Grange update

Here's a quick update from Grange.

We're having a wonderful week here at Abbott Hall. There are over 90 guests here at the hotel taking part in the Pharisee-in-a-week course.

Every morning Roger has been leading bible teaching about the story of Nicodemus. This morning he spoke on being born again, and people really seemed to engage and take part. On Thursday morning his title will be 'A new Spirit'. Should be good...

The choir is 50 strong, ably trained by Sharon Collins, and the orchestra are small, but Annie is delighted as every part is pretty much covered.

The day off is tomorrow, and most of the guests are travelling by bus to Grasmere. Let's hope they don't eat too much gingerbread!

Grange

Huge thanks to Denise for updating the blog and letting us know about how the CMM choir have been getting on.

CMM are about to head for Abbot Hall in Grange over Sands, Cumbria, for the half term week. Over the course of the week we will be learning Pharisee from scratch with a live orchestra and singers. Our week at Abbot Hall is always wonderful, so we're praying for some good weather to make it even more so.

Please pray for the team - for safe travel and a good week:
Roger, Mary, Annie, Helen, Sharon and Jaime, as well as the Christian Guild host for the week - Marian.

Saints Alive - CMM Choir

The Choir performed Saint's Alive at St John's, Walmley on Saturday May 3rd to a very decent size and friendly audience.
The performance here had a very special meaning for our sound technicians Paul and Kim as 25 years ago they rushed back from their honeymoon to participate in the musical.
I hear that everyone appreciated the hospitality and fellowship and enjoyed themselves tremendously.

On Sunday May 18th we were at Six Ways Baptist church in Erdington which was our final performance of Saints Alive (for the time being!).
We were warmly welcomed, and well looked after by The Girls Brigade. Again we had a large appreciative audience almost filling the whole church. It was a very enjoyable time.


All churches that we visited looked after the choir excellently, and the fellowship and hospitality was out-standing. Hopefully we will have brought afew more people to God and enriched the lives of others.

Denise

Rock Recording Day

On Saturday 10th May 2008, over 250 piled in to Christ Church, Ward End, in Birmingham. The aim was to record as much of the Rock choral parts as we could manage, so that a much bigger sound can be added to the CD on top of the rather beautiful, but small, backing vocal group.

The day was a huge success, and people seemed to have really enjoyed the music that they heard. Let's hope they are still as enthusiastic as this when they hear the whole lot!

Here are some photos from the day:

Wildfire in Bridport

Last weekend a CMM team consisting of Roger, Bill, Caroline, Jonathan, Linda and Helen travelled down (or in Bill's case, across) to Bridport in Dorset. A choir of about 40 there had been rehearsing Wildfire for several weeks, and the CMM team just travelled down to provide soloists and to lead the final rehearsals.

The choir had been excellently trained, and it was a wonderful performance on Saturday evening, as part of Bridport's Hope08 campaign. The church was pretty full with audience, and they really got involved, clapping along and joining in with the last couple of songs.

One choir member said this:

…unable to speak to you personally after the concert on Saturday in Bridport and so I thought this the best way to say thank you so much for such a wonderful day and amazing musical. I didn't want the evening to stop! (Presumably this is what heaven will be like!!!)

We have had a great time practising over the past couple of weeks and despite not being able to read music I have loved taking part, and have not been made to feel stupid.

I have been through a few difficult months with family problems, but Saturday just took me "out of myself" and I feel so exhilarated and uplifted by the whole event and am "rejoicing in the Lord" in spite of all that is happening. I do hope you and your lovely team will be persuaded to come back to us next year for Rock!.

And indeed we were persuaded - Rock will be performed in Bridport United Church on Monday 26th October 2009

Saints Alive - CMM Choir
Sunday 27th April
West Bromwich Baptist Church

The weather was atrocious leading up to the performance, and I thought that people would not turn up, but I was wrong. The church was packed with aproximately 160 people spanning every age group and background. The choir, under Miriam Bell though was down to 43, but with the size of the room with a low ceiling it worked out perfectly.

The choir and the congregation all seemed to enjoy themselves and again we were well looked after, with an endless supply of drinks and cake. Afterwards, there was plenty of time for fellowship as we had an early start to the performance with a majority remaining behind for this.

I found this to be the best performance so far, and I went home really feeling that the Spirit was working within me.

A big thankyou to everyone involved, especially Miriam.

by Denise Raby (alto)