Tuesday 20 December 2011

Your performances and emails...


We've been hearing some wonderful reports about your own performances of Roger's musicals around the country. Here are a few comments:

Dear Roger Jones
I have just finished taking part in a two night run of your great show While shepherds watched. I thought I might take the opportunity to say I think it is fantastic and the song "Come see the beauty of the king" one of the most beautiful I have had the joy to sing.
So, thank you very much!
Merry Christmas.
Kind regards
Simon

Greetings from Whitchurch 
Just to tell you that in November my wife Ruth who is a music teacher put together a scratch choir from our church and we sang Greater than Gold as our contribution to Bible Fresh year. We also used some slides that some of of our members had taken when they had done the actual walk. It was a great evening and really enjoyed by all. It want so well they are now saying we should do Saints Alive for Pentecost!!
Blessings for you all this Christmas
Michael Parrott
Minister St Johns Methodist Church in Whitchurch


Dear Roger - I know you don't know me, but my husband Malcolm and I were at one of your Presentations at SCARGILL, near Kettlewell a short time ago - and as I stated then, "we were just 'blown away' by the Performance, and overwhelmed by your gift (similar to Gareth Malone of T.V. fame - don't know if he is a Christian or not - he ought to be!)--of getting the very best out of people who think they don't have any gift at all.
Isn't it a shame when there's talent going to waste? - Anyway, it would be super to see you MORE "up North" and I trust that you and your wife Mary have a truly Blessed, Restful few months and that Christmas will be very special for you.
 Sorry to trouble you, but we wish you all God's Richest Blessings and look forward to meeting you again sometime - if not here - then 'in the air' when Jesus comes again - praise His Wonderful Name.....God Bless - Janet Hughes


Roger and Mary - May your sabbatical journey provide you with a powerful sense of God's presence in your life - in ways you never imagined - much as happened to Dale and me on our sabbatical journey this summer! Blessings to you both - we shall hold you in our prayers.
fondly,
Beth Meyer
p.s. On December 18th in worship at Christ Church UCC here in Milwaukee, our Church School children are presenting what we suspect is the US Premier of your "Away in a Manger" - it's been a thrill to share some of your music with our congregation on other Sundays as well



Dear Roger
The Soulstice Singers would like to thank you so much for 'Wildfire'. We formed a community choir last summer which included twenty chilidren from the Primary School and representatives from each of the churches in Amesbury.
We gave three performances at the Abbey church in Amesbury and have been requested to give another performance at the Baptist Church in February. Proceeds went to our contact with the church in South Sudan.
The Holy Spirit was so gracious in touching people in different ways and the children can still be heard going round school singing 'I was glad when they said to me, "let us go into the house of the Lord".
We are now looking forward to rehearsing a new production for next summer.
Attached are a few photos as requested - the choir with MD Revd Wenda Rioch,
Jewishe leaders and children singing Come Holy Spirit.
Best wishes and blessings this Christmastide.
Wenda.







CMM Christmas Newsletters

Roger has just sent out his latest update:

Hi Folks

Below are links to our various Christmas Newsletters. Please do have a look,
as we have so much to share with you all:

Poppy's Pages - the Jones Family newsletter
inc. family news, our new grandaughter, pictures, etc
plus CMM new titles by Roger Jones, Alison Fuggle, Peter Lawrence,
and CMM Events 2012, inc. a Youth Day and Singing Day:
http://www.cmm.org.uk/downloads/newsletters/12-11-pp.pdf

Annie Routley's news
inc. work with CMM, CMM Choir, new Smart Car, etc:
http://www.cmm.org.uk/downloads/newsletters/12-11-ar.pdf

Helen Pollard's news
inc. family, recordings, productions, holiday in Skye, Chanterelles, etc
http://www.cmm.org.uk/downloads/newsletters/12-11-hp.pdf

Roger Jones
Christian Music Ministries

The weekend before Christmas

The weekend before Christmas is always a busy one, and for Helen and Annie this year was no exception.  On Saturday evening they went to St. John's House - an Anglican Convent in the Alum Rock/Ward End area of Birmingham to hold an advent evening for the sisters and their guests.  The Community of St. John the Divine have always been a wonderful support to CMM, both prayerfully and practically - giving Miriam accommodation when she did her gap year, and allowing Helen to stay for 3 years.  They also allowed us to use one of their spare rooms for stock when Roger and Mary sold 327 Bromford Road.

The advent evening was wonderful - Annie and Helen took the theme light, and used a variety of readings, carols and songs to enable people to reflect on the theme and prepare for the coming of the Light of the World.  After the presentation everyone retired to the refectory for tea, coffee and amazing mince pies.  It was a lovely prayerful evening.

Then on Sunday Annie had her carol service at church, which had been a lot of hard work for her arranging the music and organising the instrumentalists and singers.  A couple of songs from the CMM repertoire crept in to the service, including 'How silent waits the listening earth' from Seasons and Reasons.

Helen was also busy on the Sunday with two services at Saltley Methodist.  In the morning service Helen and James led worship despite both suffering from colds.  In the evening at the carol service, Helen led one song on guitar (thankfully helped by Amy as Helen's voice quickly disappeared!), but also it was Helen's kids club the Tribe's time to shine - they started off the service with Silent Night, and then finished the whole thing off with Chris Rice's beautiful 'Welcome to our world'.  The Tribe have their Christmas treat today which they have worked hard to earn - a trip to Funaticz - a kids play warehouse in Stechford.

Friday 16 December 2011

Busy few days for Annie #2

In the busy few days for Annie post I started a day late!  On the Saturday before the CMM choir's production of Simeon, Annie travelled down to Weston-super-Mare for Simeon in a day.  A lot of the work had already been done locally, so Annie didn't have too huge a task with the choir, but she says it was a lovely day and she had a great team.  Alongside local soloists Annie was joined by Caroline and Phil who played Mary and Simeon.

Roger and Mary were having a few days in Weston, so they came to see the production, which was a great encouragement to everyone.

Thursday 15 December 2011

A busy few days for Annie

Annie's run up to Christmas is very busy indeed.  On Sunday night the CMM Choir held their latest performance of Simeon, this time at St. Thomas' Aldridge.  Pat, who was supposed to have been singing the part of Mary, was ill, and the other soloist that had learnt the part was away, so Sue Walker stepped into the breach.  She did a wonderful job, and Annie says she had to be careful not to look at Alan, because he was weeping every time she sang!

Annie went on to say this:


It was a really lovely production, with Edgar singing Simeon – resplendent in genuine prayer shawl – and holding the baby Jesus – the Middle-Eastern one this week, which looked wonderful. He has the most beautiful expression and shining eyes, and all the soloists used him as a visual aid in such a lovely and worshipful way that I was really moved. Soloists: Edgar, Sue Walker, David Hall, Francis Shakespeare, David Newell, Alan Walker and Elaine Brittle. We ended, as last week, with ‘From heaven you came, helpless Babe – this is our God, the Servant King.’

Then this week Annie's work continued (joined by Helen) as she travelled to Grenfell Baptist for their ladies' fellowship Christmas service.  Annie accompanied the carols on piano, with Helen on flute, and then both of them sang 'How silent waits the listening earth' from Seasons and Reasons and then 'Mary and her man called Joe' from Simeon.  It is always lovely to attend this fellowship - Grenfell Baptist was the church Roger and Mary met at, and other EBRG members such as Gill have connections there.

Then later today, Annie and Helen are going to Sutton Coldfield Baptist Church to lead their ladies' fellowship Christmas meeting, and then on Saturday they are taking the same programme (though extended) to the sisters at St. John's House in Ward End.

Thursday 8 December 2011

The end of a busy weekend

And the busy CMM weekend culminated in a wonderful performance of Simeon from the CMM choir at Christ Church, conducted by Annie.  For this performance, Debbie played Mary, David played Joseph, Pete took the part of Simeon, and Elaine the part of Anna.   There were also instrumental highlights - Alan on trombone, Jan and Elaine on recorders, and Annie on the viola.  Very impressive to both conduct and play!

Roger (and I imagine the rest of the congregation) was blown away by the performance and was raving about it in the office.  Roger gave the talk at the end of the performance too - his last official job before his sabbatical begins.  Unfortunately we don't have any photos of the actually performance, but we do have a couple of shots from backstage before it all began.



The busy weekend continues

The day after the Inn Crowd in Hinckley, CMM's busy weekend continued.  Helen and James (and Amy) went to Saltley Methodist to lead worship - Helen's kids club was meant to be involved in one of the songs in the service but unfortunately the projector broke so the carefully planned service had to be completely revamped.  Never a dull moment at Saltley!

Just down the road, Roger, Mary and the whole family (including Poppy) travelled to Christ Church for what was their last official Sunday as part of that church.  The service was led by Jane, but Roger played for the praise with Pat and Mary on vocals and Tim making a cameo on drums.  Apparently during the service Roger managed to break the piano - leaving in style!

It was a very moving occasion for Roger and Mary as they have been part of the congregation there for many years and have experienced some highs and lows with them.

After the service was an amazing lunch prepared by Pat, including a special cake that Roger and Mary had to cut together.  And of course Roger gave a speech...







The Inn Crowd in Hinckley

On the 3rd December, Roger, Helen, Devon, Ann, Simon & Laura, Emily and Amy travelled to Hinckley for 'The Inn Crowd'.  Simon's sister Rachael had been doing all of the preparation work and choir training for the day, and their mum Sue had also done an amazing amount of work - including cooking a special casserole that didn't include any of the bits Devon normally picks out!  An amazing feat!

Roger worked hard with the choir, rehearsing and doing some bible teaching, Helen and Amy played various instruments - this time it was a horn, a trumpet, a flute, a bassoon, a clarinet and briefly the piano!  Ann and Devon played the parts of Debbie and Sam, and Emily and Simon were Mary and Joe.  It was quite nerve-wracking for Emily to sing, as she is a lay worker in the Hinckley circuit, and it was the first time many of them had heard her sing.  She had no need to be worried though as she has an amazing voice.

Rachael had also trained some amazing shepherds - Fern, Lisa and Jacob - all three of them had really good voices and stole the show.  The tenors and basses were all too chicken to sing solo, so we had an extra large group of wise men - which was great fun.


The general atmosphere was wonderful - there was a nice sized audience and a lot of fun was had by all!  Laura did an amazing job on the bookstall as always, and we were also blessed by John running the sound system and doing a great job.  Sadly we don't have any photos of the day but I've included a couple from our Hinckley Rock performance anyway - the choir were a lot more Christmassy this time round though!

And on the same day...

On the same day as Two Sisters in Macclesfield, Annie travelled to an evangelical church in Stafford to lead the Inn Crowd in a day.  She had a wonderful team with her - Richard H and Katie as Sam and Debbie, and Simon C and Catherine as Joe and Mary.

Annie says the day was wonderful - the church were incredibly welcoming.  The pastor had been the main one organising the event, so it really helps when the church leadership are right behind you.  The church was packed for the performance, which was brilliant, and with those wonderful soloists Annie says that it was just like 'surfing a wave'.

Two Sisters in Macclesfield

At the end of November, CMM was in two places once again (actually, 3 if you could the UCS Manchester's performance of Two Sisters on the same day!).  Roger and Helen travelled to Macclesfield with Devon, Amy, Richard and Alan.  It was Richard's first gig with CMM in years, and it was brilliant to have him with us!  He got back in touch by last year joining the CMM fantasy football league, which he promptly won, which made Roger ring him and ask him to come and sing again!

The day in Macclesfield was organised by Wendy Moss, who Roger and Mary have known for year - she has regularly organised Macclesfield events, as well as come to quite a few of our music weeks and events.  It was great to see her, and the choir trainer Dot - together they make a wonderful team.

The choir had had three rehearsals before the day, and on listening to them it sounded like they had had 10 or more - they were wonderful.  There were quite a few familiar faces from our music weeks too - all of them good singers, so we knew the sound would be good.











Alan on our team used to live in Macclesfield, so he had great fun being a baddie and chatting to all of the choir members.  It was also great to have Amy singing, as she's recently had to have an operation near her vocal chords - and thanks to God she has recovered amazingly.

Wendy had brought in a wonderful sound technician, Elliot, who did an incredible job.  Elliot isn't a Christian, but while setting up the sound and watching the musical though at least twice he's heard a lot of gospel, so we do pray for him!

The performance wasn't brilliantly attended because unfortunately it clashed with quite a few events across the town, but we know and trust that God will have brought the right people.  We know that the choir were really blessed too - one of the words of knowledge we had had beforehand was instantly claimed, so we praise God for that!

Monday 5 December 2011

Sabbatical Day 1

So Roger's sabbatical has begun, and his first job - putting up Christmas lights!

Roger is on sabbatical from today until April 19th, and we in the office are looking forward to having some peace and quiet!  But on a serious note, do pray for Roger and Mary at this time - that they are really blessed and able to meet with God in new and exciting ways.  The sabbatical will include various retreats (in Weston and other places) and trips to Israel and Cyprus.  And who knows - maybe Roger will get creative!

Monday 28 November 2011

Two Sisters in Hemel Hempstead

Last weekend Roger and Devon travelled down to Hemel Hempstead for a performance of Two Sisters.  Sarah Moreton is the local organiser there, and she also took the role of Martha, with other local soloists taking the Mary, Jesus and baddie roles.

The performance was at the South Hill Centre near the centre of Hemel - the same venue for our evening with Devon back in January.

Roger says that the choir were superb - excellently trained, and that the performance was really moving.  The particular highlight for him was Abide with me - He says that it felt like the whole musical was building up to that point and that it felt like it was having a huge impact.

The following morning Roger, Devon and Sarah went to St. Thomas' Watford to lead the morning service.  This is where Sarah holds her Watford choir rehearsals.  They had a wonderful morning - Roger spoke about Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and the sermon finished with Devon singing his song 'O Lord how excellent you are' and wandering round the congregation singing over them.

Sarah sent this email after the event:
Dearest friends,

“The sweetest and best harmony is, when every part or instrument is not heard by itself, but a conflation of them all” (Francis Bacon )

Well, I think there was conflation in abundance at Saturday evening’s performance of ’Two Sisters And A Funeral’! What a coming together – of voices, minds, hearts and the Lord’s spirit - as we sang God’s praises and shared His message of unending love with our audience and with each other. Thank you ALL, once again, for helping to make the performance such a resounding success.

I’m sure you will have your own special memories of Saturday evening. On a very personal note, It was a rare treat (and one I shall savour and treasure for a long time) to sing alongside you all, old friends and new, rather than being out the front pulling faces at you...

The highlight for me was the rendition of the last two verses of ‘Abide With Me’. Although often chosen for funerals (and therefore highly appropriate for this musical I guess!), I wonder how many people will have sung it and been so powerfully struck by the reassurance of God’s presence (in challenging and painful times AND in that moment the musical!) as I was – ‘I triumph still if Thou abide with me.’ A spine-tingling moment indeed.

Bless you all,

Love,
Sarah xxx


Two Sisters and an Orchestra

On Saturday 12th November while Helen was at Catshill Baptist Church in the morning, Annie got to work at her own church, St Germain's in Edgbaston.  This time the event was 'Two Sisters and an Orchestra' - a day where instead of the focus being the choir, it was on the orchestra.

We had a lovely orchestra gather, including 3 whole violas!

The orchestra worked hard with Annie all morning, and then in the afternoon the choir arrived for a runthrough, and the performance was at 4.30pm.  The soloists for the performance were Ann, Helen, Devon, Paul (his debut as Jesus), Jonathan and Tim (his debut as a baddie!).  We also had quite a big team of instrumentalists bostering up the orchestra, which was fantastic.  It was great to see Debbie with her son on cornet, and also wonderful to have Trish and Rachel come up from the Isle of Wight, and Tim and Lydia from East Grinstead.  When Helen arrived from Catshill she found she wasn't needed on flute or trumpet, so instead made her debut on bongos!

Sylvia did a fantastic job on piano, and we had a wonderful 3-strong rhythm guitar section!  Alan dusted off his trombone once again, and we also had the amazing G-B family - a viola, a double bass, a guitar, a trumpet, a flute and a tenor in the choir!  It was also nice to have Catherine and her friend in the choir - come all the way from Altrincham, and Brenda on flute all the way from Leyland.

And Roger of course was resident photographer and sound technician...















Friday 25 November 2011

Latest email mailing

This is Roger's latest email update.  If you'd like to receive these updates by email yourself, do contact office@cmm.org.uk and ask to be on the mailing list.


Hi Folks

I'm so excited !!!!

The CDs of SEASONS AND REASONS are now in stock, and we are really thrilled with it. There are 32 tracks, featuring my melodies and Timothy Dudley-Smith's terrific hymn-words, and for the recording we have got together many of CMM's great soloists, past and present. We have Simon Gudger, Devon Brown, Ann Steer, Katie Leaver, Sheila Davies, Bob Deakin, and many, many more, and of course our own Helen Pollard sings and plays on lots of tracks. Annie Routley's vocal group sound absolutely great, and there are arrangements by Chris King, Tim Jones and Helen.

The SEASONS AND REASONS book, containing Christmas, Epiphany, Easter material, etc, is £10.99, and the double CD (32 tracks) is £12.99. Backing Tracks are also available. Order from:
http://www.cmm.org.uk/products/catalogue/index.php?newproducts=1 .

We are also proud to announce the publication of THE SPIRIT WHO SPEAKS (by Peter Lawrence). The last chapter was written after Peter received his terminal diagnosis, and is very moving, instructional and challenging. The whole book is amazing, with wonderful testimonies of how the Lord speaks to us today. It's available from us at £8.99 on:
http://www.cmm.org.uk/products/catalogue/index.php?newproducts=1

A very popular item is FISHERMAN'S FRIEND, Alison Fuggle's complete book of poems. Many are using it privately and in house-group and church worship. We thoroughly recommend it:
http://www.cmm.org.uk/products/catalogue/index.php?newproducts=1

Of course, the complete range of Musicals and Collections, and many other items, are obtainable from the CMM Web Site:
http://www.cmm.org.uk and we really appreciate any publicity about this. Perhaps there are people you know who may be interested. Please let them know.

This Saturday (26 Nov) we have two CMM events:
TWO SISTERS AND A FUNERAL - St Michael's, Market Place, Macclesfield. SK10 1HW at 1930
THE INN CROWD - Church Lane Evangelical Church, Stafford ST16 2AW - contact: 01785 254331
- and on Saturday 03 Dec:
THE INN CROWD - Hinckley Methodist, Leics - 1930 - contact 01455 613352

Roger Jones

Christian Music Ministries
http://www.cmm.org.uk

Ladies' Breakfast

A couple of weeks ago Helen went to speak at a Ladies' Breakfast at Catshill Baptist Church.  It was quite a daunting task, as previous speakers have included Fiona Castle and Jennifer Rees-Larcombe.

Having struggled for a while, Helen eventually decided to speak about singing, and also include a little bit of the 'Ways to Praise' teaching.

The breakfast was an amazingly well-oiled machine.  The ladies at Catshill Baptist hold this about twice every year, and serve up some wonderful food.  The church was packed out - about 100 were present.

The talk went really well (except for overrunning a bit), and at the end Helen decided to risk it and to sing prophetically over the group.  People responded amazingly well, and a few of the words of knowledge EBRG had had on the previous Thursday evening were claimed.

A very exciting morning!

EBRG

Had a lovely EBRG meeting last night.  For those of you that don't know, every Thursday night 10 of us meet to pray together for each other and for the work of Roger and CMM.  Last night 10 became 12 when we were joined by Mike and Barbara - long distance members of the group.  It was wonderful to be able to share with them and support them.

God's really been speaking a lot to us recently.  Last night was one of those evenings when all the plans, pictures and words seem to dovetail together beautifully, right from Annie's worship time at the start through to a snippet of a Bible passage Barbara had planned to share with us.

God is so good.

Thursday 24 November 2011

A new book and CD!

At last we can announce that not only is the Seasons and Reasons music book available, but also the CD and backing tracks! Tim has been beavering away here in the office sending out CDs to those that ordered in advance - it's been great to give a full sack to the postman for quite a few days running.

Seasons and Reasons is a joint project between CMM and Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith, uniting the Bishop's wonderful hymn words with Roger's lovely tunes.

Response to the project has been great so far:

Dear Roger
The postman has just delivered to us a copy of 'Seasons and Reasons'. Thank you so much - we love it! Apart from Timothy's beautiful words coupled with your wonderful tunes, it is so full of lovely musical memories for us! I've had a quick play through and look forward to delving deeper.


And Timothy himself said:

Dear Roger,
I am listening to the first of the two CDs which you so kindly sent - I shall much enjoy disc 2 in due course; and I shall proudly make sure my family have their own copies!  My feet are tapping as I listen!
Yours
Timothy