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, November 28, 2002 encouraging news today.... last year one of the best weeks of the labyrinth tour was at feltham young offenders institute (a prison for young offenders). the lads there seemed to get loads out of it. the chaplain was delighted. anyway to cut a long story short, the prison raised some funds and arranged that YFC would make them a labyrinth cloth with all the necessary bits (TVs, bucket, stones etc...) so that they can run it regularly themselves in the prison. the kit was delivered yesterday. good eh?!
Thursday, November 28, 2002
Tuesday, November 26, 2002 anyone from denmark who's having a look at the blog for the first time 'hi!' - great to see you at the weekend. several people asked about the gforce image generator i used during my talk on saturday night and about the images of jesus. i run a series of worship tricks on this blog on the left hand side - no 9 is gforce so follow that link to find out where to download it. there are also some more detailed instructions on using it below in a post on 30/10/02. the images of jesus came from several places. but the main source is a pack of 32 images of christ from cultures round the world called the christ we share. this is produced by CMS and is available to order from the cms web site. i can't believe i haven't put this on as a worship trick before so it is now added to the list as worship trick no 24. i also used the hexstatic video 'deadly media' which several people asked about. this is also an earlier worship trick - follow the link from worship trick no 5.
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
had a wonderful time at refill in denmark this weekend. great to meet with 400 crazy danish youth leaders and see what they are up to! there were a few things that were particularly good. one was that on the saturday morning they had invited a business school (secular) called the kaos pilots (a school training people in creative and innovative approaches to business) to work with them to think about how the church needs to change to connect with youth in denmark. about 30 people came from the business school and worked in small groups. the ideas arising from this are being written up for everyone. then in the evening they had a collection to set up a fund so that people could apply for money to kickstart their new ideas! i thought this was some really out of the box thinking on the part of the planning group. the labyrinth was also set up and running. there was a club approach to worship being tried in the evening by some people looking to start a church in the techno scene in copenhagen. i was doing some training on alternative/creative approaches to worship that seemed to go down well. there are some guys in denmark who have realy pioneeered for youth miistry there - they are doing research in social trends amongst youth, running a youth ministry course and at the weekend unveiled the 'reflektorium' which is the first danish youth ministry journal. this is going to come out twice a year. so lots to be encouraged about. i felt very hopeful.....
one curious thing happened to me that is probably worth recounting. i had a train tciket from odense to copenhagen to return to the airport and it was a resreved numbered seat. it turned out that a danish pastor, dan was on the same train as me. he also had a resrved seat number. when we looked to see where each other were sitting it turned out that we were next to each other. that was a really nice moment of feeling god was with me even in the small detail....
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
got sent an e-mail about a new altworship service/group called 'up' based out of st. mary's anglican church in thame, oxfordshire (10 miles east of oxford). good to hear of new things beginning. si smith who sent me the mail says
we're pretty new to all of this, but at present there's a couple of aspects to what we do - firstly a fortnightly meet-up [called UpStairs] in the upper room of a coffee house to generally just hang out together. and then secondly, an alt_worship evening [called UpLate, usually on the first saturday of the month] in our 12th century church which we part-transform into a cafe. the installations created for UpLate are left overnight for sunday's church-goers to use, and whatever we can safely leave up stays in place for the week, for the use of church visitors or others [including cell groups and folk who want to come back and revisit the stations etc.]. our first trial evening went amazingly well, and so now we're planning and putting together our second UpLate for Nov 30th...
Monday, November 18, 2002
i have mentioned the bible society magazine 'the bible in transmission' before and there's a link to the articles in my links down the left hand side of this blog. i just got the latest edition and there are lots of great articles again. they publish them all online, though this edition is not up yet - hopefully it will be soon. but this magazine is currently free so if you like a hard copy sign up...
three articles worth a quote in this issue 1. contemporary spirituality and the church by trish mcclean - women and men are no longer satisfied with the thesis i think therefore i am. they want to touch and taste, to hear and smell, to hold and be held, they want a faith and a community of faith that embraces all the senses not just the intellect
2. beyond segmentation by brian draper - looks at worship and the dangers of compartmentalisation vs the challenges of all ages - what is all age worship when you stop to examine it? isn't it in fact just the way we've always done things but with everyone sitting in (and with the occassional musical concession to children with obligatory humiliating actions)? In other words the cultural manifestation of our worship does not reflect the various subcultures represented across all ages. it represents instead the values, sights, and sounds of the dominant group which happens to be white, middle class, middle aged and male - the kind of constituency that would have listened to radio two before it got trendy
3. the new sacred space (crafting worship in community) by sally morgenthaler - can't find one quote that captures the heart of it but it is a great article encouraging a journey from lone ranger top down approach to worship to worship planned in community (which has been alternative worship's approach for years of course!)....
if i notice that the articles are up on the web site i'll let you know....
Monday, November 18, 2002
am off to join the danes reflecting on church, youth ministry and all that this weekend - see refill for more info (though you'll have to speak danish). about 400 are expected so should be good fun!
Monday, November 18, 2002
Tuesday, November 12, 2002 kingdom space blog has been revamped. i am actually very excited about kingdom space as a site (and the blog). what i love about it is the tone, openness, and commitment to lots of approaches and networks. it seems some others try and get this going but their hidden agenda is much more narrow or controlling. so thanks guys!
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Thursday, November 07, 2002
new emerging churchteam blog started. it seems like this is open to anyone to join in rather than being a closed thing. no idea how it will shape up - who knows?....
Thursday, November 07, 2002
Friday, November 01, 2002
a good new article has gone up at alternativeworship.org on chillout music. to get to it click on the theory button and then it's one of the articles listed on the left hand side. i've also put a direct link to it in the side bar on the left - because it's made with frames this doesn't look quite as nice as it does set in the context of the other frames. the article may be of particular interest to those outside the uk - i noticed for example when i did some stuff in the usa last year that a lot of the tunes i was playing were clearly new to people..... and we've had visitors to grace for whom chillout is a new genre (although others such as cloudburst from the usa have come and graced us with their own wonderful ambient tunes)
Friday, November 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;
encouraging news today.... last year one of the best weeks of the labyrinth tour was at feltham young offenders institute (a prison for young offenders). the lads there seemed to get loads out of it. the chaplain was delighted. anyway to cut a long story short, the prison raised some funds and arranged that YFC would make them a labyrinth cloth with all the necessary bits (TVs, bucket, stones etc...) so that they can run it regularly themselves in the prison. the kit was delivered yesterday. good eh?!
anyone from denmark who's having a look at the blog for the first time 'hi!' - great to see you at the weekend. several people asked about the gforce image generator i used during my talk on saturday night and about the images of jesus. i run a series of worship tricks on this blog on the left hand side - no 9 is gforce so follow that link to find out where to download it. there are also some more detailed instructions on using it below in a post on 30/10/02. the images of jesus came from several places. but the main source is a pack of 32 images of christ from cultures round the world called the christ we share. this is produced by CMS and is available to order from the 
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 
