Monday 28 June 2010

And the very next day...

A very late night and a few hours sleep later, Roger was on the go again. And this time his Wildfire shirt came back out. We had a pre-Cumbria Wildfire Tour practice performance at Christ Church, Burney Lane. The team for the tour got together:

Stephen - Jonathan Chappell
Paul - Bill Carpenter
Paul's Pharisee sidekick - Mike Bailey
Rhoda - Ann Steer
Lydia - Sharon Collins
Anna - Helen Pollard
Bookstall - Keith Grimshaw

It was strange performing Wildfire again, particularly for Ann and Helen reprising their old roles. Jonathan has recently played Stephen in the CMM Choir's performance of Wildfire, and we had quite a number from the choir supporting us in the performance.

It was also great to have Sharon Collins and Mike Bailey with us from Barrow in Furness. Mike is Mary Jones' brother.

Friday 25 June 2010

The Big Day!

It's been nearly 27 years coming, but at last it came - the wedding day of Sally Jones.


It was a wonderful day that even the bad weather and the bride being an hour late couldn't spoil! Karl was remarkably calm in all the waiting - he knew that despite only being a 5 minute journey away, there was no way Sally with her bridesmaids Carolyn, Gemma and Emma would make it on time. Thankfully Roger kept us up to date with texts on how they were doing - according to Sally the lateness was his fault for spending so long in the bathroom...


The service was a wonderful mixture of music and dance. CMM provided the music group, and there was also loads of dance - Anna and Felicity leading the bridal party up the aisle, and Springs dancing in the service. Anna also danced to 'I see you hanging there' by Phatfish - a dance that we have often seen Sally dance. Simon Gudger preached, Peter Smith led the service, and Devon sang 'God cares for you'. All Roger had to do was give Sally away, although he had been faffing about the powerpoint all morning.


After the service the reception was at the local Beaufort Social club. They fed us great food, and looked after us very well. After the meal and speeches, Martin compered us through an evening of entertainment provided by family and friends (with lots and lots of dance of course!), and then a disco.


So congratulations to Karl and Sally Taylor, and may God bless you in your future together.












Catshill Worship Weekend

After the mad rush of the Rock Roadshow, the Renewal evening, and the Rhos on Sea week, the pace didn't let up and we were straight off to Catshill for a worship weekend. Not a long journey though, as Catshill is on the A38 just outside Birmingham.

We had been invited by Elizabeth Hidderley, who has long been known to CMM through various musicals and trips to Israel. It was wonderful to work alongside her and Helen, an oboeist from the church.

We had a wonderful team for the day, as so many associates live locally - Kathleen Owen, Martin Fisher, Simon Cooper and Sarah Harley were the team for the event alongside Roger and Helen (and Mary on the Sunday).

Roger began with his Ways to Praise teaching, looking at psalms, hymns and songs, and then some more creative worship. After lunch Helen led a new songs workshop and then the Saturday culminated in 'Being a worshipper' - looking at David.

We also took the Sunday morning service which was themed around psalm 23, as it was the lectionary for the day.

It was an interesting event, as the theology of worship among the group was very broad leading to some exciting discussion. We're sure God was moving and that people enjoyed the weekend, which evoked memories for some people of the 'Mission Praise services' they used to hold in the past.

Please pray for Elizabeth and the minster Andy, and others at the church as they continue to explore worship together.

Rhos on Sea Week

So we'd just had an incredibly busy weekend with the Rock Roadshow in Bridport (see Rock Blog) and the renewal evening, but there was no let up - we were straight off to Rhos on Sea for a Jairus' Daughter music week. This was our third successive year at St. Winifred's Christian Endeavour hotel, and it was great to be back. This year the team was Roger, Helen, Tim and Lydia Dock, and Helen's sister Deb, who brought her 7 month old baby Bethan. We were also joined by Keith, a local drummer, and part of the church where we hold our performances.


During the week as we learned Jairus, Helen did all the choir training and conducting, so that Roger was left free to play the piano. For those of you that have been to one of our music weeks, you'll be amazed to hear that Roger came to every choir rehearsal... mostly because he'd forgotten how his own musical went...

The teaching throughout the week should really have been around the themes of the first song - Seek, Serve and Follow, but there were some other themes in the musical that Roger felt it right to talk about that didn't quite fall within those three areas. So instead, we used the titles Faith, Hope and Love. Helen spoke the first morning on faith, and then Roger took the other two sessions, using the hope topic to bring in themes of grief and bereavement and the love topic to look at worship.

The evenings were good fun, including 'An evening with Roger Jones', and then after the evening session Tim and Lydia led games with the guests, including a 'Ready Steady Cook' board game and the world famous After Eight game.
The performance went really well - we were at Rhos URC where the minister is Kate Gartside. We had four excellent narrators and four soloists - Mavis, Margaret, Clyde and Barrie. We also had five girls from the sunday school at the church come and sing Jesus, friend of little children. They were absolutely brilliant - they started off shy earlier in the week but had come into their own by the end. Another highlight of the performance was seeing a full row in the audience of staff from St. Winifred's. I think they enjoyed it.

Sadly we can't fit Rhos into our schedule next year, but we are booked for 2012.

Thursday 24 June 2010

Renewal Evening #3

On Sunday 18th April we held the third in our series of Renewal Evenings jointly with Christ Church, Burney Lane. This time the speaker at the service was Heather Butler. Heather used to be in Roger and Mary's youth group, but has since moved away from Birmingham and lives in Anglesea with her family. She has a wonderful prophetic ministry, singing over people and praying for healing. She also has links with Israel and Palestine.

CMM provided a music group for the occasion - Roger, Annie, Helen, Tim, Paul and Ann Steer, as well as supplementing the Christ Church prayer team. It's always wonderful to play together with a big band which includes drums.

During the evening Heather spoke and shared a bit about her life. She also prophecied over the whole congregation - Roger and the musicians had a chord sequence going, and Heather simply walked from row to row and sang out what she felt God was saying. It was a wonderful experience.

After Heather had spoken and we'd spent some time in worship we had a wonderful long ministry time led by Peter Smith. God was moving really powerfully, and it was great so many had come back from previous renewal meetings.

Jerusalem Joy in a day

On Saturday 27th March, Annie led Jerusalem Joy in a day in Warwick. This is our second visit in the last two years to this group of churches, and it was great to be back.

Annie's team for the day was Eddie and Jenny Smith, Amy Carter and Martin Fisher. Eddie played the part of Jesus, and the others filled in the rest.

Annie reports that the day went really well except that she forgot to take a backing track CD with her. Martin was dispatched back to Birmingham to find a CD and he managed to do so, as thankfully Andrew was at home and able to let Martin in!

A highlight of the day for Annie was during the performance. Eddie, singing the part of Jesus, acted out the last supper during the song 'Isn't it wonderful', lifting up the bread and the wine at the appropriate moments - a very powerful moment.

An Evening with Devon

On Sunday 7th March (yes, I know I'm behind with the blog!) we held our first ever Evening with Devon. It was a bit of an experiment with a programme we might like to use in future - taking some of CMM's associates and giving them chance to use their gifts and share their testimonies.

The evening with Devon included testimony and lots of songs. There were lots of Roger's songs, as well as some worship songs, two of Devon's own compositions and two songs from other musicals - 'All I ask of you' and 'Tonight'. Devon sang the latter two with Katie Leaver, who he often sings with in concerts around the Redditch/Bromsgrove area.

The team for the night was Annie, Helen, Roger, Katie Leaver, Amy Carter, Tim Jones on drums, Jonathan Chappell, Martin Fisher and Simon & Laura Cooper. As we had no choir for the occasion we had a lot of rehearsal time beforehand to make sure we knew all the four-part harmony for Roger's material.

The evening took place at St. Andrew's Church in Barnt Green, and we had a lovely big congregation, including Lindsay (formerly of the CMM office) and her mum, who Devon often sees at her nursing home. We were looked after brilliantly at St. Andrew's, including tea and cakes afterwards.

The evening went almost without a hiccough - Devon didn't have his glasses with him, so he attempted all of the music from memory. He almost got there...