Thursday 16 December 2010
Christmas ladies' meetings (part 1)
On Monday, Helen and Annie left the CMM office to the madness of moving, and travelled the short distance to Grenfell Baptist Church for their ladies' fellowship Christmas carol service. Helen and Annie are regular speakers at the fellowship, and have also become a regular feature at the carol service - Annie with the key task of accompanying the carols, and also providing a couple of Christmas songs to fit into the service. The ladies are wonderful - mostly of West Indian origin, but now of course fully Brummie. They have a great heart for worship and praise, and support each other through this fellowship.
Barrow (not quite again)
On Sunday we visited Barrow - not Barrow-in-Furness this time, but Barrow-upon-Soar in north Leicestershire. The Baptist church there has been a long-term supporter of CMM's work, most notably providing Simon Gudger. Helen used to live very close to the village, and it is also Amy's home town, so it was great to visit the area.
We had originally been invited to lead a musical in a day, but a change of plan meant that we were leading the morning service. It is always wonderful to lead worship in a church where people are keen to focus on God, and open to the Spirit. Roger preached, Helen led worship, and Martin and Amy completed the music group. Mark Turner, the minister there, also joined in with his guitar.
We again used the song 'Within a crib', and it went down really well. Roger spoke about the God who comes, and God came! A number of people were really touched, and the ministry team was busy at the end.
After the service we had an amazing lunch with Mark Turner and his family. Thanks so much to all at Barrow for your hospitality and support over the years.
We had originally been invited to lead a musical in a day, but a change of plan meant that we were leading the morning service. It is always wonderful to lead worship in a church where people are keen to focus on God, and open to the Spirit. Roger preached, Helen led worship, and Martin and Amy completed the music group. Mark Turner, the minister there, also joined in with his guitar.
We again used the song 'Within a crib', and it went down really well. Roger spoke about the God who comes, and God came! A number of people were really touched, and the ministry team was busy at the end.
After the service we had an amazing lunch with Mark Turner and his family. Thanks so much to all at Barrow for your hospitality and support over the years.
An evening with the sisters
On Saturday night we travelled to St. John's House in Alum Rock in Birmingham. This is the community of the sisters of St. John the Divine, who have long supported CMM, hosting Miriam Dix for her gap year, and Helen for her first 3 years at CMM before getting married. As a result, CMM has linked up with the sisters for a yearly advent evening, and this year Roger led the evening focusing on the advent theme of 'The God who comes'.
It was a lovely evening - the CMM team was all 'In house' - Roger, Mary, Annie and Helen, and we led carols, songs, and the sisters joined in with the readings. The chapel is a wonderful prayerful place to be, and there were a number of other guests alongside the sisters who all seemed to enjoy the atmosphere.
One of the songs included was 'Within a crib', which had its premiere at the evening. Roger is beginning a collaboration with hymn lyric writer Timothy Dudley-Smith, and this was one of Roger's first tunes to his words. Watch this space for more information on that project!
Following the advent presentation, the sisters provided some wonderful homemade mince pies. A great way to finish the evening.
It was a lovely evening - the CMM team was all 'In house' - Roger, Mary, Annie and Helen, and we led carols, songs, and the sisters joined in with the readings. The chapel is a wonderful prayerful place to be, and there were a number of other guests alongside the sisters who all seemed to enjoy the atmosphere.
One of the songs included was 'Within a crib', which had its premiere at the evening. Roger is beginning a collaboration with hymn lyric writer Timothy Dudley-Smith, and this was one of Roger's first tunes to his words. Watch this space for more information on that project!
Following the advent presentation, the sisters provided some wonderful homemade mince pies. A great way to finish the evening.
Friday 10 December 2010
Moving house
There's major upheaval at CMM at the moment as Roger and Mary prepare to move to Lickey End in Bromsgrove. All the shelves containing books and cds have come off the wall, and there are boxes everywhere. Amidst all the busyness the office staff keep working!
Thursday 9 December 2010
A Marston Green Morning
On Sunday morning, Helen braved the snow and travelled to Marston Green Free Baptist Church. The church has been in an interregnum for a while, and they have often been visited by Geoff Rudge, one of the EBRG trustees. This was Helen's second preaching engagement at the church, and this particular Sunday was the second in Advent, and also their toy service.
Several of the members of the congregation have been involved in the CMM choir, or attended the Churches Together in Solihull quiet day that Helen led in October, so it was great to see some familiar faces. The main organiser was Stella Reece, who helps to lead the music at the church.
Helen had two short talks in the service - and two willing (and unwilling) volunteers in the only children present in the service, two sisters. The older one, Raphaella, caused a smile - in the prayers of thanksgiving the congregation were asked to talk about the most beautiful thing they had seen that week, and Raphaella was heard to say 'My hair'. To be fair, it was impressive - blonde, and she'd had it crimped that week.
The second of the two talks was similar to the service in Sandiacre the previous week. Helen spoke about 'The God who Speaks' (it was Bible Sunday) and managed to get the congregation asking the Spirit to come, waiting, and listening for words etc. They did really well - a couple of them even dared to share out loud what they felt God was saying.
Afterwards, one lady shared that she normally finds it hard to listen to God as her brain is so busy and she is thinking about what she has to do. She says that in the silence at church she felt completely at peace, and a voice in her head repeating the words 'I love you'. How wonderful.
Brian, one of the members of EBRG has been prompted by God to write a book about prophecy and hearing God speak. Nine or ten of the congregation at the church took copies away with them.
Several of the members of the congregation have been involved in the CMM choir, or attended the Churches Together in Solihull quiet day that Helen led in October, so it was great to see some familiar faces. The main organiser was Stella Reece, who helps to lead the music at the church.
Helen had two short talks in the service - and two willing (and unwilling) volunteers in the only children present in the service, two sisters. The older one, Raphaella, caused a smile - in the prayers of thanksgiving the congregation were asked to talk about the most beautiful thing they had seen that week, and Raphaella was heard to say 'My hair'. To be fair, it was impressive - blonde, and she'd had it crimped that week.
The second of the two talks was similar to the service in Sandiacre the previous week. Helen spoke about 'The God who Speaks' (it was Bible Sunday) and managed to get the congregation asking the Spirit to come, waiting, and listening for words etc. They did really well - a couple of them even dared to share out loud what they felt God was saying.
Afterwards, one lady shared that she normally finds it hard to listen to God as her brain is so busy and she is thinking about what she has to do. She says that in the silence at church she felt completely at peace, and a voice in her head repeating the words 'I love you'. How wonderful.
Brian, one of the members of EBRG has been prompted by God to write a book about prophecy and hearing God speak. Nine or ten of the congregation at the church took copies away with them.
A busy Annie Weekend (part 2)
After her trip down to Salisbury Annie was up and running on Sunday too. This time she travelled to Eccleshall Staffordshire for The Inn Crowd in a day. This time she had a team of soloists - Ann Steer, Richard Harvey and Amy Carter. The local group provided the Mary and Joseph soloists.She had an incredibly busy day - there was a really big choir, an orchestra and a group of children.
This was her text comment at the end of the day:
Excellent day. Great team. Felt prompted to speak briefly at the performance. Full church. Thanks for prayers.
A busy Annie weekend (part 1)
After last weekend's CMM in two places, Annie was the one that was incredibly busy. On Friday night she travelled down to Salisbury with Sue, ready to be up bright and early to lead Simeon in a day.There is a large choir in Salisbury that have taken part in lots of CMM's tours, ably led by Grahame and Jennifer Chubb and Andy and Alison Larkham. The group in Salisbury provided all the soloists for the day, and Annie says they were excellent and did a fantastic job.
These are the texts we received from Annie during the day:
Simeon going so well that I'm doing an Angel Voices taster, as that's their next project.
Wonderful day and performance. Simeon so joyous! Sue and I driving back now. Snow all melted here.
Tuesday 7 December 2010
A busy CMM weekend (part 2)
While Helen was having fun in Nottingham, Roger and Annie braved the threat of snow to travel up to Barrow-in-Furness. They took with them some of the Two Sisters team - Martin, Devon, Emily, Caroline, Bill and Jonathan.The reason for the journey up north was Sharon Collins' 50th birthday. Sharon has been involved with CMM for a long time - she trains the Barrow Choir, trains the choir for our Grange music week, and also sings for us as a soloist. A long time ago she asked if Roger would be willing to travel up for a kind of musical in a day to celebrate, and her musical of choice was 'Two Sisters and a Funeral'. So this gave Roger the opportunity to schedule into his diary a kind of premiere - the first time the musical had been fully performed in public.
The team made it up to Barrow in time for lunch, and were delighted to see some old friends including Brenda, Carole (with Hannah), Betty and Rosemary - as well as all those they expected to see in Barrow.Roger and Annie taught the choir the musical - this really was a 'musical in a day' as not one of the choir could possibly have learnt it in advance! They also divided the choir into sectionals, so that the men could work extra hard on being baddies.
Roger was absolutely delighted with how the musical worked in a day, and he was also really pleased with the soloists. It was Emily's first official engagement with us, and she sang really well. Caroline, Emily and Devon performed the dramatic narrations for the first time, and were excellent.
The following morning Roger preached at the service at Sharon's church, particularly challenging them about house groups and fellowship. Then after lunch the team travelled home, dropping Roger off at the train to travel to Penrith where he spent 24 hours with Graham Allan working on the biography.
Monday 6 December 2010
A busy CMM weekend (part 1)
On the last weekend in November, CMM was incredibly busy, stretched to two places at once.
Helen travelled to Nottingham to lead David in a Day at Sandiacre Methodist Church. This was a special event to celebrate the church's anniversary. The organiser had suggested pushing the start time until after lunch, which made the day very difficult to fit in, but we managed it. For her team on the day Helen had Felicity leading dance, and Miriam (Helen's sister) also helping out on clarinet and being generally wonderful. It was also wonderful for Helen to have her dad in the choir, her mum in the audience and her older sister on viola. Helen's brother-in-law Jon and niece Bethan also made a cameo appearance...
Rehearsals were hard work, but the choir of about 45 were wonderful, and picked it all up amazingly well. Felicity had a group of about 8 dancers, who learnt two wonderful dances - firstly to 'The Lord's my shepherd' and then to the David and Goliath song. Felicity also did two solo dances to 'I will bless the Lord' and David's lament over Saul and Jonathan.
We also had some wonderful soloists - Ruth, Miriam, Barbara, Mavis and John. We also had some wonderful help from Nora who notebashed on the piano and then 'played the orchestra' for the performance. Nora, amazingly, trained with Roger at Birmingham school of music.
The audience was smaller than the choir, but they joined in with the songs wherever they could and seemed very appreciative. Despite the snow and the cold outside, it was a great event inside, and hopefully the sense of fun and fellowship was exactly what Sandiacre Methodist were looking for in their anniversary weekend.
The next morning Helen led the service at the church with her mum and second cousin Gillian supporting away. They had a lovely singing group lead some songs at the start of the service, and Helen was able to busk away on guitar behind Nora. The service itself went well - Helen was brave and managed to get the congregation waiting on God and asking the Spirit to come. People seemed to appreciate this focus on 'The God who comes' - one person claimed a word of knowledge and another had a picture.
Helen travelled to Nottingham to lead David in a Day at Sandiacre Methodist Church. This was a special event to celebrate the church's anniversary. The organiser had suggested pushing the start time until after lunch, which made the day very difficult to fit in, but we managed it. For her team on the day Helen had Felicity leading dance, and Miriam (Helen's sister) also helping out on clarinet and being generally wonderful. It was also wonderful for Helen to have her dad in the choir, her mum in the audience and her older sister on viola. Helen's brother-in-law Jon and niece Bethan also made a cameo appearance...
Rehearsals were hard work, but the choir of about 45 were wonderful, and picked it all up amazingly well. Felicity had a group of about 8 dancers, who learnt two wonderful dances - firstly to 'The Lord's my shepherd' and then to the David and Goliath song. Felicity also did two solo dances to 'I will bless the Lord' and David's lament over Saul and Jonathan.
We also had some wonderful soloists - Ruth, Miriam, Barbara, Mavis and John. We also had some wonderful help from Nora who notebashed on the piano and then 'played the orchestra' for the performance. Nora, amazingly, trained with Roger at Birmingham school of music.
The audience was smaller than the choir, but they joined in with the songs wherever they could and seemed very appreciative. Despite the snow and the cold outside, it was a great event inside, and hopefully the sense of fun and fellowship was exactly what Sandiacre Methodist were looking for in their anniversary weekend.
The next morning Helen led the service at the church with her mum and second cousin Gillian supporting away. They had a lovely singing group lead some songs at the start of the service, and Helen was able to busk away on guitar behind Nora. The service itself went well - Helen was brave and managed to get the congregation waiting on God and asking the Spirit to come. People seemed to appreciate this focus on 'The God who comes' - one person claimed a word of knowledge and another had a picture.
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