At last - the official launch!

On Saturday 5th February we finally launched Two Sisters and a Funeral.  Over a hundred singers gathered at Christ Church Burney Lane to learn the musical and perform it all in one day.  There was an incredible buzz around the place, and people seemed to really enjoy themselves.

We had the full team of soloists from the CD taking part during the day - Emily and Aly as Mary and Martha, Martin and Devon as Jesus and Lazarus, as well as Caroline and Amy as some women of Bethany and Jonathan, Bill, Pete and Richard as our 'baddies'.  There were quite a number of other future soloists at the day, including Phil, Wendy, Sarah, Carolynn and Yvette.

Roger kicked off the day with a bit of worship and teaching about the themes underlying the musical, and then we spent a bit of time all together working on a few of the songs.  Then we split into sectionals - Annie took the sopranos and altos, and Helen the tenors and basses.  It was so lovely to put it all together at the end of the day, and hear one another's progress.

After a short break, we let the audience in.  As there were so many in the choir the audience had to sit in the chancel - at least 30 of them, including Alison Fuggle, Tim Jones, Ann Parkin, chair of the trust, Beresford and Kate King-Smith, and families and friends of the soloists.  The performance went really well, and Helen and Annie improvised some solo instrumental parts.  Annie will eventually write some official tour parts for when we have the occasional instrumentalist during the performances over the next couple of years.

A weekend in Bramhall

While Annie was busy leading Simeon in a day in Droitwich, Roger led a team to Bramhall just south of Manchester for a weekend of Two Sisters and a Funeral.  Roger, Jonathan, Amy and Helen travelled up on Friday night, and then were joined on Saturday by Martin, Wendy, Devon and Pete.  It was both Wendy and Pete's first gig - fantastic to have them with us.

The day had been organised by Paul Barnsley, who runs an organisation called Heart Notes Ministries.  Paul has been a wonderful supporter of CMM over the years and we have often held a kind of pre-tour practice performance of a new musical with him.

Paul had gathered a wonderful choir of over 60 singers to come and learn the musical in a day, and he and his wonderful band of helpers had also catered for everyone.  The choir worked incredibly hard as Helen and Roger taught the musical, and the final outcome was pretty good!  It was very tricky to learn in a day (we have since used sectionals, which makes a huge difference), but the choir managed it.  For the evening performance the audience wasn't quite outnumbered by the choir, but they had to sit all around it!

Roger, Amy, Jonathan and Helen stayed overnight with wonderful hosts, and then led the service at Bramhall Methodist on the Sunday morning.  Most of CMM's previous events in Bramhall have been at the Anglican church, but this time it was great to be able to spend some time with the Methodists.  We were welcomed wonderfully, and the service was great fun - the whole congregation even joined in with Helen's children's actions song!  Roger spoke on the 'More Than' God, and also shared some of the pictures and words we had at EBRG on the preceding Thursday.  It was great at the end of the service to spend lots of time chatting and praying with people.  We had a lot more requests for prayer after the morning service than after the musical, so this shows that our new schedule of including some input into a regular church service is a good way to go.

Huge thanks go to Paul for organising such a wonderful weekend, and thanks to all his helpers.

Simeon in a Day

On Saturday 29th January, Annie continued in her series of musicals-in-a-day with Simeon at Droitwich Methodist Church Centre.  Annie had a wonderful team for the day, comprising of Paul Edwards, Kathleen Owen, Caroline Finney and Beresford King-Smith.  It was great that Beresford could be involved as he plays Simeon on the original recording, and wrote the narrative links between the songs.

Annie says that it was an incredible day - a huge choir of 60 or so, and some fantastic singers among them.  There were also a lot of instrumentalists, which meant that the final performance could be live, and the backing track could stay in its case.

Jenny Bulman contacted Annie afterwards with some pictures and a note:

Let me just say again a very big thank you for such an uplifitng and enjoyable day on Saturday. Several people have said how they felt blessed by the whole experience and would love you to come again.  I have just about stopped spinning round now and can enjoy it calmly in retrospect and am looking forward to playing the CD of 2 sisters.

Apostle in a day, Harborne

On Saturday 22nd January, Annie led 'Apostle in a Day' for the churches together in Harborne, Birmingham.  It isn't often we are asked to lead something so close to home - Annie could have walked there!  The church was St. Faith and St. Lawrence, one of several large Anglican churches in the Harborne area, as well as lots of other denominations.  Annie spoke at a churches together in Harborne event last year, and the invitation for a musical in a day followed on from that.

Annie had with her on team Jonathan and Amy - Jonathan taking the part of Paul, and Amy filling in a variety of other things including Ananias.

Annie says that the day was absolutely wonderful.  There were over 40 in the choir with quite a few in the audience in the evening.  Even the vicar, Priscilla, took part.  A musical in a day is a brilliant way to celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, as it can bring so many different denominations together.

Holy Spirit Workshops

The day after the evening with Devon in Hemel Hempstead, the CMM team travelled the very short distance up the road to Watford, to the Church of the Nazarene.  The church had decided to have their away weekend at home, and invited CMM to come and lead the morning service and also a couple of Holy Spirit workshops.

It is always a challenge to travel to churches that are unfamiliar, as it is very difficult to know what people are used to regarding Sunday morning worship, and also how far to introduce anything new.  The congregation at the Church of the Nazarene seemed to take everything in their stride, and were very welcoming and open.  Roger spoke about the 'More Than' God, and Helen led worship.  Annie and Roger did a bit of a 'name that tune' session as part of the service too, which was great.

After the service we were served up some absolutely amazing home made soup and cakes, which set us up nicely for the afternoon.  Annie led a workshop called 'Never too old to serve', which was about ministering to one another in the power of the Holy Spirit, and Helen led a receiving the Holy Spirit workshop.  Interestingly, Helen ended up with most of the church leadership in her workshop - perhaps they just wanted to sit in God's presence and just receive for a while and let the rest of the congregation do the work!

After the workshops we gathered together for one last short plenary session.   One lady shared something incredibly interesting.  During the morning service she had had a song going around in her head - a very old song that she hadn't thought of for years.  At the end of the service, Annie had deeply felt that she should play this particular song, even though she hadn't played it for years.  Amazing how in something very small like that, God can meet with us all as individuals and show us how much he loves us and cares for us.

Thanks so much to Eva for sticking her neck out and inviting us.  It was fantastic to be able to hold a day focusing on the Holy Spirit.

Your performances...

At Christmas we received a couple of reports about how well your own performances of Roger's musicals have gone around the country.

We received this from Mary Edwards:

Dear Roger
I contacted you a few weeks  ago and you very kindly gave me permission to perform your musical,"The Inn Crowd" at Linslade Methodist Church, Leighton Buzzard.  It took place on Wed evening, Dec 15th and quite a few of the older folk turned out in spite of the very cold night.  Quite a few of my choir were suffering from bad colds and coughs.

I gave the congregation  your greetings and they appreciated the performance very much.
Quite a number of folk told the choir and myself how much they had enjoyed the modern music and drama.
They said it was so easy to follow the story and understand the christian message.
Most of the folk that came were over 70!!

So thank you Roger for allowing me to share this lovely musical with the dear folk at Linslade.
May God Bless you and your team in the work that you do and long may it continue.

We also received this report from Danny White in Blyth:

Just a few lines to update you with the events over Christmas involving the music The Inn Crowd & Stargazers.
                  
Our Central Methodist Church Choir and Friends performed The Inn Crowd in place of our normal evening service.  The lord did smile on us as the weekend we performed was clear of snow,(the first time for weeks) It proved to be well received ,which was particularly pleasing as it was dedicated to a recently deceased church member. A further comment from a widowed member of the church, that she found the message and music uplifting.
The Churches Together in Blyth were asked to sing at the Town Carol Service and we chose Just You from Stargazers which was very well received, uplifting and put us in the mood for O Come all ye Faithful immediately after.

Thanks so much for letting us know how things are going.  I've you've got a performance coming up, let us know the dates, and also send us a report!  It is always so encouraging to hear how God is using the music.

An Evening with Devon

On Saturday 15th January a team from CMM travelled to the South Hill Centre in Hemel Hempstead.  We had been invited by Sarah Moreton, trainer of the Joyful Noise Choir (our regular Watford/Hemel area choir), to come and hold an Evening with Devon.

We last held one of these evenings about a year ago at Barnt Green Parish Church near Birmingham and used quite a big group of backing singers and instrumentalists.  This time the evening was quite different.  We had the wonderful added dimension of Sarah's choir for quite a few of the songs, which meant we did not need so many backing singers - in the end the team was just Devon, Roger, Trish, Paul, Sarah, Annie and Helen.

We included an interval for the first time, and either side of the interval we had choir performances.  Before the interval we had a performance from the choir local to the venue called Urban Choir.  They are a gospel-style choir run by Christians for any singers at all - Christian or otherwise. After the interval Joyful Noise sang 'Like Eagles' and 'Love can build a bridge' with Sarah and Christine as soloists.

It was fantastic having the choirs there, particularly when Joyful Noise were able to join in with some of Devon's solo items.  Devon shared quite a bit of his story, and the audience were really blessed by the evening.  It was also wonderful to see that Urban Choir stayed to watch the whole of the second half - even those that aren't Christians.  It was a wonderful opportunity to share the Gospel.

Thanks so much Sarah for inviting us, and well done Devon once again!

Rehearsal time

As may have been mentioned before on the blog, CMM are beginning to work a bit differently when it comes to teams and musicals.  In the past when a new musical is launched, a team of soloists, understudies, dancers and instrumentalists rehearse over 6 or 7 months ready for the premiere and 50 or so tour dates.

With Two Sisters and a Funeral, the emphasis will be different - there won't be dance (at all venues) or full-costumed drama - instead we will hold a 'concert version' with choir, narration and soloists.  This gives us scope to use lots of different soloists and give plenty of people chance to perform.

On Tuesday 11th January we had a gathering of quite a few of our regular soloists - about 20 of us met and sang through the musical together.  Roger also shared a bit of his vision for the musical, which was great to hear.

At the same time in the same building, the CMM choir were meeting for the first time since Christmas.  It was just a little social gathering, but a lovely opportunity for Annie to meet with the group as their new conductor.  They shared food and fellowship together, and then half way through the evening the Two Sisters soloists came and joined them and sang 'O the deep deep love of Jesus' - with a planned spontaneous happening at the end!

It is always lovely to meet with the CMM choir and give them a preview of what is to come - they are wonderful supporters.

Start the new year in the best way

CMM and EBRG began 2011 in the best way possible - we went on retreat together.  On Thursday 6th January we had our first EBRG meeting of the year preparing for the retreat, and then on Saturday 8th we all travelled to Shallowford House near Eccleshall/Stone.  This year we didn't have an outside speaker, but spent a lot of time in prayer and discussion togther thinking about the future.

Shallowford House is a wonderful venue for this kind of retreat, and it has also recently been taken over from a couple that CMM knows from previous visits to Lee Abbey.  The warm welcome and friendly atmosphere was perfect for our needs.

On the Saturday afternoon, Roger, Annie and Helen shared their ideas for the future, and then on the Sunday Mike helped us to come up with some questions to help with the discerning process on Thursday nights over the next few weeks.  Then we finished up with worship and lunch - a lovely weekend.

Happy Christmas and New Year!

The last few days before Christmas were incredibly hard work for CMM - not due to a massive amount of orders, but because Roger and Mary finally moved house.  We are now finally installed in Lickey End, Bromsgrove, but there is a lot of unpacking to do.

On the final day we took our minds away from the unpacking and walked up the road to the local garden centre for our Christmas dinner.  Helen's husband James had the day off, so he joined us as well.  We were treated brilliantly, and the meal was lovely.  Roger and Mary had Christmas presents for everyone, but they were in a box somewhere in the house, so we had to wait until the new year!

Thanks so much to all our supporters - 2010 has been a wonderful year!

Christmas ladies' meetings (part 2)

The following week, Annie and Helen travelled to Sutton Coldfield Baptist Church.  Annie had been asked to lead their Christmas meeting, and Helen came as a soloist.  It was a fantastic meeting - there were a large number of ladies there despite the snow - at least 30, and they seemed to really appreciate all Annie had to share.

Annie spoke about Jesus as the one who was, the one who is, and the one who is to come.  A particular highlight came at the end when we sang 'Great is the darkness - come, Lord Jesus' and Annie led a wonderful come, Holy Spirit time.

And then mince pies were served all round!

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.

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.

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!

On Tuesday evening Martin coerced some of his and Helen's friends to assist CMM's move.  Martin, Mary, Dave, Ailith and Helen all turned up with cars and alongside Roger and Mary's cars we filled 7 cars with boxes of stock.  With so many hands it didn't take too long, and much of the stock is now installed on shelves at the new house.

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.

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.

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.

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.