Wednesday 30 July 2014

12-13 July 2014 Worship Works in St Austell

Roger on his new keyboard!
Less than a week after the visit to Hull, Roger, Helen, Marilyn, Wendy and Bob travelled down to St Austell for a Worship Works weekend.  Mount Charles Methodist Church had invited us, and they were very excited about the weekend, and as a result, the day on Saturday was well attended with people from the church as well as visitors from beyond.  It was lovely to see so many familiar faces in the group, including a number who have regularly attended our music weeks at Treloyhan Manor or Sidholme.  Helen was also delighted to be able to catch up with a couple she had known 25 years ago.

The congregation learning a new song
Mount Charles Methodist has put on a different musical at Easter every year since the 1980s (not always one of Roger's of course), and this is what led to the invitation to share with them on worship.  Topics such as 'The Worship Seeker', 'Praise and Sunday Morning', 'Repertoire' and 'Enter his gates' were covered on the Saturday.  One of the highlights of the Saturday was the ministry time at the end of the first session, where a couple of words of knowledge were shared and claimed.  There were also some great conversations throughout the day.

Marilyn, Wendy and James 
On Saturday evening Bob left for home, and the team was joined by James in time for a lovely dinner in Charlestown.  On Sunday the team led the morning service, and Roger spoke on Jesus' baptism.  It was a lovely morning, and included an unusual item as one of the members of the congregation was celebrating his 70th birthday, and two of his grandsons who are choristers at King's College Cambridge came to sing.  Accompanied by Roger (who was terrified) they sang Panis Angelicus and Lloyd Webber's Pie Jesu.

The team was looked after amazingly well all weekend by our hosts as well as the church leadership team, and Helen and James were given a lovely send-off for their holiday!
Learning a new song on Sunday morning

08 July 2014 Apostle in Hull

Barrie in action
In early July CMM made the journey to East Yorkshire for a special performance of Apostle.  The venue was Willoughby Methodist Church in North West Hull, and we were honoured to spend two evenings with the wonderful choir there - rehearsing on Monday and performing on the Tuesday.  The CMM team was Roger, with Helen and Fran taking the two disciples roles, Richard as Ananias, Devon as Saul and local boy Barrie as Barnabas.  It was great fun having Barrie as the narrator, as he was really able to interact well with the choir and audience, adding a great sense of dynamism to the performance.

Roger with the choir
The choir was absolutely wonderful, with lots of familiar faces within it.  Part of the choir was trained by Jean Gray, and the other part by Phil Davison, and they along with their accompanists had done a fantastic job.  The choir also provided the priests for the performance - Phil, Dave and Dave, and they were great characters.

Phil, Dave and Dave - our 'baddies'
On Tuesday during the day Helen, Fran and Devon were looked after by Barrie, who led a tour of the Humber Bridge combined with a visit to Cleethorpes, which was great fun.  Roger had a power nap instead!

Our wonderful sound man waiting to start
The performance itself went very well indeed, with a lovely big appreciative audience.

Thanks so much to Barrie, Phil, Liz, Jean, and all those who helped to organise such a blessed two days.

Devon as the blinded apostle
The lovely Hull choir





Thursday 10 July 2014

Your Performances - Summer 2014

Recently we've heard about lots of performances of Roger's musicals going on up and down the country.  Here's some of the details:

Witney Inter-Church Singers, Oxon
They have had 3 of their 4 performances of Mary Magdalene recently - Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd June at High Street Methodist Church, Witney, and Saturday 28th June at Bicester Methodist Church.  They still have one more to come on Saturday 26th July at Christchurch CofE, Abingdon.

It looks like an absolutely stunning production with amazing props, scenery and dancers, under their MD, Guy.  More pictures can be found here.  WICS put on a Christmas performance and a musical every summer, as well as taking part in Prom Praise at the Royal Albert Hall.  If you'd like more information about the next performance of Mary Magdalene, or getting involved with WICS, do contact the CMM office - events@cmm.org.uk and we'll put you in touch with them.




Solihull Methodist Church

Singers, actors and instrumentalists from Solihull Methodist Church in the West Midlands performed Greater than Gold last weekend. Another amazing set up with loads of children involved. This is the review from Lawrie:

Can there be a more appropriate climax to a year’s project supporting the Bible Society than this stunning performance of the story of Mary Jones – the inspiration behind this society that does so much good work? This young girl saved what was then a huge sum by working locally and then walked 30 miles each way to purchase a Bible because she so loved with the stories she heard and told verbally. 
Can there be a better way of telling this story than this musical play put on by our talented young folk (supported by a few oldies in the large choir and band). The music pulls you along from scene to scene (the next day there were so many tunes still buzzing around in my head) and in parallel the story was told on the big screen in slides and photos. Indeed the pictures of her walk were so beautiful and yet also showed what hardship this walk would have been in bare feet. This was a masterful innovation.

But let’s get back to our superkids. I knew instantly what I was going to say about them yet now I am typing I realise that they were all so outstanding that I can’t really pick out any of them. But Ben you were the star for me – how does one so young learn so much and act it as well? Morven’s part was huge as well – there is no hiding place when you are up there singing on your own. But enough. They were all so good.

It would not have happened without the usual driving forces. I can’t start to tell you how much work the Prof had done with orchestration, scoring and rehearsing. And Kirsteen and Judith worked their magic with producing a convincing play with minimal staging that gripped you.  And in the hall afterwards you could not move – there were so many tucking into their strawberry cream tea. And what a buzz there was as we all marvelled at such a great afternoon.






Thursday 3 July 2014

28-29 June 2014 Worship Works in Moira

At the weekend Roger and Annie, along with Sue, Sarah, Chris, Ellen, Ann and Richard travelled to Moira Wesleyan Reform church in Leicestershire for a Worship Works day.  The team had been invited by the minister, Paul, after he was present at the conference we led at Willersley Castle for the Leaders of Worship and Preachers Trust.  It was Chris' debut with CMM - we met him at Lee Abbey last year, and he is a fine clarinet, saxophone and guitarist.

There wasn't an enormous group present at the day, but those that did come were the movers and shakers - the ones involved in leading worship or preaching.  Annie led some worship at the start of the day, including the modern hymn 'Come, people of the risen King'.  The opening session was led by Roger, and focused on God as 'The Worship Seeker'.  God is seeking a worship relationship with us, and that relationship is a two-way thing.  The session ends powerfully as we sing the song 'Here I am to worship', and then listen to a soloist sing from God to us 'Here I am to worship... here I am to say that you're my child'.  After a break the day became a little more practical, with the aim of session 2 to talk about music in the local church setting, and how to make it work and fit.

Then after a lovely shared lunch together, the team ran two workshops into one, with a mixture of learning new material, and creative worship / improvisation.  The instrumentalists Chris, Sarah and Ellen had a real workout!

The final session of the day is very moving, and looks at the idea of the Tabernacle, and how it informs our worship as we approach the throne of grace with boldness.  A highlight of the worship within that time was Ann and Sarah singing Roger's version 'When I survey the wondrous cross' just as the group were led to think about Jesus' sacrifice tearing the curtain and making a way for us.  The day ended (as all good CMM days do) with a rousing rendition of 'There is a redeemer'!

The following morning Roger, Annie and the team led worship at the church.  It was great to see the whole congregation, as well as some regular CMM supporters who live locally such as Lomas and Joan.