jonnybaker

homeless jesus

a sculpture by tim schmalz. this is in the middle of mayfair - could not be better placed! it is a really amazing sculpture, wonderfully made.

ambient prayer 2

grace on saturday february 10 is another ambient prayer. this one will be similar in format but with different images, movie, playlist, prayers. over time we'll develop a series with a repeating form but different approaches to contemplative prayer. i have even made an ambient video loop for it! nothing will be demainded of you other than sitting in silence listening to great music and being invited to pray. 

march 2 - a quiet day with jonny baker

i am leading a retreat/quiet day let's go to the other side of the lake at st katharine's in london on saturday march 2. i am looking forward to it. it really will be a retreat type of day, not a teaching event. i'd love you to come - click on the link above to book. the blurb says

A day’s retreat led by Jonny Baker will be based around the story in Mark 4 and 5 where Jesus invites the disciples to travel to the other side of the lake. There will be plenty of space and a variety of ways of reflecting drawing on contemplative practices. Expect a mix of Ignatian spirituality fused with creativity.

new forms: ambient prayer 1

[photo: steve collins]

it's lovely when something comes together. i have had a playlist called ambient prayer for a few years so it's an idea that has been brewing. but last night's grace saw the first ambient prayer. 

we have created a frame/shape for ambient prayer around 5 sections - settle, descent, meditation, silence, ascent. ambient music plays throughout (apart from silence). within that there are two guided prayer exercises - one a centring/stilling prayer and the other a meditation/contemplative exercise. those can vary of course. then each time there is a visual idea - ideally expressed in both still and moving image. we also made a card to give to people who came. that has the image, section titles, and prayers. a screen has the visual idea and the name of the section at that point i.e. also minimal. it was low lit with a candle in the centre. 

for ambient prayer 1 we used a breathing prayer exercise with christine sine's lovely prayer and the lovely be still prayer from st hilda community. the visual idea was the tidal pool in margate as one side of the wall was still and the other choppy which seemed a good picture for the attempt to settle and be still. i took the movie on a phone camera so it's a bit shaky but now want to go back and shoot it with a tripod but whether the conditions will repeat i don't know. it was a very compelling image.

the outline for ambient prayer 1 has been added to the grace archive here, including an explanation, the prayers, the playlist, the postcard and so on.  

the opening and closing prayer written by steve collins were written especially for ambient prayer. i am adding those below:

opening prayer

turn towards god
with all of your being
throw your turbulent concerns, your anxieties and joys
into the calm and unfathomable sea of god
let them sink down until the ripples have ceased
do not look for them
or cast lines into the depths to fish for them

holy god, holy and eternal
maker and sustainer of all things
calm the storms of our hearts and minds
carry us in the ship of your love
across the reflecting sea of prayer
guided by your Son

amen

closing prayer

return clean from prayer to the world
and love it more
let calm trust in god be rooted in you
like a tree that stands secure
become shelter and healing to those around you
bear fruit

holy god, holy and eternal
maker and sustainer of all things
fill us with the strong hope of your spirit
help us plant the seeds of your love
into the broken ground of the world
watered by your Son

amen

the playlist is here on apple and here on spotify - i think these tunes are really wonderful but then i did put it together. 

i hope over time we'll build up several of these.

i have tagged this new forms. that has been on my mind for quite some time to blog/insta new forms of worship, community, church. i have of course done that for years and it was the name of a venue we hosted at greenbelt for years. anyway i hope over time to add a few things to that conversation as we need them as much as ever. grace is not new and yes we have done things like this for a while but this is a new form/shape which others are welcome to pick up/adapt/reinvent so i think it fits the bill.

this can go on the worship trick 4 series list too!

no wastelands

no wastelands: how to grow seedbeds of shalom in your neighbourhood by ash barker is a wonderful book. it pulls together so many threads distilling his and anj's experience, practice, wisdom, theology.

i have taken groups of pioneer students to visit ash and anj in winson green over the last 7 years and they always come away challenged and inspired. the reason is simple – they are living out the gospel in their neighbourhood in ways that are bringing visible change, visible good. ash's word for that is shalom - life flourishing in a place. ash has so much experience having done four cycles of living in urban neighbourhoods round the world facing multiple challenges. no wastelands distils the wisdom of that experience, practice, and theology into one accessible volume. it’s a mix of inspiring stories, gritty honesty, practical ideas, advice and frameworks, spiritual practices, theology and missiology, combining into an amazing handbook to guide anyone else wanting to follow in this direction, of which I hope there will be many. it is rich and deep. ash’s passion for enabling innovative leaders and changemakers from inside those neighbourhoods shines through – that’s the thing that has grabbed me personally the most. I will be coming back to this again and again and passing it on to others.

it is available from amazon or ash

we have a day (which will advertised shortly) for the pioneer network on march 21 most likley in bristol. ash will be at that so do pout that in your diary. he is also out and about round the uk as follows:

19 Jan - Nazarene Theological College’s Cafe, Manchester
27 Jan - Seedbeds Centre, East Ham, London
28 Jan - Lodge Road Community Church, Birmingham
<15 Mar - Kelvinside Hillhead Church, Glasgow
16 Mar - Forge Conference, Perth, Scotland
17 Mar - St Augustine Church, Edinburgh
21 Mar - CMS Gather day (location tbc)
12 Apr - The Church on the Corner, London (tbc)
23 Apr - Dublin
26 Apr - Forth Spring, Belfast
25 May - Holy Island, UK
7 Jun - The Message Trust, Manchester

contact seedbeds to find out more and i will add details of the march 21 day as soon as i have them.

ambient prayer

january and february’s grace are ‘ambient prayer’.

expect something minimal - ambient music, low light in the dark of winter, an image to ponder, space to breathe, a candle, silence, a few guiding thoughts for prayer.

followed by a café.

if you have never been to grace, or are not used to church spaces this would be a lovely one to attend as it will be very quiet. you won't be called on to do anything other than sit in the quiet with ambient music with space to be still, to meditate, to pray. it's at st mary's in ealing 8pm on saturday 13 january. wear warm clothes as even when the heating is on it is never hot in winter!

i absolutely love ambient music and will be curating the playlist so i can't wait.

how did we get here?

this is a personal reflection on how we have got to where we are w.r.t. mission and the church. it was written for a think tank group in the church of england on mixed ecology (which means the ecosystem that can contain multiple ways of being church especially embracing new forms that relate to those outside of church cultures). in other words it is an english perspective, not attempting to give a global overview, and it is related primarily to the church of england. it was written as a discussion starter so reads as a set of notes rather than a crafted article. i wrote it in the wake of covid. but now seems a good moment to publish it prompted by the emerged podcast. after I had written a draft of this I came across a chapter written by graham cray in cultivating missional change which was a book published in south africa which gives an excellent overview. i have opinions on what i have written but have tried to resist commenting or critiquing at this juncture. i think it best to be generous and see these threads as part of a whole, a wider movement.

Mixed Ecology: How Did We Get Here?

This is inevitably a take and there will be many other takes and lots to fill in. So think of this as a conversation starter and something that others can add to or possibly write other takes. There is a question of how far you go back and why but I think 50 years is probably a reasonable window. 

Two environmental factors

Culture - the world changed significantly whatever way you describe it - post modern, emerging, post Christendom, post Christian even. One significant factor aligned with this is digital and communication technology which has changed so much more than we realise. Some writers see the change as a threat and some as opportunity but the change is not really contested.

Decline - I remember a staged walkout at an event in the 90s of 300 young people which at the time was the stat leaving the UK church each week. Whatever way you come at it church was declining which created anxiety and pressure.

Four tributaries

Urban areas - there is a long history of engaging in poorer areas - worker priests and so forth but the marker that sticks out is the Faith in the City report in 1985 which made an impact. The reason it’s worth mentioning is it raised questions about resourcing, liturgy, young people, race, culture, mission and so forth. It probably didn’t use the term but was asking contextual questions.

Charismatic renewal - there are various tributaries of this but a lot of the same issues we talk about now were in the renewal conversations though talk of new churches came later. Whatever your tradition that movement softened the church and generated openness to the Spirit in a fresh way, and emphasised ministry in the body of Christ rather than being too clerical. There was some threat in this too in that many left and set up other things but a lot stayed and quite a lot came back. Festivals and conferences led to various networks addressing questions of church and mission in a range of ways. The likes of Graham Cray, for example, were quite shaped by that movement. John Collins who was the modern founder of HTB was too. A later tributary though less Anglican was the coalition of youth led initiatives that were part of house church movements and mission agencies from the 1990’s. This included in particular Ichthus and Pioneer along with NGM, Youth For Christ, Frontier Youth trust, Oasis, New Wine and YWAM England. This was a fusion of alt worship exploration and mission impulse. Events such as Greenbelt and Remix explored the objective of reimagining faith in the cultural commons with art and justice themes. This laid the ground for catalysing a number of other significant sub movements including, cultural shift, 24/7, the Factory, Soul Survivor and so forth.

Global missions - Lesslie Newbigin is probably the most famous voice from when he returned to England from India (1974) and drew on issues of mission and culture to say that we needed mission that took the gospel and culture in the West seriously. Another thread from missions was contextual theology which is a relatively new concept growing either out of liberation theology in S America and S Africa. The postmodern turn questioned the West’s overarching domination and narrative in theology as much as in other disciplines so global voices and other voices from the margins became very important. Contextual approaches fit this new environment well. CMS first engaged in Britain as a mission context in the 1970s. And then engaged in a new way following a report in the 2000s recommending engagement with what it described as the emerging culture.

Youthwork - as noted above the decline in young people was a lightning rod for the church’s anxiety around decline. Pete Ward made the link between cross cultural mission and youth ministry in his book Youth Culture and the Gospel in 1992. Youth ministers began experimenting and developing youth church (which they were not able to call that at times). Oxford Youthworks and Frontier Youth Trust pioneered in that space, with some iterations of YFC on board.

Some chapters in the story

Decade of evangelism. The Church of England’s efforts in the decade of evangelism (1990s) haven’t gone down that favourably in history - a review said that it had probably slowed decline at least. There was a lot of effort but not a lot to show for it. That partly fuelled questions of what a better approach was and what might come out of it. At the conference ACE99 reflecting on it, a memorable moment was when John Drane shared a cross cultural approach with spiritual seekers at new age fairs using tarot cards that seemed to polarise the room - one half excited about contextual mission and the other thinking they were hearing some new heresy.

Theology. It was not just a pragmatic movement. A re-theologising was most certainly taking place, with a significant level of thought leadership and theological reflection. Missio Dei became a widely received theological idea that flipped peoples understanding (albeit it had emerged in the 1950s). More broadly there has been a turn to context and a new appreciation of the incarnation in theology – inculturation or contextualization are two ways of expressing it. Trinitarian participation is another way that has been opened up of understanding mission. There has been a new emphasis on the Spirit in mission. Ecclesiology is also an area that has had a lot of attention, notably Rowan Williams introduction to MSC setting the tone for that. And more latterly a whole conversation has kicked off around decolonising mission and deconstructing whiteness.

Church planting. There were several ways into this but church planting became a growing area of interest. Growing indigenous expressions of church was a logical outcome of mission that drew on cross cultural approaches - youth churches grew from this understanding in the 1980s. Anglican Church Planting Initiatives was founded as a charity in 1996 though I imagine was doing things from around 1991. Interestingly in the late 1990s and early 2000s (I think) the annual conferences that they hosted showcased anything and everything new - congregation plants, alternative worship, cell church, youth church. It was only much later that the language of planting became more polarising as it seemed to be the preserve of more conservative approaches to both theology and church.

Alternative Worship. This was a movement that engaged imaginatively with postmodern culture in quite radical ways in the 90s both in terms of the structure of church and worship but also exploring theology in ways that seemed to fit postmodern sensibilities - black, eco, feminist and liberation theologies were all at the table. Intriguingly it also seemed a playful turning away from modernising moves of the charismatic movement towards a blend of more ancient with urban club culture. Greenbelt festival was home to this and then a range of other new forms that were picked up and shared.

Emerging church. The issue named by emerging church seemed to be that it was not simply about changing worship but about the whole - discipleship, spirituality, church, leadership and so on all needed exploring in light of the new environment. In 2002 ACPI, Church Army, CMS and others to agree to start a web site to catch some of the stories of what was emerging and emergingchurch.info was set up to do that. Perhaps a significant book (though not well received by some Anglicans) was The Shaping of Things To Come by Hirsch and Frost which catalysed a lot of conversation about what being missional meant. Some started to call their church expressions missional communities, others drew on monastic patterns and claimed a new monasticism.

Mission Shaped Church. In 2004 this report named the surprise of the bubbling up of fresh expressions of church around the edge, said it was a good thing and named the mixed economy of church in the intro by Rowan Williams. Messy church started that year I think which became one of the most widespread fresh expressions.

Fresh Expressions. The Lambeth Partners funded fresh expressions under Rowan Williams wooing and persuasion and that quite quickly diffused across the church. For example at one time I think Mission Shaped Ministry, a course in fresh expressions had run in 40 dioceses. Other denominations got on board - Baptists, Methodists, Salvation Army, Congregataional Federation, URC to name a few. It also generated a lot of interest in other parts of the world. For example I know MSC was translated into Korean. FX was keen to appeal across all streams of the church and notably published books relating to the sacramental traditions. It has always struggled to shake off accusations of being overly evangelical which is slightly odd given Rowan’s leadership. Several years later the Church of England backed off funding FX - I think because the view was it had become embedded or mainstream but also the funding through Lambeth Partners stopped with a change of Archbishop from Rowan to Justin. Other denominations still support it. The argument in defence of this will be that it is embedded in the strategy now. I will resist commenting at this point.

Church Army and CMS (two of the mission communities or sodalities of the C of E) - Church Army and CMS have been players all the way through the above both contributing to the thinking and theological imagination as far back as the likes of John Taylor but also through publishing, being on the group that wrote MSC, developing training and so forth. Other newer charities or groups have since emerged (CCX, Myriad etc). Dioceses have really needed the sodal structures to call the church forward and to work in partnership with.

Pioneer Ministry. It was a recommendation in Mission Shaped Church that the kind of ministry that was starting new things should be seen as a new designation and pioneer ministry was what it was called. Another recommendation was that training for pioneer ministry should be done through a cross cultural lens which is why CMS for example were invited by the church to design training. Stephen Croft the first Fresh Expression worker under Rowan managed to do the policy work for a recognition of a designation of pioneer ministry and also worked to change the pastoral measure so that it was possible to plant church across parochial boundaries.

HTB. It is probably worth singling out HTB as a passionate advocate of church planting - hosting the church planting conferences above but also developing a model of planting in London by taking on churches that were low in numbers to revitalise them. I am less familiar with the timeline on this and how the trajectory developed into the Resource church model over time. 

SDF - the Church Commissioners shifted how they gave surplus money towards dioceses. Dioceses could bid but one large area of funding needed to be tied to mission and ministry that grew the church. Whilst there have been a range of bids Resource church has been in vogue with the SDF board so a lot of investment has gone into larger city centre church plants. 

CCX - London appointed a Bishop of Islington in 2015 to oversee church planting which was a fairly radical idea at the time. Out of that CCX and latterly Myriad have grown with a focus on encouraging planting.

July 2019 C of E Synod - A report was presented at Synod in July 2019 15 years on from Mission Shaped Church . Research from Church Army has been done at various points on fresh expressions and the report The Day Of Small Things showed that fresh expressions was probably the most effective means of reaching those outside the church that the church had seen for quite some time. A motion was presented and passed encouraging every parish to explore adding a contextual expression of church.

C of E Mixed Ecology Vision - The C of E has a new vision for a church of missionary disciples with Jesus at the centre and a mixed ecology of church. This seems a logical extension of all the above.

COVID. In July 2019 it felt like momentum was really there but the church is now emerging the other side of COVID more anxious and resource stretched. It remains to be seen how that vision is to be embedded and carried forward into the next 50 years.

[a slightly more expansive view of the last twenty years and my personal take on it is in this baker's dozen 13 reflections celebrating twenty years at cms]

emerged podcast

a new podcast series kicked off this week - emerged podcast

it is available on the usual platforms of course. hosted by tony jones and tripp fuller it is a look back at the emerging church movement in the usa - what was known as emergent back then. i really enjoyed the first episode - it's fast paced, lots of interviews, very well put together. i was interviewed by tony so imagine at some point  i will pop up to give a perspective of what was going on in the uk and how the two ran in parallel, collided, enjoyed friendship and exchange. i enjoyed those exchanges very much back then and occasionally my paths still cross with people who were involved. i look forward to following along. they are collating an archive which will be interesting - it will be accessible to members. in the first episode they look at where it all began or what catalysed the conversation. they point to the bigger postmodern shift in western cultures and the significance of youth ministry as critical factors. i am delighted they are doing it in such a rich way. i hope it sparks both wider conversation and catalyses some newness. that wider shift has not gone away, the death throes of the old order are still going on, and we need dreamers of the future living against the odds more than ever. 

i'd love there to be a similar conversation/reflection in the uk. it's twenty years since mission shaped church so i i expect there will be at least some opportunity for that though msc and fresh expressions came on the back of at least a decade of innovation in youth ministry, alternative worship and emerging church.

message to world leaders

half price pioneer practice

pioneer practice is a full colour coffee table book that you can dive into anywhere - a mix of stories, articles, how tos. it's the distilled wisdom of what i have learned over a decade of working with pioneers at cms. if you have an idea and want to get started - perfect. the discount code is PPFIFTY and it works for both print and download. order here

2024 we hope will be the year the next getsidetracked project finally lands!

looking back looking forward

we always enjoy meals and conversations with friends and family round new year looking back and looking forward. i made a couple of spinning wheels - looking back and looking forward. tap the wheel and see what it lands on and let that spark the conversation. feel free to use...

a new year begins...

i enjoy this moment at the new year of looking back and looking forward, a time to pause, reflect, dream, maybe even dare to hope against the odds.

it's a challenging time in the world. our hearts are breaking for gaza, ukraine, refugees, poverty, injustice, racism, greed, violence, a heating planet, truth decay, rising right wing fascism, a lack of imagination and courage around how to organise society differently. 

the world turns on its axis.

yet this photo makes me smile - a happy moment from last year canoeing the great glen - here with jon. thanks to john fleetwood for the photo. it's good to be alive!

as you journey into the new year with whatever it holds go well. i so appreciate all of you family, friends, artists, poets, pioneers, dreamers, creatives, photographers, alternative worshippers, fellow travellers, pilgrims. be kind, stay true, keep contributing to the world's healing in whatever way you can. 

gigs of 2023

i have a habit/commitment to try and average a gig a month. 2023 included some incredible gigs - the standout ones were fourtet (the photo is of the 39480 lights hanging!), young fathers, alabaster de plume and of course sault. ialso loved seeing bruce cockburn again at greenbelt. the blog is a kind of diary for me so for my own memory's sake the full list was:

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
Ezra Collective
A Winged Victory for the Sullen
Fourtet
Mavis Staples
Bruce Cockburn (at Greenbelt)
Mercury prize
Young Fathers
Matthew Halsall
Alabaster de Plume
Gotts Street Park
Bears Den
Sault

let it go

i listen to a lot of pretty ambient or horizontal music. so i have taken to making a playlist of just that more chilled music each year. this year's has 16 tracks that are beatless followed by 16 with some beats in. this is partly after a discussion with a friend who shares a like for ambient music but likes some beats. it runs for about 2.5 hours. i have designed it so that it builds gently as it goes though you can of course put it on shuffle. in january and february grace will be running ambient prayer which will be playing this sort of music so look out for that shortly.

let it go - apple music version

let it go - spotify version

 

are we there yet?

i do love putting together an end of year playlist. i seem to have added a lot to my first take which i have got down to a 3 hour playlist of a selection of tunes from 2023.

are we there yet? apple music version

are we there yet? spotify version

grace christmas labyrinth

come and join us for our grace christmas labyrinth on saturday night. 

Join us for a meditative and prayerful Christmas labyrinth, a peaceful evening before the hectic part of the season gets going.

When we first did labyrinths in the 1990s, there was a four-part structure about our relationships with God, Self, Others and Planet, with the labyrinth itself being about God and the other three as stations. Given current situations this structure seems very relevant.

There will be mulled wine and mince pies in the cafe afterwards.

wild fire

this week we celebrated cms pioneer students achievements graduating with a range of awards from durham university. i teach a module on worship and worked with students on that module to curate the celebration as part of the assesssment! they did an amazing job exploring the theme of the pioneer journey. it was in two parts. part 1 was a series of installations to interact with. part 2 was a fireside celebration. it was so joyful. it's amazing to work with pioneers - i love the way they see the world and seek to catalyse new things, new projects, new communities invariably with those at the edges of their communities. 

every year iain cotton, an artist and sculptor has created a gift representing the pioneer journey. this was actually the tenth iteration. each year is different and each tile is unique. i hope to find all ten and blog about them all at some point. this year's one was just perfect in so many ways. the image is of a chiseled journey which is incomplete. it's also an open circle - a place of gathering but in which others are welcome and out of which the life can spill outwards. at the heart is a fire - the fire of the great spirit which too breaks out of the circle. 

we also admitted several pioneers as lay workers in the church of england.

congratulation to all those who completed awards! 

synchronicity

i have several shows by uva. synchronicity was at 180 studios which is a wonderful setting for their work. i had seen a few of the pieces before. it's impressive and looks wonderful in the dark. we discussed afterwards how art is at its best when the ideas have something to get into that is below the surface. some of their work looks great but doesn't do that deep dive. i have added an album of a few photos - synchronicity.

portal

i really enjoyed marina abramovic's show at the royal academy. her performance art has really pushed the edges of interaction with audiences and indeed her own self.

one of the things that caught my attention were a list of rules that guide her practice. i often think the ay artists and pioneers think is very similar. this could easily be from a pioneer journal on how they might approach their practice!

red moon rising

i think i have been to more art in london in the last monthy than the rest of the year. it was great to see the latest turbine hall installation. i have loved seeing what people do in that space over the years.