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
Thursday, August 28, 2003
more on greenbelt and worship trick 52 and 53...
a mix of a highlight and scary challenge was organising the communion service for sunday morning. greenbelt was very involved in profiling the brilliant trade justice campaign so it seemed a good idea to try and do a communion in the spirit of protest. christ's death was perhaps the ultimate act of protest against the powers so it seemed entirely fitting. anyway i have uploaded the order of service here as a pdf file - i haven't included song words. my favourite two bits of liturgy were the call and response chant 'not in my name' (this was inspired by saul williams rant on the adbusters cd that i blogged about a couple of months back. we did this over a break beat) and the communion prayer which is the only communion prayer i can think of that doesn't have the seemingly magical words of institution! it's short, succinct and to the point. in case you don't get to read the whole liturgy here's the not in my name piece...
Not in my name
Will we fight terror with terror
Not in my name
Will we exploit the resources of those who are poorer
Not in my name
Will the bodies of the innocent be broken for the evils of a few
Not in my name
Will we deny life to those for whom life is a struggle
Not in my name
Will the name of god be used as an excuse for our own self interest
Not in my name
Will we be blinkered by our flawed sense of justice
Not in my name
Will the bread of life be robbed from the mouths of the worlds hungriest
Not in my name
Will we find salvation in the defeat of our enemies
Not in my name
Will our government wipe out innocent families
Not in my name
Will we reap reward from terrorism and invasion
Not in my name
Will the west get rich through the debts of the poor
We thank christ for his body broken and blood shed.
We acknowledge his sacrifice for the salvation and redemption of the world. We acknowledge innocent blood shed and bodies broken to be enemies of gods kingdom and a sin against creation.
We acknowlege love, truth, grace, justice, righteousness, mercy and humility to be signatures of gods rule.
May god bless us as we seek to send a clear message to those in authority...
Not in my name!
other things that tied in with the protest theme were some fantastic stencilled table cloths - the photo here is from the gb gallery and it gives you an idea of how the stencils worked out. a friend gareth at cms designed them and they were put together by gareth and tlb. the three slogans 'not in my name' 'no more stolen bread' and 'no more spilt blood' were really strong. these images are available to download from cms so that you can make your own version. simply print them off ideally onto thin card, cut out the stencil, get some adhesive spray for remounting and stick the stencil on something like a white bed sheet, then spray with black or red paint and remove the stencil - dead easy and cheap to make! anyyway there's enough here for more than a worship trick - it's a whole service! but i have added it as two: 52not in my name for the liturgy and 53protest stencils for the communion table cloth.
we were incredibly privileged to have the bishop of kitgum in northern uganda come and do the blessing. the situation there has been called a conspiracy of silence - cms are campaigning to bring it to public attention to get the international community to sit up and take notice of what is happening there. you can read more about it here and add your voice to the protest. the bishop is here giving his blessing with a megaphone as we managed to blow the pa at the end of the service. it's mike, the grace DJ, behind with a cheeky grin on his face!!!!
other great moments were the singing of umoja, rob lacey performing his street bible (hilarious) and hearing 13000 people singing some of our songs... especially 'table of christ'... oh and hearing that it was the highest offering ever of 55 000 pounds before the tax that will be reclaimed :-)
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Tuesday, August 26, 2003 greenbelt 2003... just back, feeling knackered but was a fab year. it was honestly the best programme/lineup for several years ending in style with the polyphonic spree and billy bragg on monday night. you can catch some photos here. i guess it will take a few days to get my thoughts together and maybe it is easier to digest if it is blogged in small bits. i'm also sure others will be adding photos and thoughts which i'll link to as and when they appear.
but first up, grace took on the challenge of doing an installation over the weekend in new forms two, the alt worship installation venue, which turned out fantastically well. it's our tenth annivresary in november (celebrating on november 8 - please join us if you can, where we'll be reusing the pieces from GB if you missed them) so we wanted to do something reflecting on the theme of grace. ended up with about 12 small pieces for people to reflect on/interact with, ranging from using fruit machines to 3D glasses and a peep show! all this will be clearer once there are some photos on either the grace site or smallfire which no doubt there will be before too long. but to single out a couple of things one of our group had made this stunning sheet of a line of led lights that flickered in such a way that when you moved your head from side to side you would see the word grace (as a logo of course) writ large - very clever and weeks of electronic involved i think. don't ask me to explain how it works.
the other i want to mention is talllankybaker's contribution which is the only thing i do have a photo of. he had done a thing on grace being found in being creative. and had done a large grafiti of the word create with some stencils on paving slabs underneath. these looked brilliant. this was joel's (tlb) first ever piece of art displayed in public in this way and it was brilliant. at aged 13 the future looks bright - cool! i think we'll get him to do some stencils on our patio. was also fun to hang out with people from grace camping together and being joined by a few others - sian (spelling?), daniel and robin. we also found ourselves next to l8r and vaux... small world eh
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Wednesday, August 20, 2003 back from france! weird to return to a blog after over two weeks absence. i resisted the temptation to blog on holiday (not that difficult!). fab time - good food, drink, weather, sun, pool sea, tan etc... not that any of you want to know about that...
as well as chilling out a real highlight was visiting chartres cathedral for the first time and seeing the labyrinth there in the stonework in the floor. if you visit go on a friday as it turns out that the rest of the week it's covered with chairs... but no matter, my son harry was determined to walk it chairs or no so climbed over to weave his way round. maybe obstacles on the path is somehow a more fitting metaphor for the journey of faith. the stained glass there is stunning - the gospel stories enshrined in colour and image everywhere you look. must go back on a friday sometime!
what else is new?... was shocked to hear the blog has been name checked in the church times newspaper this week. anyone visiting from that will have found very little activity - oh well!
smallfire has had a complete overhaul - looks good and lots of new pictures and more to follow after greenbelt no doubt...
am off to greenbelt tommorow and looking forward to it a lot. the weather forecast is good (hooray!). grace are doing an installation that i'll blog about afterwards but has some fun stuff in it. i'm also leading the communion service on the sunday morning with others - feels exciting and daunting to do so for 15000 people. the communion will be done in the spirit of protest involving stencils, marches, chants, the street bible, umoja, a few songs from proost including table of christ which i wrote with greenbelt in mind. we'll see how it goes. i'll try and put the liturgy and ideas up here after greenbelt. the stencils are going to be brilliant - you can get a sneak preview here. maybe see some of you there... and it means i won't be blogging for a few more days again...
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Sunday, August 03, 2003 pictoplasma is a great web site full of lots of characters. there's also a book pictoplasma which is an extensive collection of contemporary character design with contributions from artists, designers, animators and production companies worldwide. good fun!
another link someone sent me which i've seen on a couple of other blogs is a weird matrix meets table tennis sequence but it's very amusing!
am off on holiday in france for a couple of weeks. i may find an internet cafe on my travels but i may just stay on the beach!... so not much blogging action here for a while. be back shortly, though it will be quickly on to greenbelt which i'm looking forward to. no doubt see a few of you there - i know of at least 10 bloggers that i link to on my blog that are going to be there....
Sunday, August 03, 2003
Saturday, August 02, 2003 great article from walter kirn, GQ's literary editor, on the parallel universe of the christian subculture in the USA. amusing but also depressing! (thanks kelli)
What makes the stuff so half-assed, so thin, so weak and cumulatively so demoralizing (even to me, a sympathetic journalist who'd secretly love to play the brash contrarian and rate the Left Behind books above Tom Clancy) has nothing to do with faith. The problem is lack of faith. Ark culture is a bad Xerox of the mainstream, not a truly distinctive or separate achievement. Without the courage to lead, it numbly follows... Saturday, August 02, 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;
other things that tied in with the protest theme were some fantastic stencilled table cloths - the photo here is from the 
we were incredibly privileged to have the bishop of kitgum in northern uganda come and do the blessing. the situation there has been called a conspiracy of silence - cms are campaigning to bring it to public attention to get the international community to sit up and take notice of what is happening there. you can read more about it 
but first up, 
the other i want to mention is 
back from france! weird to return to a blog after over two weeks absence. i resisted the temptation to blog on holiday (not that difficult!). fab time - good food, drink, weather, sun, pool sea, tan etc... not that any of you want to know about that...
grace are doing an installation that i'll blog about afterwards but has some fun stuff in it. i'm also leading the communion service on the sunday morning with others - feels exciting and daunting to do so for 15000 people. the communion will be done in the spirit of protest involving stencils, marches, chants, the street bible, umoja, a few songs from proost including table of christ which i wrote with greenbelt in mind. we'll see how it goes. i'll try and put the liturgy and ideas up here after greenbelt. the stencils are going to be brilliant - you can get a sneak preview 
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 
