jonnybaker

cascade

cascade, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

advent abundance... worship tricks 48,49,50, 51!!

well as ever people are doing wonderful things to celebrate advent.

here's a few...

1. have a look through my category advent to see things from previous years which include some wonderful prayers and reflections

2. the advent beach hut calendar is now under way - check the blog for photos. seems like the heavens were re-aligned for day one!

3. ben bell always produces a wonderful image for advent - i was half expecting him to come up with something and sure enough light of the world is simple but brilliant. contact him if you want to use it. i am making his images worship trick 48 - see mary set and card, wait

4. the church of england has  produced a creative site why are we waiting. i am not actually sure who is behind the site though it says copyright archbishops council (!) but rowan williams gives a reflection on a plasma screen over the fireplace and there is a calendar window to click on each day for a reflection to create space. you can also sign up for a daily e-mail through advent. worship trick 49

5. cheryl lawrie is prolific when it comes to advent. she makes me smile because there is a build up saying she has no ideas or energy and then wham! an overflow of liturgical and creative genius lands. i have not counted but i am sure cheryl is listed under more worship tricks than anyone else but all her new pieces which are bundled as a pregnant pause can get added as worship trick 50. the pieces are here here here here and here. i am looking forward to hearing how christmas in the basement goes which i received an invite to but sadly won't be attending!

6. advent windows is something i found via following a link from no 4 above. it is in london and is again so simple. created by st alfege in greenwich it's a community advent calendar where a literal window is opened every day. the first one was at the tourist information centre! there's a blog which will follow the windows. this is worship trick 51. i was thinking what we could do in ealing in a similar vein to the beach hut idea and hadn't thought of windows. i can see this idea taking off in lots of communities in future years. must pay it a visit. i love the way people are taking worship and the christmas story into public rather than church or private space...

7. cms produces a service share the light each year for advent. (i forgot this yesterday but it was on my list...) which has resources and stories from cms for an advent worship service

feel free to add any things you have come across in the comments...

interview on worship

an interview with me is up on worshipodcast.com

advent resource from proost - nine

at proost we have been cooking up a project for advent for a while which is now available... inspired by grace and their service nine over the last few years we invited nine pieces by nine artists to interpret the christmas story. all the pieces have been created in response to one of the traditional nine readings from the nine lessons and carols christmas service. there are 6 movies and 3 tracks. the items are not available individually - we wanted to keep this as a set. the pieces are:

1. Genesis 3: 8–15; 17–19
Dust by Dubb and Coyote - mp3 spoken word and beats

2. Genesis 22: 15–18
God of Abraham by Doug Gay - mp3 song

3. Isaiah 9: 2; 6–7
O Come O Come Emmanuel by Pádraig Twomey and Jonny McEwen - mp3 song

4. Isaiah 11: 1–3a; 4a; 6–9
Love's Impossible Reality by Cheryl Lawrie and Mike Emmett - movie

5. Luke 1: 26–35; 38
Blessed by Juli Allen and Jon Birch - movie

6. Luke 2: 1; 3–7
Signs of Love by Andi Mac and Harronell - movie

7 Luke 2: 8–16
A Great Company by Jonny Baker and Jon Birch - movie

8. Matthew 2: 1–12
Magi by Andrew Jones - movie

9. John 1: 1–14
Word by Gavin Mart - movie

nine costs nine pounds and is available in the movies section of the web site. you could use it in your church/community, at home alone, with a family. it's all downloadable.

i'm really pleased that harry (dubb) gets to make his debut on proost (proud dad moment) - we'll have an ep or album from him next year in the spring we hope.

i'll be blogging a few more advent ideas and links in the next few days/weeks but other things on proost that are also worth a look are si smith's amazing 25 - advent calendar and comic and cutout nativity - totally brilliant, kester's movie wait and jon's movie silent night.

thanks to everyone who has contributed.

[added as worship trick 47]

mental relief

mental relief 2, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

it was surprisingly wonderful to encounter a tube station in london where there are just blank spaces on walls where there would normally be advertising posters. the mental environment is normally so polluted... one of the pluses of the credit crunch?!

waltz with bashir

Having made Waltz with Bashir from the point of view of the common soldier, I've come to one conclusion: war is so useless that it's unbelievable. It's nothing like you've seen in American movies. No glam, no glory. Just very young men going nowhere, shooting at no-one they know, getting shot at by no-one they know, then going home and trying to forget. Sometimes they can. Most of the time they cannot.

so says ari folman, writer, director and producer of waltz with bashir. it is an incredible animated documentary of ari's journey to remember his involvement with the israeli army in the lebanon war of the eigfhties. the story, the drawing and the music are all breathtaking.

advent beach huts - worship trick 46

every year there are wonderfully creative ideas for advent and lent. i don't know what it is about these two seasons but they are definitely the most creatively embraced by alt worship and emerging church. i always look forward to seeing who will come up with new ideas. well this year's craziest most brilliant idea i have come across is advent beach huts.

beyond are a community in brighton who look form their blog like their worship is a lot of fun and very creative. well for advent they have contacted owners of beach huts in brighton and every day through advent a beach hut owner will open their beach hut between 5:30 and 6:30pm in response to a christmas carol or theme. there is a list of which hut will feature on what day on the blog where they will also be posting a photo of each. i don't know if there are plans to open all the huts together at the end but that would be fun...

i really like it when groups are creating art stuff in public spaces like this. i'm notsure what the equivalent would be in ealing though... i am making this worship trick 46 series 3

50 worship ideas - new book from jenny baker

congratulations to jenny (baker) on her new book that was launched at the youthwork conferences this weekend. it contains 50 worship ideas which are a mix of prayer, meditation, ritual, worship experiences, contemplative exercises and reading the bible. several have been tried and tested at grace. whilst pitched at youth it's actually a book that will work across ages if you like a creative approach to worship. as ever with jenny it's brilliant! it's available through proost.co.uk for £9. look in the books section of the site...

sutton graffiti

sutton graffiti, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

 

NET tonight

NET has a fantastic programme - tonight is no exception with tommy hutchinson of igenius, a world community of social entrepreneurs and alberto nardelli of unltdworld an online platform connecting entrepreneurs. details are on the NET homepage. (sorry for the short notice!)

all i need

i have not come across radiohead's movie for all i need before but spotted a link to it on bob's facebook page. in the simplest way it highlight's child slavery.

movies

shards from jonny baker on Vimeo.

when i was in the usa i picked up a flip camera. couldn't be easier to record movies - press to start, press to stop, flip open the usb stick and plug in to your mac/pc and there you have it. the clips are 640x480. for me it will be great to capture a few things. i tend to focus on still photography and haven't bothered taking a movie camera as well. but this is so small and easy i may do a bit more. it's also ideal for creating some loops for arkaos or keynote or whatever...

in terms of movies i'll upload at vimeo. here's the first flip movie.

who saw who

really enjoyed a visit to the hayward gallery today. the andy warhol exhitibiton is brilliantly curated - wonderful use of space. but it was the other exhibition who saw who by new kid on the block robin rhode that i really liked. he mixes performance, art and photography in creative and very contemporary ways usually on the streets in south africa. go visit if you get the chance...

you can see some of his works here

a shadow of my former self

a shadow of my former self, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

 

same sex marriage blogalogue

tony jones is blogging a conversation with rod on same sex marriage... no doubt people will get wound up but it's an important conversation in the church. tony's view that he will be supporting is that

I now believe that GLBTQ can live lives in accord with biblical Christianity (at least as much as any of us can!) and that their monogamy can and should be sanctioned and blessed by church and state.

christ has no body now but yours

came across christ has no body now but yours on phil's new blog and am adding it as a worship trick

Christ has no Body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which he looks
Compassion on the world
Yours are the feet with which he walks
To do good
Yours are the hands with which he blesses
All the world.

Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are his body
Planning in the Kingdom
It helps, now and then, to step back
And take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts
It is even beyond our vision.
Lord, we know in whom we believe
We accomplish in our lifetime
Only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise
that is God’s work
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying that the
Kingdom always lies beyond us.

Lord, we know in whom we believe
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith
No confession brings perfection
No pastoral visit being wholeness
No programme accomplishes the Church’s mission
No set of goals and objectives includes everything
Lord, we know in whom we believe
This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
Lord we know in whom we believe

We cannot do everything
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well
It may be incomplete
But it is a beginning,
A step along the way, an opportunity for the
Lords grace to enter and do the rest.
Lord we know in whom we believe

We may never see the end results,
But that is the difference between
The master builder and the worker.
We are workers,
Not master builders,
Ministers,
Not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future
Not our own.
(Oscar Romero)

Lord, we trust in you
To eternally renew our belief in you
In ourselves and in each other
In this is our joy. Amen

Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are his body.
Christ has no Body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which he looks
Compassion on this world
Christ has no Body but yours.

forge canada

forge canada has been launched

sanctus1 pocket liturgies

this month on proost we are really pleased to announce the release of sanctus1 pocket liturgies. sanctus1 are a christian community/emerging church/alt worship in the centre of the city of manchester. the book pulls together a flavour of their approach to and worship liturgies that they have developed over the last six years or so. i love this series of books. it is doing exactly what we hoped – giving voice to liturgy that is grassroots and creative emerging out of the life of communities rather than being produced by experts in a centralised committee removed from the context of the worshipping community using them. you can buy them as a physical copy or a pdf download in the books section of the proost site.

congrats laura, janet and rachel!

luminosity and a mystical quest

i read another john taylor book on the plane recently - the christlike god. you may remember me blogging about the primal vision and the go-between god...

one of the things that took me by surprise was when he writes about luminosity.

we should perhaps be ready to trust our occasional perceptions of the luminosity of the physical world and its apparent potentiality for becoming a voice and a word whereby we know ourselves to be addressed and held in relationship.

he says that the greek word for god 'theos' might easily be translated as 'shining' in some of its other greek usage. i like this idea. maybe energy or wonder might be other ways of getting at the same idea.

i recently had a conversation with someone about my photos and they said that my work had a luminosity, an almost god-like presence. this wasn't someone who is a christian as far as i know. but i was pleased and surprised with the comment and on reflction i am attracted to that sort of luminosity. i sometimes think of myself questing the light. i guess in this or this or this ?

i had a piece published in the latest issue of the london independent phortography magazine along with this photo which i submitted with this and this and this in the last issue which i was pleased about. i don't think i have posted it on the blog (at least i can't remember and can't find it). this is it...

A Mystical Quest

“Sometimes I think the people to saddest for are those who have lost or become numb to the sensation of wonder” Douglas Coupland in Life After God

In the film American Beauty Ricky films a carrier bag floating on the wind in front of a garage door for 15 minutes. As it does so he whispers ‘there is so much beauty in the world – I can’t take it in’. He films everything. For him the camera seems to enable him to look or see more closely, to pay attention, to see beauty where others might see rubbish. The mystics call this awareness. In this sense photography is mystical. At the recent annual LIP lecture Paul Hill described photography as learning how to see. He also shared his own sense of never waning interest and excitement in taking ‘small adventures’ locally with the camera on a kind of quest.

These photographs are taken in Gunnersbury Park in Ealing, which is round the corner from where I live, on one of my own small adventures. The combination of morning sunlight, frost and mist is almost electric. It has an incredible energy to it. I find myself on a morning like this questing the light, wanting to catch moments that will never be repeated before they pass. Paradoxically these sort of moments are both wild and still. There’s a wild rush of adrenaline and excitement but then in the moment of beauty I almost hold my breath, lost in wonder at the stillness. Maybe it’s being in the fast paced city of London that makes these fleeting still moments so renewing.

bob on obama

i landed back in the uk this morning. i actually got an electricity plug on the plane which was heaven as i had an article to write. after that i watched speed racer which is truly a colourful bubblegum bright delight by the wachowski brothers - i thought it was a kind of parable too that might be easily applied to spirituality and the christian industries but that's a story for another day...

talking of the christian industries, i forgot to mention that bob carlton has written a book with ariele gentiles for ys  - barack obama:an american story which is exciting. although not everyone seems to think it's exciting judging by some of the comments on marko's blog post about it. if you want a window into the polarised nature of christianity in america go and read some of the comments - at this moment up to 111!