Christian Music Ministries: CMM in Action: August 2016

August 2016 was unusually busy for CMM, in that the month began in Lee Abbey, then moved to Willersley Castle, and finished up at Sidholme hotel!

David in Wakefield

In the days immediately before the week at Willersley Castle, Helen and Annie travelled to Wakefield for a special David in a day at West Wakefield Methodist Church. It was a joy to have quite a big CMM team for the day, enabling us to perform the musical to live accompaniment.

Annie led the 'orchestra', which comprised herself on piano, Alan on drums, Cliff on bass, Marilyn on flute, and Gemma (along with her friend Emma) on clarinet.

While Annie was organising the band, Helen trained the choir. They did not need much training at all - they read music superbly and picked things up so quickly. Sadly, Sharon had lost her voice, so we weren't able to use her as a soloist, but Gemma filled in brilliantly, singing solo alongside Barrie and Julie and a couple of local singers whose arms were twisted mercilessly!

It was also a pleasure to work alongside the minister, Kim, who was full of life, and completely insistent that she couldn't sing. She did take her place in the audience though, and introduced the performance with great enthusiasm.

The following morning some of the team stayed and helped lead the morning service at Horbury Methodist. Helen led the service and Annie preached. The church were spending one of their very last Sundays in the village hall before moving into their own beautifully renovated premises. Huge thanks to Laura who organised the whole event and to our wonderful host Ruth who looked after us so well.

Barnabas Music Week at Willersley Castle

After the morning service Annie and Helen travelled down to Willersley Castle in Cromford, near Matlock Bath. There they were joined by Roger and Mary, Ann, Barrie and wonderful host Marion for the third Barnabas music week of the year.

We had a terrific week. Annie led the orchestra which was small but perfectly formed for much of the week - Maurice, Ron and Sally on violin and Viv on piano accordion. For the final performance they were supplemented by Alan on drums, Helen on flute/trombone, Kevin on cornet and Chris on clarinet and sax.

Helen worked with the choir, who were excellent as ever. It was great to have so many different soloists to choose from, as well as some brilliant narrators.

Besides the musical and the Bible teaching and ministry, there were a couple of other real highlights in the week. On the Tuesday evening it was a real honour to be joined by Joe King, a singer-songwriter from Leeds. Joe had been going through a hard time, so it was great to welcome him and give him the opportunity to perform and minister to the guests. One of Joe's real strengths is the ministry song - songs that come from God's perspective and speak deeply into people's hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit.

Then the other highlight was introducing the group to some of the new material in the Songs of Christmas that had just been brought out. We had a lot of fun teaching and singing different songs from the book.

The performance of Barnabas on the Friday evening was to a packed out room, and it went very well indeed. Well done to all of the wonderful soloists and thanks to the team for working so hard during the week.