jonnybaker

church of england online worship today

together with cathy ross i planned and helped lead today's church of england online worship service. you can watch here and download the order of service here

it was good fun to do and was amazing that the reading for the day is a passage about going to the other side of the lake which has been one i have thought about for a couple of years in relation to pioneering mission. thank you to all the people who contributed - photography, videos, poetry, music, prayers. it was a combined effort from lots of pioneers.

pioneering in a rural parish - and the impact of training

quite often pioneering gets set up as an out there practice beyond the current ways of doing things (and sometimes it is). however in the church, research shows that most new things that are started have a relationship with and most likely come out of an existing parish church. i really loved reading the case study of janice hamilton's pioneering in a rural parish. she began with a process of praying and listening and out of that noticed somewhere she felt stirred to connect with but that the church did not engage with. then through that seeing she has built a community hub in partnership with others taking an asset based approach and she started a new community of disciples in that space. it's quite something what she has done but equally it is simply an ordinary rural parish so any church could do the same - pray, notice, experiment, build partnerships with the local community and make something happen. 

janice trained with us at cms pioneer mission leadership training in oxford - it is a particular joy when you see how a former student is flourishing but it's also lovely to see them put into practice what we have talked about! it's a great example of pioneer practice - though not one i included in the book. and of course i then learn from the practice they develop. 

it's the time of year to sign up for training that starts in september. janice is an ordained pioneer who trained with us. if you are selected for ordination why not come and train with us at cms! the majority of our students are independent and not getting ordained so we cater for both. the main thing is that if if you are interested in mission and pioneering why not do some training? you can see from janice's story the benefit that gives alongside practice. we offer training at all levels which are in common awards through durham university - certificate, diploma, degree, masters, and dth (through roehampton) and you can of course simply audit modules which means to attend without being registered with durham university.

we have an open day on monday - there are two zooms - one in the morning and one in the evening. we had hoped to be on site in the day but have rearranged given the govt guidelines change this week. do sign upo. if that doesn't work get in touch if you want to talk about training. i can honestly say i have seen how encouraging and transforming training has been for people like janice. she has completed her part now in that role and heads to start a new cycle of practice in cheltenham. go well!

pioneer practice is now available!

i am so pleased to be able to tell you that pioneer practice is now available to buy here. it's taken a while to get the web site up and running but it is there now and looks great and hopefully is simple enough to use... and we can ship anywhere. it's only £13 for almost 200 pages full colour which we hope you'll agree is pretty good value. you have to pay via paypal at the oment though that will take cards - we are adding in another card payment option too.

the web site is home of a new partnership between myself, jon birch and joel baker - GETsidetracked. we've even applied for a registered trademark which i have never done before. i love how this came about as a result of running the webinar series on creativity earlier this year. pioneer practice is our first project. here's an image of the site - cool eh?!

sacred cows and sweet teeth - interview on v12 podcast

i was interviewed recently by david cotterill for the V12 podcast. it was good fun and the topic we were talking about was worship and the adventure of making that in creative ways that relate to the culture(s) of those outside of the church. you can find it on whatever your preferred podcast podcast app is - but here's a link on google or here's one on spotify

i got an email this week from someone asking me about how you navigate the liturgy and rubrics of your denomination or church in relation to pioneering with groups who won't relate easily to that - i sent a link to this interview as an answer. it made me realise that whilst some of us who were involved in alternative worship back in the day - navigating the contours of faith in the postmodern turn, these questions are still very pertinent and new to others. in some ways worship has been backgrounded or at least put layter in the mission process but it is still an essential component to explore. hope this helps if that is your question.

that time of year - sign up for pioneer training - and a few new things to tell you about

there is an open day on zoom on may 10 - it's not really a day - an hour and a half! come and find out about cms pioneer training that is accredited through durham university common awards. if you are a pioneer or into mission, honestly you'll love it. have a look at this page of video snippets to get a feel for what students say. now is the time to sign up if you'd like to train with us from sept 2021.

you can do modules, certificate, diploma, degree, ma, and even a dth now. the model is that you are somewhere involved in practice and the training helps you reflect on that. as well as the pioneer lens through everything, there is a route at undergraduate level that is focused on youth, children and family ministry too. you can train with us for ordination or for licensed lay ministry in the church of england or we have a route for baptist ministers too. do have a browse round the web site or give me a shout if you like.

there are a few new things to tell you about:

first up we have a new route through the ma - this is pretty exciting. see the ma page here. we have done things together with missio africanus over the years and been big fans of what they are about. through that friendship an idea has grown of a route through the ma that is focused on students in the african diaspora. it will do three modules we already have along with three new ones. you can do that ma from anywhere in the world as it will be an online pathway! yes you read that right...

the regular ma is also now being offered face to face and online. so it's suddenly a lot more accessible.

i should add that students on the different routes will interact as modules overlap etc so there will be one diverse student body. we hope to add in other diaspora focus over time too by the way. 

then at undergraduate level we are running a more blended model - this means you reap the benefit of face to face which we are all missing right now but just under half the modules will be online. this also means more accessibility and less travel overall but you also can meet people in the same room (remember that?!)

 

online conversation about pioneer practice with fresh expressions next week

next wednesday 1pm i am hosting a conversation about pioneer practice with some wonderful pioneers - see below for info

Join us next Wednesday 1-2 pm UK LIVE* right here on our fresh expressionms Facebook Page and YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR_uSFxBT4XjGeyUZggcZSA for a conversation with:

Jonny Baker founder of Church Mission Society (CMS) pioneer training where he is director of mission education and loves all things creative. His latest venture is GETsidetracked the first project of which is the full colour book Pioneer Practice which is out this month. 

Anna Hembury - an experienced pioneer practitioner who's been based in Hull for 20 years

David Harrigan - a pioneer who started a Fresh Expression through boxing

Sue Steer - a new housing pioneer

And Ann Marie Wilson - a pioneer campaigning to end FGM in 28 countries in Africa

 

Practice is about how pioneering actually happens on the ground. Jonny will present practical wisdom gleaned over the last decade and collated over the last year of lockdown on themes such as soulwork, money and dealing with the powers that be. Expect a mix of findings from some new research, stories and reflections discussed with 4 guests who are are involved in a range of pioneer practice.

Join us live next week and bring your questions, stories and reflections from your context

*if you can't join the conversation live then you can watch later on as the broadcast will be saved to our Facebook Page and YouTube Channel

gather was a blast

gather went really well. it was inevitably chaotic at first with it being new to so many people and navigating the technology and so on. but people seemed to love it and it had a real buzz to it. the site was amazing - james fox robinson had gone the extra mile with the design and effort he put in to create something really special. there's a lovely write up on it by jeremy woodham on the pioneer blog here - 

positive vibes for virtual pioneer festival

thanks everyone who came and who contributed!

preview of gather programme

gather is next week and there is now a full programme available to see here. ticket sales end monday night. it looks incredible and it's been put together by volunteers co-ordinating various venues and spaces. hope to see you there - i am so looking forward to it. it's not very often you get involved in planning something that is so new that you can't quite visualise what it is going to be like!

fire in the bones

the publisher scm gave cms permission to publish the foreword i wrote to the go between god by john taylor - fire in the bones

sneak preview - nearly there

last update on the kickstarter - we have reached our stretch target - so grateful to everyone. the design is now finished bar a view tweaks. you can get a sneak preview on the latest update from jon here. the kickstarter finishes on sunday - do pre-order if you haven't and the offers inspire a friend and network catalyst are better than you'll get after the kickstarter!

gather festival - what to expect

i blogged about gather, a virtual festival-in-a-day celebrating and exploring pioneering mission practice. it can be hard to imagine what exactly that looks like. so if you are wondering here is an update which has been added to the booking page but it should help you imagine what to expect. we are really looking forward to it. the image above is one of the venue entrances.

Spaces and Venues

• Goodmakers - a venue hosted by Cathers from Goodmakers Society exploring all things pioneering related to making good in the world. If you have an idea and want to know how to work with it to make it real, this is the venue for you.
• Toolshed - hosted by Richard Passmore and Gavin Mart this workshop space will showcase and explore tools that help with pioneer practice on the ground. A tool helps you do something better, more easily or quickly than you could without it.
• Story - hosted by Sarah Clarke and Luke Larner. A storytelling tent to hear and share stories of pioneer practice.
• Starfish networking space - hosted by Andrea Campanale with the starfish team. Meet others that share your passion for pioneering around a related theme. Just drop in.
• Panels - hosted by Jonny Baker, Shannon Hopkins and Harvey Kwiyani. Four panels creating lively conversation on themes related to pioneer practice.
• Mind The Gap - hosted by Tina Hodgett and Paul Bradbury. A venue for reimagining church and missional community.
• Breathe Prayer Space - a space to get away and slow down and pray. It includes the wonderful St Paul’s millennium labyrinth respun by Grace for gather.town. Close by will be some one to one spiritual direction sessions.
• Wild Wood - hosted by Johnny Sertin, Rachel Summers and Gillian Traverse. There is an outdoor woodland ‘The Glade’ and the funky ‘Treehouse’ where you can dive into pioneer practice, biospirituality and the outdoors. Rewild your soul!
• Research lounge - hosted by Cathy Ross and James Butler. Grab a sofa and hear from students and researchers exploring the contours of pioneer practice.
• The Oratory - a programme of talks and presentations to inspire and reflect on pioneer practice.

As if that wasn’t enough there are some social spaces to explore. As well as the main site which is a greenspace, there is a beach, a garden, and the moon where you can go and hang out.

Programme

We are organising the programme by inviting hosts to create programmes in the ten spaces above. There will be slots running for about 45 minutes at 11, 12, 2, and 3.

Worship

At the start and end of the day there will be a choice of 4 worship slots ranging from maranatha yoga to creative liturgy.

Evening entertainment

After a break where you get away from screen or hang out with friends in gather.town there is an evening programme as follows:

• Quiz designed and led by Harry Baker.
• Performance cafe - a mix of music, spoken word and artistry compered and curated by Katy Partridge and Tim Watson.
• Cocktail lounge with tunes from DJ Steve Leach.
• Campfire in the Wild Wood to hang out and share songs and stories.

We will add details of the programme ahead of time and send to everyone who has booked so you can plan ahead.

book tickets here

what a week!

one week in and the pioneer practice kickstarter is nearly there. it's going to happen! thank you to everyone who has backed it, pre-ordered, and cheered us on. watching the kickstarter total ticking over turns out to be a new kind of addiction.

it's also been a really fun week for us as jon has got cracking with the design. every day he has done several spreads and sent them over to me to look through and edit and send back and day by day it's coming to life. we are loving it so far! to give you a flavour of what to expect here's a few spreads

the rewards of inspire a friend and network catalyst have proved popular and rightly so because they are a good deal that won't be available after the kickstarter. if you are one of the no doubt hundreds who thought to themselves 'o yes i like the sound of that must back it' but hasn't yet then go for it - now is the time. 

kickstarter launched today - pioneer practice

i have been working on pioneer practice for a year and am self publishing it. i have set up a kickstarter which runs until easter to raise the money through pre-sales and other rewards for the cost of printing and design. please have a look and i'd love you to back it. it's a full colour book meets magazine - one of those chunky coffee table ones. and i am working with friend jon birch who is doing the design. thank you in advance!

gather - a festival in gathertown exploring pioneer practice

we are hosting an online festival for pioneers in gather.town. it's on april 21 and tickets are £9 for students or £19 

gather.town is an online environment in which you have an avatar and can wander round and go into venues and chat with people in close proximity. it’s like zoom meets minecraft or something! it’s fun and dynamic. we have designed a whole festival site which includes a beach, treehouse, wild wood, even the moon and around a dozen venues in which a varied programme of story telling, talks, conversations, workshops and panels will take place. there are loads of spaces you can hang out and chat with people - that’s often one of the best things at gatherings like this. in the evening there will be a range of entertainment - quiz, spoken word, performance and so on.

the overarching theme is pioneer practice - and we are designing the programme so that there will be things suitable if you are interested in particular kinds of pioneer practice, tools to help you, and things if you are just starting out or if you have loads of experience. there will plenty of sharing stories and conversation.

we hope it will be a huge celebration of pioneering, an inspiring and encouraging gathering and a brilliant day.

we’d love you to come if you can. we’ve kept the price as low as possible. do spread the word. because it is online, as long as you can make the timezone work you can come from anywhere in the world. We are not recording the content so you have to come to experience it.

the time sounds long but there are loads of gaps and you can turn your camera and sound off and come and go as you please. so don’t for a moment imagine being online attending things for 12 hours solid! see the booking page for more detail on the timings.

we have also been working on a book called pioneer practice which you will hear about in early march as we are running a kickstarter for that. that is a full colour practice focused book. the first 25 people to buy a full price ticket will get a free copy of the book when it is published in april. this year at cms we are celebrating 10 years of pioneer training - we haven’t been able to meet in person for a party but this event is one of our ways of celebrating. the book and theme have been picked and written to share practical wisdom that has been gleaned over that decade.

i really hope you can make the day.

download a flyer

BOOK TICKETS HERE

proost still going strong - free downloads

proost is still going strong i am pleased to say hosted as it is now by space to breathe. there are two recent books that are available as free downloads or you can buy as printed books

the first is a collection of liturgies collated by heather cracknell for fresh expression called opening the doors. mark berry, ruth wells, tim watson and dorothy woods are the contributors so i am sure it is good. i gave printed copies to a couple of people at christmas.

the second is the long promised return? by tim watson, a set of poems and prayers written in the latest lockdown. i have just downloaded it. 

i also noticed future present is currently in the free downloads section so if you have never got yourself a copy of that it's definitely worth getting hold of.

an adventure of the (digital) imagination

i got a copy in the post of missio dei in a digital age edited by jonas kurlberg and peter phillips. i attended a conference back in april 2019 on the theme and presented a paper there which i called mission: an adventure of the (digital) imagination. all those have been worked up into this volume. at the time no one knew that reflecting on mission in relation to digital communication and connection and community would be such a big thing come 2020.

in my chapter i explore how the currency of mission is imagination in relation to culture. the wisdom gleaned from intercultural work is a great resource to reflect on in relation to digital spaces. in a section called imagination, seeing and inventiveness i look at examples from winson green and nomad podcast. my chapter is also a dialogue or riff on pete ward's liquid ecclesiology. love to know what you think if you read it!

it's the kind of book you can dive in where you like and where your interests lie - i found it a really interesting read and think my takeaway was katherine schmidt's down to earth suggestion that "most Christians should be in digital spaces as themselves witnessing to God's mercy through relationships".

that's me done for a while on books i have contributed to (apart from the one i am working on right now of course!)

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.

looking forward looking back

church mission society magazine is called the call. the current issue focuses on pioneer mission celebrating 10 years of pioneer training. we were actually 10 back in september in case it is ringing a bell. but i think we can celebrate all year. i don't know where 10 years went! there are four feature articles and they will all appear online.

i did a bit of counting as you do for some stats. it made me realise that if i count this year (i.e. the eleventh year intake) we have had 500 pioneers do at least one module in oxford or in a hub. there is quite a network now with 6 hubs across the country as well. 

for the issue i was asked to reflect on 5 lessons learned and 5 challenges looking ahead. here's a link to the piece looking forward looking back.

these are the things i settled on 

5 lessons learned:

• pioneering is a wonderful gift
• mission is the treasure
• be you
• it's not just about the training
• the journey to the new always goes through the desert

and 5 challenges ahead:

• going beyond the edges
• imagination
• diversity
• low level innovation
• advocating for pioneering

it reminded me of writing a piece in 2012 two years in to the course on 5 Things I Have Learned which was on the fresh expressions web site back in the day but the link is now broken so i have uploaded the word document i have of that article here so i have a record of it. the first point is the same which made me smile which is that pioneering is a wonderful gift.

i'm hugely grateful to cms for putting up with me for that long and it's been a great community in which to host pioneers because of the experience in mission across cultures and the nous about mission, imagination and culture.

i found the blog post i wrote on the day we began with a newsletter and this image 

reimagining mission from urban places

i always mean to blog about brilliant books i read. i add them to a list of ideas for blog posts but it seems to take an age to get onto that with everything else there is to do! but i finally have written a review of anna ruddick's wonderful book reimagining mission from urban places on what she calls missional pastoral care for the latest edition of anvil journal. you have to download the whole thing to get to book reviews so i am posting the review here.

Reimagining Mission From Urban Places by Anna Ruddick

Anna Ruddick was part of the Eden network who, motivated by their faith, moved into urban estates to share the gospel. It was a movement of young adults whose energy and motivation grew out of evangelical festivals and parachurch organisations. Over several years Anna pursued practical theology research to reflect on that movement and mission practice through a blend of ethnographic research, interviews and doing practical theology. Practical theology is paying attention through the research to the lived experience and putting that in conversation with scripture and resources of theology and other disciplines to discern what God is doing or where God is at work. Through that process she develops a framework for mission she names ‘missional pastoral care’ which is intentional missional living shared by seven elements - being among people who are different, living locally, being available, taking practical action, log term commitment, consistency and love. The interviews are with members of the teams and those they got to know.

At the core of her work is the exploration of the gap between the rhetoric of mission that she went with from the evangelical community that sent the teams with its accompanying expectations of what results might look like, and the reality of what actually happened on the ground. All sorts of good things took place which led to flourishing and genuine transformation but those that went on mission found that both mission and their evangelicalism were changed in the process.

If you are a practitioner or pioneer in a context like this this book will be invaluable. The approach makes so much sense. And it’s a relief because there is an honesty about the reality of what mission is like perhaps summed up in one of the chapter titles “If it’s messy, slow and complicated you’re probably doing something right.”. Through her interviews and reflections on them Anna pays  attention to how lives change in slow and messy ways. The changes are real and blend shifts in perspective and meaning making alongside or within an environment that loves and affirms people for who they are over the long term. It’s an approach that chimes well with Sam Wells discussion of being with rather than fixing people. And I really liked the way the whole was framed with mission as what God is doing in the world which we join in with.

However it is not just a book for practitioners. Anna’s discussion over two chapters of what good news is and of evangelicals’ tribe and identity and how it could respond to the mission challenges and context we are in is so good and so important. I fear it may not get the audience it deserves because it’s tucked in what looks like a book for practitioners. She writes as an insider to the tribe which is important to say so it’s written in a tone of careful consideration and appeal to that community. She unpacks the evangelical mission narrative and says that there is a mismatch between that and the realities of mission engagement on the ground. This arises because there is a rejection of context. She then develops an alternative mission narrative which I found compelling framed as it is with the discovery that God is present and at work in the world with people in the community who are made in God’s image. She then unpacks evangelical identity and where it has come from and suggests it could evolve in four ways - firstly revisiting epistemology in response to our time and place (rather the time and place from which it arose); secondly relaxing a concern for protecting evangelical identity and aligning with the incoming kingdom of God in the world; thirdly good-newsness in mission impulse and passionate piety; and lastly a bigger story reframing the doctrinal priorities of evangelical theology. There is not space to elaborate on these here but I really commend that section of the book and hope it gets picked up for wider conversation. There has always been a strain of evangelicalism with which that would all resonate - CMS at its best has been in that flow in my opinion. There were a couple of points where Anna’s writing reminded me of John Taylor’s writing for example.

Lastly just to state the obvious, this is a UK book on mission. This is significant because it chimes with the UK context really well in ways that say American books on mission (of which there are many more) simply don’t. It is gritty and missiologically brilliant. It’s also a very welcome counter voice to the results driven approach that seems to be dominating for example the Church of England’s investment in mission through the Church Commissioners monies. I think Anna is a wonderful practical theologian and this is exactly the sort of thinking that the church needs right now.

artists in times of challenge and collapse

a new issue of anvil journal has landed exploring mission and the arts. the articles, reflections and video interviews all came out of the pioneer conversations day last year. it was the first one i have missed as i was in new zealand (a good excuse!) so it's great to be able to catch up on it. it's edited by sarah clarke who put the day together. as you'll know if you follow my blog or just if you know me, the arts and creativity are something i am passionate about. there are lots of really interesting articles and video interviews.

unusually for me i started with the videos and really enjoyed the video interview with david benjamin blower which i have embedded above where he explores the connection between artists and prophets. i love his article as well - artists in a time of challenge and collapse where he explores the importance of artists freedom from serving an institutions structures and aims. he has a four track album apocalyptic lockdown blues that really catches the moment we are in too that you might want to check out.