few months every year and he has kept trying to persuade me to visit - he also has become an evangelist for new zealand! he hosted me and chauffeured me around - i really appreciated his generosity and kindness especially as i ended up staying a bit longer than planned due to having to change my wider plans because of coronavirus.

we did a whistle stop tour loop largely of mountains and lakes beginning at christchurch and travelling to…

tekapo lake where the night sky is spectacular;

mount cook which was out of clouds and looked stunning across lake pukaki;

lake wanaka where i photographed a tree that is apparently the most photographed tree in new zealand though it has sadly been damaged just this week;

queenstown which really is tourist central where you can do all manner of sports and outdoor activities - like paragliding - i remember my sister showing us a video of her bungee jumping in skipper canyon when she was travelling in a gap year so it was nice to drive by that bridge. we had a more gentile activity going on the earnslaw steamboat down lake wakatipu;

dunedin where it was lovely to catch up with steve taylor at orokanui ecosanctuary where we saw some indigenous shrub, trees and birds (more on that in another blog post);

oamaru which as well as being home to some penguins is a global hub for steampunks;

stopping off at the weird and wonderful moeraki boulders on the way back to christchurch.

i also travelled on day trips to banks peninsula and akaroa. in akaroa where we went on a magical boat trip seeing endangered hector dolphins, blue penguins, albatross and seals. i loved seeing the albatross swooping behind the boat with its amazing flight and huge wingspan. ever since i was a kid i have felt excitement whenever i see dolphins especially in the wild so it was a treat to see hector dolphins. i love the outdoors and being in environments like new zealand do wonders for my soul and spirit.

there is so much beauty in the world and new zealand certainly has its share of it. it has amazing natural resource. it’s a similar size to britain but with only 5 million people. its people are laid back, sporty, hard working, friendly and love to travel. and they make great coffee! what is there not to like?

i have added an album of photographs to flickr - new zealand

kiwi and proud - seems so much simpler than being english and embarrassed! and yet maybe there are some layers of complexity underneath? while i was in christchurch i met some local church leaders and people interested in pioneering and mission. over breakfast we shared conversations and stories and questions (and breakfast!). one of the people who shared what they were up to described their pioneering as exploring what it meant to be a kiwi church and what kiwi identity might be. this was clearly a space in which there was plenty of deconstructing and reconstructing going on. i asked what they meant by kiwi identity as opposed to new zealand identity. kiwi spirituality or church or identity for them seemed to be a way of naming the desire for something beyond anglican, presbyterian, weslyian or vineyard (or whatever other form of western shaped, constructed and inherited church) and also something beyond new zealand identity as constructed solely in the settler communities. in other words a new kind of authenticity that weaves together a hybrid from the various threads of the communities in new zealand in a way that feels honest. like england this is about the wider changes in culture and needing something that resonates in today's world but my sense of this was that it is also getting at the settler, maori and pacific islanders stories and identitites as well. this is not what was said but i read this to be a quest for something post colonial as well as missional. indeed i began to wonder if it was possible to have one without the other.

the conversation took me back to a scene in the film whale rider where the maori grandfather is explaining the maori tradition and the importance of it and the ancestors (the whakapapa) to his granddaughter with a piece of rope showing various threads. he then uses the rope to start a boat motor and it snaps at which point he says 'useless bloody rope'. that tension - a longing for the gifts in the traditions, the ancestral wisdom and a feeling that it is also broken in today's world - is a tension i sensed is very much alive in new zealand. how do you reweave the rope? to really be kiwi and proud might need that weave.

something i hadn't expected was to be confronted with england and my own englishness...

ants in the pants of the body of christ - first expressions

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.

for arts sake - this years pioneer conversations day

at cms pioneer training we have a day each year where we explore a particular theme in pioneering mission. these conversations days have been really wonderful and have led to books like the pioneer gift or future present. this year's theme is art and mission. if you know me you will know i love both those things! there is a day in both the south and the north - oxford and penrith respectively. i am currently sat in penrith so have been talking about that one and it sounds great - ends up with a gallery space with wine and nibbles after a day of workshops and exploration. the oxford one also looks amazing with a whole range of contributors including davd benjamin blower, lou baker, iain cotton... info on who is taking part in the oxford one is in this blog post from sarah clarke who will be framing the day at both.

tickets for the penrith one are here 

tickets for the oxford one are here

[the photo above is loubakerartist who is leading one of the oxford workshops and setting up an installation]

murmuration - london pioneer celebration

it was really wonderful last night to join london school of pioneers for their first graduation. i have added photos and blogged about it on the cms pioneer blog. so i am just reblogging myself! it was so encouraging to hear from pioneers on the course what they are up to and how the course had really inspired them. see the link above to find out how to join the next round which starts in january and is recruiting now. the venue was laid out beautifully with origami birds suspended and we were invited to add one to join the murmuration.

what is a pioneer? faq

i chipped in to a discussion on facebook on a discussion about pioneer and whether it is a helpful term. the post was letting the world know about a new page on the cms pioneer web site which has a series of frequently asked questions beginning with 'what is a pioneer?' paul bradbury wrote most of it and i have then added in some stuff too. i am sure they'll get tweaked and added to and they are not the definitive answer on anything but hopefully they help answer a few questions! anyway i wanted to post the link here and i left a comment which i have pasted below largely because i can refind things on my blog so wanted to keep the thought!

i have come to really like the word pioneer - there i've said it!

in its usage in relation to the church of england it was used in the report mission shaped church to say that starting these new forms of church bubbling up around the edges of the church required a different kind of leading or skill set or imagination to being a regular vicar or parish priest. that makes really good sense to me - it does require something different. they used two ways of describing that - pioneer minister and mission entrepreneur. pioneer seems to be the one that's stuck. i have elaborated on this story and my sense of it in various other places so won't do so here - but see the pioneer gift chapter i wrote for example.

all language is challenging particularly when you are trying to find language to make the world differently. and it's important because language does make a world. in relation to people involved in mission doing something new every word i can think of has something good and something problematic. the word 'mission' itself is problematic for some people especially in the usa church i have found, but i love mission and so use that word and hope to redeem it. evangelist, apostle, entrepreneur, prophet, leader, priest, chaplain, minister, missional leadership, innovation, incarnational, contextual... the list could go on. these all have associations positive and negative depending on your story and context. and like many other areas there is a massive amount of jargon.

but i like 'pioneer' because it isn't in a previous category. it's also a word that gets used in the wider culture - i.e. it's not overtly religious. and i like it because it's a bit awkward - it has some grit to it. but i mainly like it i think because we have used it now for a decade or so and got loads of wonderfully creative people doing amazing things in mission who are pioneers. so when i think of the word i imagine all of them and what they are doing and the brilliant and much needed gift they bring to the church and world. hence we called the book we fist published 'the pioneer gift'. 

pragmatically you have to use something and it's as good as anything else. it also takes a long time for the church to warm up to anything. for example the idea of the missio dei has been around about 60 years maybe but it is just about catching on in some places so of course some people want to deconstruct it but i want to keep it. likewise i know some dioceses that are really warming up and starting to get pioneer. so i cannot see any sense in losing it in england at the moment. 

 

very happy with the findings of the impact of make good

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.

thinking about church as woodland...

the latest issue of anvil is out and explores mission and church. the direct link to this issue is here and you can read online or download articles as pdf or the whole thing.  there are so many questions to explore in relation to this. it's a brilliant issue i think. we try and make it accessible but to have weight to the reflections. hopefully we get that about right. i have a piece in there where i am in conversation with tim nash around what is happening in relation to nomad podcast. a community is orbiting around it that seems quite significant. it's not a church (as in a congregation who meet together weekly) but it is very much church in other ways. so we dive into a discussion around that. in that i speculate that a helpful metaphor for church might be a woodland. i actually push this further in a book i am working on that will be out next summer.

anyway have a read and see what you think. the reason i think the conversation may be of interest is that i think it shines a light on the way many people, at least in western contexts, are assembling their faith and navigating what it means to follow christ in a mix of spaces - online contributes to this environment. thanks to james butler for editing a really good issue. aas ever anvil is online and free.

true north - for the believers - adventures ahead

 

"true north for the believers" - yes that is what it says on the top of this northern monk beer can. they make great beer by the way! at greenbelt this weekend i was there both having fun in sweltering heat with family and friends but also working with cms around pioneering. this time round we had a table in the exchange venue to hold conversations about business for good. i hosted three panels with three stories in each. i also helped proost put at an event and the bit i did was playing with the idea of true north and false norths inspired by the labyrinth from 2000. we also celebrated the northern centre and i just felt we had to get some northern monk beers to do so! it felt like it was meant to be.

true north is a metaphor i have played with around pioneering - i wrote a reflection on it about 5 years ago. true north is like a pull or an orientation towards joining in with god's mission - that is the healing of all things. and i reflected on various characteristics of it for pioneers - i guess what the charism or gift is of pioneering as we see it at cms. so now we have a partnership in the north it seems even more apt! 

i love this photo of richard passmore who has been the catalyst for the northern centre - he is looking very happy (maybe that's the northern monk!). we have been friends a long time now. he was appointed to develop fresh expressions and mission for carlisle diocese  in late 2015 and in less than 4 years there are over 100 fresh expressions and their research shows that 1 in 4 people in the diocese of carlisle who go to church are in one of these new expressions - that is mind blowing. you can get details on that from the diocese i am sure. and it's why we are partnering together so we can support with some of our training and experience. well done to you richard - you should feel good.

it was also amazing again to see harry and chris pack the big top with thousands of people off the back of edinburgh festival. i also really loved harry's solo show - he is so brilliant! he and chris must be soooo tired - have a well deserved rest guys! they are on tour in the autumn so do go and see them.

apparently according to my older brother i first went to greenbelt in 1981 so it turns out i have been quite a lot of times now. i have missed a couple of years when kids were young. 

we're gearing up for a new term in oxford. we will have about 76 students across everything including 6 on the new doctoral programme. because the pioneering work is growing and expanding in other hubs and centres round the country, i have rejigged my role to free me up to give time to that developmental work. and cathy ross is now the lead for the oxford centre. she is amazing and already leads our masters programme so i am very happy about that. a few people have assumed i will be disappearing - i won't! i am still a cms director and i will still be around teaching modules, tutoring and so on but doing less there overall and handing on the lead of oxford centre. it feels like a good change.  and i am sure there are plenty of adventures ahead.

[thanks to mark kensett for the top two photos - there are some more and a bit more info here. the last is at a strange angle but i was sat at the front at harry's feet for his poetry show]

greenbelt this weekend - come and say hi if you are there!

every bank holiday in august i look forward to greenbelt festival. i have been more years in my life than i care to count. it's a beautiful blend of hanging out at a festival with friends, exploring ideas around issues of justice and faith, enjoying music and arts, and these days even hanging out with grandchildren and nephews and nieces! i love to take part too and have done talks, photography exhibition, led the main communion service, lots of alternative worship events, run labyrinths, chaired panels, and co-ordinated the worship programme for several years. this year i am excited to be involved in the exchange venue which is about social transformation and i'll be chairing three sessions talking to pioneers who have turned a crazy idea into a project to contribute to good in the world - see this post on the pioneer site for details. 

i'll also be hanging around that venue wanting to talk to anyone who is interested in turning an idea into reality and trying to persuade them to come on the amazing make good week which is so great. and i'll be chatting to anyone interested in talking about pioneer mission who might be interested in training with us on the cms pioneer course. honestly those of us there from our team would love to hang out and talk pioneering mission with anyone who wants to. if you are interested, have ideas, are struggling or having a great time come and say hi.we are going to be with richard passmore and others from the northern centre which we are partnering in so if you are from the north and interested in pioneering come and say hi and find out what's happening there. 

and i will be helping proost with a creative worship service on sat evening. 

and of course i'll be answering politely all the people who ask me if i am harry baker's dad - yes i am! looking forward to seeing his show off the back of an amazing run at edinburgh festival and chris' show and harry and chris's show! it's going to be busy... it's going to be fun... and oh yes i am soooo happy to say the weather forecast looks great!!!!

spiritual but not religious

a lot of people identify with the description of spiritual but not religious. it's an intriguing descriptor for sure. we have lots of pioneers who engage with people in that space. i like to think i am in it but i probably have a bit too much religion to get away with it! anyway all that is to say the latest issue of anvil journal is out and is exploring that theme and mission with people in that space. it's creative and provocative. and do read the story at the end of emma moreton's article on drumming at the summer solstice at stonehenge which i loved! i do have a book review in there but i think i'll post it on the blog as a separate entry...

soul friend

Soul Friend*

Soul friend,
gift to rekindle the fire from heaven
in your
soul friend.

Two friends,
Herbert and Cuthbert.
Inspiration for new adventures
to friends.

Depend
on the One whose Spirit
calls us to dive in the
deep end.

God send
Northern pioneers
to share Christ’s love with those whom
God sends.

Bless then
the journey ahead
and may we become
soul friends.

* Written on the occasion of canoeing to St Herbert’s Island on Derwentwater to celebrate the launch of a Northern Centre for Pioneer Mission as a partnership between Church Mission Society and Carlisle Diocese. Herbert was a friend of St Cuthbert and would visit him on Lindisfarne for spiritual direction.

i don't often write poems but composed one this morning in my head on the drive back from cumbria following the canoeing adventure out to st herbert's island last night - you can see a few photos and read about it here. it's great to celebrate the development of a northern pioneer mission centre as a new collaboration between the diocese of carlisle and cms - more info here. when i say develop, they already have loads going on on the ground in mission and fresh expressions so we are simply joining in the fun to help resource and support it out of our experience with pioneers elsewhere.

i was struck by the soul friendship of herbert and cuthbert - herbert who lived as a hermit on the island would go and see cuthbert on lindisfarne each year for spiritual encouragement and direction. and i am sure cuthbert would have visited and prayed with herbert on the island on derwentwater. and how wonderful it is to find friendships like that where you get one another and can give encouragement to stay true to who you are. anyway that was the thinking and i hope cms and cumbria can develop deep friendship together. richard and i go back a long way so we've got a good start...

fresh expressions of church - changing the landscape

it was very encouraging this week to read of the positive reflections on fresh expressions of church at the general synod of the church of england - the general synod paper is here. in 2004 a report was published calls mission shaped church which reflected on the new things that had bubbled up around the edges of the church and basically said they are good - let’s have more new alongside the old or traditional. and they came up with the phrase fresh expressions of church. synod this week were told how in fifteen years 50000 new people have been added to the church and 15% of congregations are fresh expressions of church, which is around two dioceses. you can read a c of e news summary here which includes a motion passed which celebrates fresh expressions, asks for a report back on the new project led by heather cracknell, and my personal favourite point -

encourage every parish and diocese to be part of this movement forming new disciples and new congregations through a contextual approach to mission with the unreached in their community

that would be great! and why wouldn’t a parish and diocese want to be? but i especially like that the church writ large is naming a contextual approach to mission - thank god! it’s jargon of course but some jargon is helpful and the critical bit is the word context - mission should take the culture, the context, the way people do stuff in their locale seriously and share christ and develop church in ways that relate to and indeed grow in the soil of that local context and culture. ideally whatever grows should become led by people who are from that place and culture as soon as possible. (it was also what one of the key figures in cms history henry venn said was at the heart of mission practice developing the indigenous church). that is what a contextual approach is. and it means letting go of our taste, our preference, our way of doing things and the expectation that people should have to become like us in order to follow christ.

bishop martyn snow looks like he had a speech up his sleeve but didn’t get to share it at synod so has posted a facebook post of his reflections. it’s such a wonderful and positive post. he sees this as the most significant development in the church for decades. he kindly said i could post his reflection here so it is below but i also recommend you read through the comments on his post. he pulls out three lessons for the church - that it is a movement led by ordinary people and not professional priests; contextual mission - so we need to learn lessons of how to translate; and vulnerability - these things are small and fragile. on that last point he notes that there is not a lot of funding that has enabled this. that in itself is quite a complicated thing to get at what the investment has actually been from local churches, individuals, grants, salaries and so on. but it is small by comparison with what gets spent on other priorities in the church. 

of course you would expect me to remind me that if you are interested in contextual mission the pioneer training at cms has that at its heart - we love contextual mission. it's what we are all about - so get in touch if you are interested in exploring that further. 

bishop martyn snow's reflection on fresh expressions of church posted on facebook 9 july 2019

The strange irony of General Synod debating fresh expressions of church, straight after a 'business as usual' budget presentation.

I believe fervently that the Fresh Expressions movement is the single most significant development in the church in this country for decades. Having talked for many years about the importance of evangelism and the ‘re-conversion of our nation’, this predominantly lay movement, has quietly got on with the task. Eschewing the big events, mass publicity and big spending of some initiatives, the movement is teaching us about what Pope Francis calls ‘The Church’s Missionary Transformation’. This wonderfully ambiguous phrase – is the church the agent of the transformation of others or is it the subject of transformation – leads me to suggest that there are three specific lessons for the wider church.

Firstly, this is predominantly a lay movement. Fresh expressions of church offer us a living model of what can happen when God’s people are set free to be leaders in mission, when clergy and lay work in partnership, with a genuine sharing of gifts and true mutuality. Clergy are set free to be enablers of others – lay people are set free to use their God-given gifts, and their experience in networks outside the church. Both are needed.

At a time when the church is being forced to recognise the very damaging effects of clericalism – where a culture of deference has contributed to abuse, and difficulties in the reporting of abuse, and the poor response to the reporting of abuse – our recognition of lay ministry needs to be more than a patronising, ‘isn’t that interesting’. We simply must find ways of learning from fresh expressions and enabling their approach to ministry to shape that of the wider church.

And secondly, I would invite us to notice how the principle of contextualisation also opens our eyes to new insights. Contextual mission lies at the heart of the Fresh Expressions movement and ‘The Church’s Missionary Transformation’ is a helpful title for a church reflecting on what it means to be a Christian presence in every community.

As the missionary bishop Lesslie Newbigin reminded us, there is no such thing as a pure gospel – there is only a gospel enfleshed in culture and context – the gospel has to be embodied in a cultural context. And Andrew Walls, historian of Christian missions, writes “Divinity is translated into humanity, but into specific humanity, at home in specific segments of social reality. If the incarnation of the Son represents a divine act of translation, it is a prelude to repeated acts of re-translation.”

I put it to you that one of the most critical tasks facing us today, if we are to be a Christian presence in every community, is to learn again what it means to re- translate the gospel into every context and every culture that is now part of our wonderfully diverse nation. And as we translate, so we are transformed, or we might want to say, converted.

Finally, I would also note that the Fresh Expressions movement is teaching us about fragility and vulnerability. Most fresh expressions of church receive almost no funding. Most Pioneers receive little formal training beyond mentoring and coaching from other Pioneers. As a result, a fair proportion of fresh expressions of church only last a few years. But their very fragility and vulnerability is an important corrective in the Church of England.

There is a slight irony to the way the General Synod debate on Fresh Expressions followed straight after the Archbishops’ Council budget presentation. We welcomed the news of additional money from the Church Commissioners which will allow us to spend ever increasing amounts on exciting mission initiatives and training new clergy – all good. But there are some us, including bishops like me, who want to ask whether all this money is blinding us to what God is doing at this moment in our history. Could it be that the move of the church to the margins of society is a move of God? Could it be that the ending of our powerful status as a key institution governing the hearts and minds of millions of people who have little personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, is a good thing, which we should embrace?

Fifteen years after the Mission Shaped Church report, it is right that we should pause to thank God for this truly wonderful move of Gods Spirit. We should celebrate it - and I am actually quite pleased that Synod was being asked to do little else but notice it, celebrate it and bless it – countless Christian disciples getting on with mission in their local communities, in their own networks, growing faith with children, ‘turning up the volume’ about BAME inclusion, avoiding clericalism, operating within the simplest of legislative structures, often working ecumenically, with almost no money spent on training, support or deployment. Yes, we should celebrate the beginnings of ‘The Church’s Missionary Transformation’.

HUI - my next 4 days

excited for the next four days as at cms pioneer we are hosting a gathering to share learning about training and education for mission. it's called hui - see below for why - here's the spiel we sent out about it. 

New imaginative approaches to mission and church have emerged in range of contexts round the world. Alongside that, new approaches to mission education, leadership training and theological education are being explored. In Western contexts it feels like the old models don’t work so well any more but equally new ones are quite fragile and exploratory. In the global South there is less baggage and new approaches areemerging out of energy for mission or finding ways to do things that are authentic to the locale. At CMS in England we have felt our way towards a new approach to training which is now in its ninth year and has been something of an exhilarating ride. Over the nine years we have had lots of international visitors who want to talk about training/education that is focused towards pioneering mission* and have enjoyed those conversations very much. Hui is a Maori word for a gathering where there is mutual sharing and exchange of ideas and learning and we thought it would be good to have one of those for mission educators or whatever you want to call yourselves. It’s as simple as that really!

*It’s actually hard to know what language to use to talk about it! For example mission education sounds like it’s training for people going to another country (and of course it can be but often isn’t). Theological education or ministerial formation also sounds heavy (though theology and ministry are key aspects of the conversation). We have used ‘pioneer mission leadership training’ but appreciate that is particular to our context and a bit long. But whatever we call it, at heart it is about wanting to help people see and imagine through a lens of mission and to be enabled to participate in that mission in good and transforming ways.

hopefully we'll tweet with #HUI2019 so do follow along and i am sure we'll collect contributions and musings to share at a later stage

pioneering in europe

this week i have been at a conference in utrecht on pioneering and fresh expression sof church hearing stories of how people across europe are starting new things and working with their denominations to create space for that. i have written something about it on the cms pioneer blog including links to some of the strategy of the protestant church in the netherlands which is very helpful i think.

wilding the church

really loved this piece from paul bradbury on wilding the church where he takes the example of wilding knepp estate in sussex and allows it to spark his imagination and make connections to the ecology of the church environment which might benefit from some wilding and wild theology.

fiesta - pioneer festival in london in july

i'm looking forward to fiesta in london in july - a festival for pioneers, activists and others wanting to make their community a better place. it's being hosted by earlsfield friary and will be great food, music, spirituality, conversations and the like. book in here . grace are taking part on the sat night and i see harry and chris will also be performing. i am a big fan of alastair mcintosh who is going to be the resident wise elder for the weekend.