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
Saturday, March 29, 2003 meeting them where they're at is a book by richard passmore about detached youthwork. it is absolutely fantastic! richard combines an incredibly practical how to go about detached work approach with sharp theological insights. this is an invaluable resource. it's available from scripture union. it's one of those frame web sites but this should be a direct link.
Saturday, March 29, 2003
Thursday, March 27, 2003 rejesus web site is posting a prayer every day for the war in iraq. sometimes it is hard to know what to say - i was glad to have someone else voice something. if you want to pray visit here
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
i just realised the official launch date for the book 'alternative worship' has passed.... so it's out then! a couple of people have said they've had difficulty getting it. you can order it from proost
i have added an article i wrote a while back on youth ministry and the stranger to the list of articles by me on the left hand side. with the war and troubling undertones of racism and so on it seems more relevant now than when i wrote it....
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Friday, March 21, 2003
a while back i raved about everyday apocalypse and put a link in the list of articles by other people on the left hand side of this blog to the introduction, which the publishers had kindly put online. it really is outstanding. however when i put it up, the link didn't seem to work. but i have just checked back and it is definitely now working - download pdf intro Friday, March 21, 2003
he is also pulling together avant garde, a get together in paris from 2 - 4 june for alt worship, emerging church, mission and all that .... which i'm planning to go to. anyone else want to join me?.... the details are:-
The emerging post-modern culture with ineluctable force weighs on the Church in Europe. How will the church respond? How does the Gospel inhabit this emerging world? Many churches are faced with the need to change. Many ask, ?How?? New forms of church are emerging, meeting the challenge of our times. How can those who are leading these changes help those who want to do the same? This consultation is designed to be a place where that can happen.
Goals:
Offer teaching that helps the Church understand the emerging post-modern, post-Christian culture.
Provide information concerning what the church can use to transform local churches and multiply new church within the emerging culture.
Analyze the means of innovation in these areas, the ?why? and the ?how? of innovation.
Give examples of churches that encounter the new culture.
Encourage the creation or the strengthening of networks in France and Europe that seek to accelerate the emergence of the Church (research, city reaching, new churches, transitioning churches).
Create a time and place where churches can share their experiences and their ?savoir-faire?. Each local church possesses strengths that can help other churches within or outside their country.
Program:
Monday, June 2
13.30 Registration
14.00 Emerging Church Round Table
19.00 Dinner and evening activity (optional)
Tuesday, June 3
09.30 Registration
10.00 Today?s world
Message ? Stuart Murray-Williams
Reactions and questions
12.15 Lunch (sandwiches are provided as a part of the cost)
13.30 Paths worth exploring
Message ? Stuart Murray-Williams
Workshops
Coffee break
Message ? Stuart Murray-Williams
18.00 Dinner break
20.30 Alternative Worship
A time when we can experience what we?ve been talking about.
Wednesday, June 4
9.30 Alternative Worship debriefing
12.30 Lunch (optional)
Locations for the events
The conferences on Monday and Tuesday will be held at the Espace Conférence des Diaconesses, 95 rue Reuilly 75012 Paris, entrée 18 rue Sergent Bauchat, métro Montgallet line 6. The conference center is about 10 min by metro from the train station Gare de Lyon.
The alternative worship service and debriefing will most likely be held at the Eglise Evangélique Baptist 123 Avenue du Maine 75014 Paris, métro Gaîté line 13.
Who is organizing this...
The conference is sponsored by Evangile et Culture (Gospel and Culture) a commission within the French Evangelical Alliance in partnership with Initiative Chrétienne Urbaine, Centre Chrétien Interconfessionel?Témoins, DAWN European Network, Emergent and International Teams.
Cost
45 euros, lunch for Tuesday included in price. All other meals and lodging not included.
Lodging
Option 1: A low cost alternative will be provided i.e. sleeping on the floor of a church.
Option 2: A list of local hotels will soon be available at endirect.blogspot.com. Friday, March 21, 2003
Thursday, March 20, 2003 maggi dawn has a chapter on hermeneutics and the authority of scripture in 'anglicanism:the answer to modernity'. will look forward to reading it. here's some blurb on the book:
Questions of religious identity will be central to the way that the 21st century unfolds. This text is a bold attempt to address the intellectual future of the Church of England in a confident, open and faithful way. The eight young Cambridge deans who have contributed combine academic theological work with practical ministry to students in exploring the credibility, wisdom and coherence of Anglican answers to biblical, moral, philosophical and social issues. They also evaluate the presence of the Church at various levels in the life of the nation.
They believe that the Church of England is not a dying and irrelevant anachronism. Rather, their vision is of a robust and inclusive Anglicanism, from which we may fashion the answers necessary for human life and flourishing. This book sets the conceptual tone for the Church of England at the start of Rowan Williams' term as Archbishop of Canterbury. Based on pastoral experience, the contributors map out a confident future for a Church which sympathetically and intelligently offers meaning and hope in times of uncertain direction. Thursday, March 20, 2003
re-energising the parish - an interview with chris neal who will be heading up the part of CMS i work for in the not too distant future
lexaunculpt - someone sent me this link (thanks tim). you need some time but it is fab - lots of flash. it is uncanny how much the aesthetic is like vaux!
inspire - info on a CMS festival in the autumn that i'm helping put together. more about this another time i'm sure....
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Tuesday, March 18, 2003 palestine by joe sacco is quite simply brilliant. it's a journalist telling stories about palestine but through a comic format. this book is a collection of 9 comics. it sounds bizarre but actually it is the best story telling i have seen on the situation in palestine. i went there in february '98 and attempted to tell some stories myself through songs on the album backbone. but so much of my experience came flooding back through the page's of sacco's book. if you want to get a feel for what the style is like there are two galleries of pics here and here.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Saturday, March 15, 2003
been thinking about 'emerging church' - bit of a buzz phrase at the moment though it will probably lose its currency like all these things - anyway the thinking is 'what is it?!' [other than a buzz word].
one of the things i am up to with CMS is developing plans for a generic emerging church web site for the uk. the main point of this is to collate a few stories of what is actually emerging round the place. i think it should be really good. but what stories should go on the site? dilemma eh?... a few ideas about church that are loose enough for me to like are:
Church is any expressions of the life of Jesus that takes communal form [Archbishop Rowan Williams]
Church is any diverse group of people, bonded together by intention to follow Jesus Christ. [George Lings]
Church is being connected to Christ and communicating Christ [the gist of Pete's liquid church]
is this enough? if we go for these kind of approaches and run the site then the number of groups that fit the criteria could be huge and maybe not that useful. and whilst a couple of people meeting in a pub talking about christ may be church in this loose sense don't we need a bit more for emerging church? we discussed this at the meeting and came up with the following suggestion between us
emerging church is bottom up/grassroots and not hierarchical. emerging church is likely to be a group that forms and lets expressions of faith emerge from the culture of that group. for them to be emerging church we expect that they will be moving toward three things - trinitarian faith, some expression of the sacraments, and connection to the wider church.
another way of putting it was
emerging church doesn't presuppose a model of church for a group of people but allows that group to express their faith in a way that is authentic for them in their context [and moves towards the three things above]
what do you think? it seemed that the three things to be moving towards are important as they move the notion of church on a bit. i'd appreciate any feedback either on the comments or via e-mail. cheers...
got an e-mail from a jonny baker working for youth for christ in ireland - also into ninja tunes and all that - weird world eh?! hi jonny if you're reading - cheers for the mail.....
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Monday, March 10, 2003 the first blah... went well the other night. pete ward was on good form on liquid church.
no 2 is going to be yours truly with doug and jenny combining with a book launch of alternative worship. it's an open invite - spread the word. come if you are anywhere near london at the time! in case you were wondering blah... is a series of open conversations reflecting on mission, worship, church and christianity in today's rapidly changing culture hosted by CMS.
details are
thursday april 3 from 6:30-8:30pm
drinks and refreshments provided
admission free
venue: CMS partnership house, 157 waterloo road
[nearest tube waterloo - follow signs from station to old vic. go past old vic and partnership house is on the same side opposite the ambulance station]
Monday, March 10, 2003
Sunday, March 09, 2003 went to see lemon jelly on fri night. was a wonderful gig with tunes from the last two albums. their music is a blend of chilled out beats and samples but retains a cheeky kind of fun. one of their catchy tunes has a sample that goes 'all the ducks are swimming in the water' and i've found myself humming it ever since the gig. one punter came well prepared with a duck on a long stick that they waved all evening. this meant the video projections all evening had a shadow of a duck on them.
a couple of things struck me... one was just how much fun they seemed to be having. instead of a support act we played bingo! sweets were thrown out in the gig and they seemed prepared to play as many instruments as possible during the gig.... a while back i blogged about DJ shadow and how he broke the unspoken rules of cool by being friendly and chatty with the crowd. well lemon jelly did the same in a different kind of way which was refreshing. i couldn't go but on saturday they had a matinee gig - adults were only allowed to attend if they took kids. the gig was to feature clowns, candy floss, balloons etc... brilliant! an obvious connection in my thinking again was alternative worship and how an injection of fun would go down well to break the unspoken rules of cool and that similarly with a bit of imagination there are lots of possibilities for opening things up to a much wider age group. clowns, ducks on poles and stupid samples in alt worship - why not!?
which brings me on to worship trick 37 the lemon jelly web site is fab. there are a couple of brilliant screen savers. one of kind of clock dials spinning round and the other of a city (the one featured on the cover of lost horizons) with time passing as it turns from day to night. go to the downloads section and find the screen savers. we used both in grace last night as background on tvs. the city one would be an ideal one for use with a compline service say. they are available to download for pc and mac.
Sunday, March 09, 2003
i have just finished teaching a course for the centre for youth ministry in oxford on youth culture and mission. we did a session on theology and film - having all watched 'minority report' we then discussed issues/theological themes/ideas coming out of it. thought for the day from sid was that the iraq situation is precisely about pre-crime!!
Friday, March 07, 2003
a great rant about blogs in the guardian on thurs by dave green
it's getting so easy to update a web log that some users seem to type in their thought willy nilly, posting unimaginable banalities like a nation of alan partridges trying to fill an internet's worth of dead air: CDs they're listening to, scintillating accounts of their day at work, urls of sites they feel they should acknowledge, despite having nothing new to say about them. it is like one of those terrible christmas family newsletters for every single day of the year. Friday, March 07, 2003
and yet another lent blog... graceway from downunder are blogging for lent here unashamedly inspired by grace's lent blog!
Friday, March 07, 2003
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
another blog for lent is here. simply pasting john's gospel through lent.... was added as a comment to the last post but i mention it in case you didn't catch it.....
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
the season of lent begins today - ash wednesday. it's a time of repentance, a time of focusing afresh on god and a time of preparation for easter. neglected in some parts of the church, but in others one of the most important times in the church calendar. at grace we are running a lentblog. someone from the community will be posting food for thought/prayer/reflection for the forty days of lent. do join with us.....
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
congrats to ben and sarah - fab wedding/celebration on saturday! caught up with lots of friends from YFC... absolutely fantastic that my best mate jon made it, overcoming anxiety to get there. jon if you read this may this be the first of many journeys...
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
was at a greenbelt meeting and guess what. it looks pretty likely that there will be an inflatable church there!!!! weird connection....
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
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;
meeting them where they're at is a book by richard passmore about detached youthwork. it is absolutely fantastic! richard combines an incredibly practical how to go about detached work approach with sharp theological insights. this is an invaluable resource. it's available from 
rejesus web site is posting a prayer every day for the war in iraq. sometimes it is hard to know what to say - i was glad to have someone else voice something. if you want to pray 
maggi dawn has a chapter on hermeneutics and the authority of scripture in 'anglicanism:the answer to modernity'. will look forward to reading it. here's some blurb on the book:
palestine by joe sacco is quite simply brilliant. it's a journalist telling stories about palestine but through a comic format. this book is a collection of 9 comics. it sounds bizarre but actually it is the best story telling i have seen on the situation in palestine. i went there in february '98 and attempted to tell some stories myself through songs on the album 
the first blah... went well the other night. pete ward was on good form on liquid church. 
went to see 
congrats to ben and sarah - fab wedding/celebration on saturday! caught up with lots of friends from YFC...
absolutely fantastic that my best mate jon made it, overcoming anxiety to get there. jon if you read this may this be the first of many journeys...
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 
