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
Thursday, September 26, 2002 tall lanky baker's latest addition to his web site. this drawing has taken him days!
Wednesday, September 25, 2002 last grace service someone [a twelve year old in fact] had the idea of making a grace out of candles and they went ahead and created it. the effect was beautiful.... thought i'd share it with you all
Monday, September 23, 2002
i've just remembered that today in the UK 1giantleap dvd is scheduled for release. the whole project is fantastic. if you haven't heard the album get it. i'll report back on what the dvd is like once i manage to get a copy (i've been waiting a long time - it was originally supposed to be out in may!). whilst on a music note, i'm pretty sure that thievery corporation have a new album out this week as well.....
Monday, September 23, 2002
Sunday, September 22, 2002
had an e-mail from a friend asking about the legalities and issues of copyright on worship trick 20..... if you're going to do it you need to check that out for yourself. enough said! the kind of scenario where the person was using a dvd was in a talk where rather than having to stop the powerpoint presentation and switch to the dvd they had bought, they simply got the clip from the dvd into the presentation. much smoother all round... and they've bought the dvd. i'm not saying whether this is legal or not - check it out for yourself. clearly you could use the ripping software for more dubious purposes which i'm certainly not advocating. i think i may have found how to do the same thing for mac users. i haven't actually tried it yet either. but it looks like the same process only to combine the pieces you'll need quicktime pro. if you're a mac user and interested there are instructions here.
Sunday, September 22, 2002
Saturday, September 21, 2002 worship trick 20 if you follow the blog you'll know i've started a new job at CMS. more about that another day.... but a colleague there showed me a great trick. now i'm a mac user so this won't actually work for me, but i'm sure with some looking around i'll be able to find something equivalent. but if you are a PC user this could work for you! the trick is this - get a clip from any dvd you have and get in a format that you can just drop into presentations such as powerpoint. now it is a little complicated but well worth the patience to find out exactly how it's done. the really good news is that the software is free. go to clonead and read all about it and download the relevant software. you will need a pretty powerful computer with quite a bit of memory (say 6 gig spare) - i saw it done on a sony vaio (spelling?) which has 20 gig in total. the process involves burning a video file from the dvd (or the relevant chapters), then using a second piece of software selecting your clip and exporting the video and sound in particular formats, and then in a third peice of software combining the two and saving them as an avi file which you can then play or drag into powerpoint. it is a very neat trick - i confess to being well impressed. i have been critical of powerpoint but this really spices up the possibilities. please don't e-mail me to ask about it - read the documentation and work it out. but if anyone knows how to do the same for quicktime video let me know....
Saturday, September 21, 2002
a friend sent me an e-mail asking if i knew of any good sites for images for worship. i thought this would be a useful bit of info. i haven't had time to do much searching around but here's a few: visions do great visuals all round and have a gallery host in bradford have a few fabulous reworked icons in amongst their stuff sacramentis has a few photos and a links page for images to other stuff the scriptorium has free downloads of images (and other stuff) vincent skoglund is a wonderful snowbaording photographer rejesus has this series of photos by lizzie everard on the beatitudes NASA pics and other useful stuff is here freefoto has stacks of photos categorised into sections
anyone know any others either contact me or post a comment with the reference. maybe i'll start a series of image links in the sidebar.....
Saturday, September 21, 2002
Sunday, September 15, 2002 worship tricks 18 and 19 at grace last night we used the video angel by massive attack from their dvd eleven promos. it is a fantastic video. we were reflecting on response to sept 11 and the need to move beyond fear to life. the video plot (shot in very moody black and white) is that a lone figure is wandering at night through an urban multi storey car park. as he turns corners more and more people start following him. he ends up running out of the car park chased by hundreds of people until he is cornered against a wall. then he turns to face his fear rather than run from it and after staring for a while he takes a step towards the people chasing him. the camera pans back and there is a huge mass of people who turn and run as he starts to chase them. we used the track do not be afraid by lazyboy which is worthy of a worship trick in its own right (no 19) - on the album sunday best volume 3. i also spotted a former yfc director working as an extra as part of the huge crowd - way to go tim!
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Sunday, September 08, 2002
the grace service i tried so ineptly to describe a few days ago on the blog is captured on smallfire. you really get a great sense of it from that, even down to jesus standing in front of the power mac! go here, it is such a simple but brilliant idea to record a picture record of alternative worship - thanks again steve!
Sunday, September 08, 2002
have added greenbelt blog to the blog list. seems to be taking shape as a good blog. it reminds me i never fully reported back on GB... the other thing i wanted to mention as a highlight (and i think indicative of a trend) was the installation venues. alternative worship groups have incorporated stations/installations into worship for years, but it definitely seems to be growing. GB had two installation venues with fab stuff in. one installation that was particularly good was arable parable - it took the parable of the sower and set up four types of soil for people to interact with. it was brilliantly done, worked for all ages, had a mix of light and depth, reflective without being intense. we liked it so much we're going to borrow the idea for harvest this year. thanks to sanctuary . they have a section on their site where they are going to post more about it but it ain't there yet. but i have just quickly checked and steve has put some fab pictures of it on smallfire here. holy joes also ran an installation venue each night with plenty of things for people to interact with.
Sunday, September 08, 2002
Friday, September 06, 2002
the bible society (uk) do a journal/magazine called the bible in transmission whsoe sub title is 'a forum for change in church and culture'. it is usually themed and often has some very good articles in. the current issue (sept 2002) is themed on postmodernity. i haven't read it yet but looks good with articles on emerging politics, postmodern living and emerging church amongst other things. i think it's a free publication so contact them if you're interested! and they have now put all articles from current and back issues up on the web here . the files download as word files rather than opening in your browser so you can read them at leisure. i'll be adding a link to this in the side bar.
Friday, September 06, 2002
Thursday, September 05, 2002 mulitsensory church by sue wallace is a new resource following on from her earlier multisensory prayer. it's full of practical ideas for worship, ritual, liturgy. sue is a great creator of all sorts of things and has been involved in alternative worship group visions for many years. it's published by scripture union in the uk. not sure if it's available online anywhere? no doubt something will appear on the visions web site shortly.
Thursday, September 05, 2002
went to a graduation of 55 students yesterday from the centre for youth ministry (cym). i teach a course for the second years on youth culture and mission. it was great to see them graduate and get some fab results. but having been bombarded with so many bleak stories about church it was a surprising moment to feel that here was something filled with genuine hope. who knows what the future holds but as these students went to receive their hard earned awards it was read out what they were going on to do - work in drug rehab programmes, with prisoners, community projects, churches, youth missions etc... - a whole range of things. and hopefully with a mix of good practice, theology, missiology, the ability to reflect on practice, and a whole bunch of friends. it was a really exciting moving moment. seemed to me at least that they were giving themselves to making the world a better place rather than to a dream of making a load of money for themselves in the usual consumer dream....
Thursday, September 05, 2002
Tuesday, September 03, 2002 found a few photos of the grace shrine and service at greenbelt on adam's site. you can see the pile of wood in the centre and camouflage netting with labels tied to it that people then went and collected and took elsewhere in the service.
Tuesday, September 03, 2002
Monday, September 02, 2002
yesterday i mentioned vaux's service being described as the mulholland drive of alternative worship. i don't know if i was prompted by that but i ended up getting mulholland drive out and watching it on video last night. if you've seen the film, you will know the compelling nature of the film and yet the confusing plot threads. but it does seem to be resolvable. i figured that a large part of the film must be a dream and subsequently found this great article that confirmed our thoughts about the film. so if you are wondering what on earth mulholland drive is all about go here for a long but convincing analysis. but don't do it if you haven't seen the film!
Monday, September 02, 2002
Sunday, September 01, 2002
well summer is over [actually the weather is pretty good!] but the holiday season has gone, greenbelt has been and gone, the kids are back to school this week and i'm starting a new job. so i guess it's time to get back into the blog again. feels like there is so much to catch up on.... [i have noticed that the comments facilitated by enetation have been intermittently working and then not. hopefully they are sorting out whatever they are up to so you can comment again!].
not sure where to start - i've been waiting to talk about greenbelt until there was some pics up on smallfire or greenbelt but that always takes a while. when they are up i'll let you know. greenbelt was fab! they reached the capacity for the license this year, there was a really diverse programme and i think worship [the bit i help put together] had more going on than i can remember. we tried a couple of new things this year that whilst being experimental still really worked. i'll add a couple of worship tricks to the series out of these.
worship trick 16 one was a series of twelve shrines around the site that people could interact with. various alt worship groups had volunteered to do one and what they came up with was amazing - ranging from original stained glass creations to nothing but a question mark inside. they were loosely meant to tie in with greenbelt's theme 'the kiss of life'. the best way of describing then is as holy bird boxes [thanks anna for that]. one of my favourite's was the infinity box - l8r had filled the box with mirrors and had three little torch lights [mag lights with the top unscrewed]. when you got up close particularly after dark you could see an infinite no of small lights going into the distance. this was a memorial to children who have died of aids [reminded me of the memorial to children who died in the holocaust at yad vashem]. simple but brilliant idea! the grace shrine had bottles of perfume, ink pads with a stamp of lips, and by the end of the weekend the box was covered in what looked like kisses. i'll try and get the text that was in it and post it so you can get what it was all about. but these shrines were a great idea because people were just given a loose theme and used their creativity to produce something. added together all the shrines were quite stunning. why can't a church do the same - allocate an idea to lots of groups, and encourage their creativity and see what they come up with?....
we did a grace service aimed at all ages which was a fun challenge. i think it's fair to say that it wasn't your usual all age service! it looked great - as ever we had some mad ideas whilst planning and ended up doing them. the service was called 'who do you think you are' - i'll talk to adam and see if we can get some of it put up on the grace site like we did with the heresy of simplicity. but a couple of ideas that worked really well - one was that we had some camouflage nettiung and had tied labels on of words we might be called or call others - ugly, beautiful, whinger, bootylicious and loads more besides. there was a section then where people chose a label and went and tied it on a pillar that either related to good labels about me, good labels about someone else, bad labels about me , bad labels about someone else. and then there was a simple confession using those [which i'll track down as i say]. it was a mixture of fun, visually stunning and a great confession. the other part worthy of a mention to give you a flavour was a new ritual that i suspect will be picked up elsewhere and is also worthy of a worship trick! so...
worship trick 17 the central area of the service had piles of huge logs and small pieces of kindling wood. everyone was invited to take a piece of kindling and a piece of sandpaper and there was a meditation led on how god is shaping us, refining us etc.. and then people were invited to sand their peice of kindling. during this we played the video with sound up 'timber' by coldcut [made by hexstatic] - in itself this is a simply stunning video. it was the first video i ever saw that was completely linked sound and visuals. the music is made from samples of chain saws and other things. anyway it was a wonderful moment hearing this tune blasting out, seeing the images along with the sound of everone sanding. one sound repeated in the track is of a saw is cutting through a tree. when this was on it was so rhythmic that people couldn't help but sand in time - hard to describe but it was a greta moment. a couple of people asked me where the video is from. it's on the cd rom that accompanies coldcut's album 'let us play' and you can download a version of it from the video pageon ninjatune. be warned though it is 9.4 mb! there are loads of other videos here too - i haven't had time to check them out yet but i'm sure there's some fab stuff.
another of greenbelt's experiment's was doing a worship session in the club venue each night. i didn't manage to get to them all but it was a great experiment. vaux certainly went for it in their night and seemed to be analysing how it had gone for days afterwards. but whilst i didn't make it i liked the fact that it sounded like they were going for something new and out there. daniel miller [who came over and ended up camping with us which was great] described it on his blog as the mulholland drive of alternative worship so maybe people will be working it out for quite a while yet! i loved meeting the guys from raven in edinburgh - they were basically having a laugh and being cheeky most of the time. they did a brilliant spoof video which included such highlights as worship leader pop idol. sometimes alt worship can get very intense so it was a refreshing change to have some good satirical humour.... anyway i'm, in danger of over indulging myself in this post to the blog so i'll sign off. probably be back later with more musings.......
Sunday, September 01, 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;
last grace service someone [a twelve year old in fact] had the idea of making a grace out of candles and they went ahead and created it. the effect was beautiful.... thought i'd share it with you all 
found a few photos of the grace shrine and service at greenbelt on 
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 
