what's on the CD player?
. the big chill - ichill . !k7 . fila brazillia - brazilification2
what books are by the bed?
. the music of silence - john tavener . hey nostradamus - douglas coupland . this is uncool (the 500 greatest singles since punk and disco) - gary mulholland . the bible . fences and windows - naomi klein . the art of looking sideways - alan fletcher
jonnybaker blog
Sunday, May 26, 2002 andrew jones has been mentioning the visualiser gforce to me for quite a while now. well thanks to him i finally got round to checking it out. and it is fantastic! so go download it for yourselves. now most mp3 players have a visualiser that goes with them (making pretty swirly rave like fractals etc). itunes that i use has one that's great. so why get another. well the unique thing about gforce is that you can add your own images and movies in to the mix so that they are mixed in to the patterns. this is seamless. plus with a little bit of snooping about in the documents with it you can discover how to assign things to particular keys so that when you press them they appear. and it's also possible to write a sequence of patterns and images etc to link in. i have only just tried it out but it is wonderful. i use a mac but it also works with windows - info on the site. this is definitely worthy of adding to the list of worship tricks - that makes it number 9 by my reckoning.
Sunday, May 26, 2002
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
one of the writers who has inspired and encouraged me on my own journey has been mike riddell. a few years back i heard him give a talk on how to sustain your own soul. it was profoundly helpful for those of us who were feeling dried up. anyway i've discovered that pretty much the same talk was given elsewhere and has been written up and put on the web. i'll add forgotten fire to the articles links in the side. if you've not come across mike's writing try Godzone, Threshold Of The Future, and The Prodigal Project for starters.
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
worship trick 8 these amused me! parable1 parable2 parable3 i'll add them to the worship trick list though they'll probably offend someone and may be hard to use but they'll make you smile. they're produced by a trickster from down under who calls them his parables.....
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Friday, May 17, 2002
worship trick 7 simple idea this, but worth seeing if you haven't already. epicentre's compline service takes a simple liturgy but they've helpfully posted the whole text up along with the images they projected in the worship space during the service. i'm sure they also had music/a soundscape running throughout. it's amazing how a piece of liturgy can be transformed with a bit of imagination and creativity. sometimes people think alternative worship has to be complicated and highly technological - far from it. great ideas simply delivered are hard to beat.
Friday, May 17, 2002
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
worship trick 6 one of the days the students led worship was on ascension day. they found this great image on slide called liberation by Varley. ths was the best link i could find but you may find a better one. it's a striking image but it was pointed out how the image of the father is in the son's chest. because i said i liked it they kindly gave me the slide - thanks beth! be a good one for trinity sunday too....
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
at the conference/training week we were doing last week each day students in groups just had to pull a worship time together from nothing (well there was a chapel and a portable CD player). of course they managed it no sweat.... so why don't we let people do stuff more in church? what are we so afraid of? most worship times are entirely predictable and unsurprising so what exactly is there to lose?. i got back to the uk today and my son was watching junkyard wars on tv where they have a short time limit and some junk to make something incredibly difficult - today's was a torpedo. it reminded me that a friend of mine, rick, had the same idea for worship at a conference (though it was never tried) - junk yard worship. could be the way to go? or at least it would be worth a try and some fun. give a group some junk and a time limit and they have to lead the worship.....
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
worship trick 5 deadly media is a wonderful video produced by hexstatic. it contains a series of voices that build up and are in sync with the beats. it's a pretty good representation of what the level of 'noise' in life is like. i've used this in worship several times at the start to get people to reflect on the noise in their life as they come to worship and begin to quiet down in god's presence. the album 'rewind' has 11 quicktime videos on a free CDrom with it. these are by no means all useable for worship but most are excellent. hexstatic is one of the very best VJs i think. anyway if you don't want to get the CD you can download the video from the site in the videos section.
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
location: cybercafe in toronto the bad news: chelsea lost the FA cup final the good news: the sun has been shining, went to niagra falls which were amazing [i could stand and watch them all day i think!], life is good the surprisingly unsurprising thing: the guys on the course we are teaching are facing the same issues as the rest of us w.r.t. worship, church, mission, engaging with culture and so on. one thing that's encouraging me is that lots of them seem to be up for more than 'tweaking' what we've got, and see the need for redoing the whole thing. a small challenge then...?!
i said i'd post some book titles and stuff that i mentioned, or that relate to the teaching today. so here they are: Books Transforming Mission by David Bosch Threshold of The Future by Michael Riddell Virtual Faith by Tom Beaudoin The Practice of Everyday Life by Michel De Certeau The McDonaldisation of Church by John Drane Liturgical Inculturation in the Anglican Communion by David Holeton (this may be hard to get hold of - it's published by grove books The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn Jesus In Disneyland by David Lyon Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be by Walsh and Middleton The Prodigal Project by Riddell, Pierson and Kirkpatrick Postmodern Youth Ministry by Tony Jones
the stuff i mentioned on consumption can be found at the grace site for the 'what would jesus wear' along with some examples of how they have been filled in are at smallritual in the small ritual section.
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
Friday, May 03, 2002
another articles link in the side bar
i'm going to be starting another articles link in the side bar. this one is for fantastic articles i come across that aren't written by me [not that i mean all my articles are fantastic of course.... :-) ]. the first link on there is to a couple of pieces by tom beaudoin, author of the wonderful book 'virtual faith'. these two pieces reflect on what it means to live in a capiltalist society as christians [you can download them by clicking on the essay titles. his are the first two on the list. don't bother with the rest - they aren't in the same league imho.] he comes up with the brilliant notion of 'living after purity'. these are some of the best reflections on this theme i have read in quite a while. in grace we translated some of these reflections into worship ideas under the theme of the heresy of simplicity.
Friday, May 03, 2002
toronto here we come....
well i'm about to head out the door to the airport to fly to toronto which i am really looking forward to. my main concern about going was that i was going to miss the FA cup final tomorrow (big soccer competition for any non-brits reading) in which chelsea (who i support) are playing arsenal. it's a london derby as well as having the blues in so is a particularly important game to see. but i'm happy to say that a friend in toronto has managed to find a bar where it will be showing so we'll be joining in the fun in there, no doubt with lots of brits abroad. come on you blues!
Friday, May 03, 2002
a bit about me...
i am a londoner; christian; dad; postmodern (whatever that means - i know at least that i'm not modern); director of an independent record label proost which we set up to release music without being subject to christian record labels who had a frankly unimaginitive approach to music at the time as far as we were concerned; a member of grace , an alternative worship community in west london that has been an inspiration, lifeline, home, great bunch of friends, provided an arena in which to be creative about faith and worship and culture; i'm also part of the wider alternative worship movement/scene in the uk where i have lots of friends sharing the same dreams and struggles; an ideas person; a husband; national youth co-ordinator for cms; involved in various creative projects, the most successful of which has been the labyrinth which has been on a roll since we first installed it in st pauls cathedral in 2000; a mac user; co-ordinator of the worship at greenbelt arts festival where we have tried to create a space for new/creative/alternative worship especially in the new forms venues - a good place to visit if you want to encounter lots of creative uk worship in one go; writer (albeit a novice) with a few articles in books, mags and the web; a chelsea football supporter; involved in youth ministry - i have been for 15 years now - in the uk at least many people involved in alt worship want to avoid being labelled youth ministry as it's a convenient way for the church to write off what you do and the people involved aren't by any means youth (though some are), but i live in both arenas and think there's lots of overlap and creative conversation and ideas to be shared between the two; songwriter; lover of music especially the ambient, chilled, dub, instrumental end of things; lover of good food, belgian beer and conversation;
i am a londoner; christian; dad; postmodern (whatever that means - i know at least that i'm not modern); director of an independent record label 
