May Emailing

Roger's been sending out his latest Email Newsletter with all kinds of things on it!

Hi Folks

My sabbatical is now well and truly over, and already I've led a TWO SISTERS in Salisbury, and a WILDFIRE week in Rhos -on-Sea.

This month we have a Worship Day at Pype Hayes, Birmingham (05), a Worship Weekend at Appledore (12-13), a Renewal Evening at Christ Church Ward End (20), then TWO SISTERS productions in Hull (22) and Crediton (26). The CMM Choir rehearsals also re-start - Mondays at Harborne and Tuesdays at Ward End (both at 1945hrs). For details contact CMM: 01527 576440 or events@cmm.org.uk

We have four more MUSIC WEEKS in 2012: (Come and learn a Musical then perform it on the last night!)
02-09 Jun - SNAKES AND LADDERS Music Week, Abbot Hall, Grange-over-Sands
http://www.christianguild.co.uk/abbothall/index.php
28 Jul - 04 Aug - SNAKES AND LADDERS Music Week, Lee Abbey, North Devon  http://www.leeabbey.org.uk/devon/
18-25 Aug - DAVID Music and Worship Week, Willersley Castle, Derbyshire http://www.christianguild.co.uk/willersley/index.php
01-08 Sep - WILDFIRE Music Week, St Rhadagund's Hotel, Isle of Wight http://www.christianholidays.co.uk/st-rhadagunds.php

- and then a Special Interest Week:
17-21 Sep - GEOCACHING WEEK - Abbot Hall, Grange-over-Sands http://www.christianguild.co.uk/abbothall/index.php
- to find out more about geocaching go to:
http://www.geocaching.com/guide/default.aspx

My sabbatical was a varied experience, with many notable features:
(1) Settling in at our new church - Holy Trinity, LICKEY
(2) A visit to ISRAEL - resulting in next year's Choral Houseparty - to request details: http://www.cmm.org.uk/events/israel2013.php
(3) A week in CYPRUS - we have been invited back in 2013 to lead a Mission across the Island using a Musical
(4) Great FAMILY times, resting at Weston, enjoying our new grandaughter Molly
(5) Reading, prayer and reflection - I managed over four books!

This year Mary and I celebrate our RUBY WEDDING, 40 wonderful years! On 22 July we are having a special CMM CHOIR production at LICKEY, preceded by coffee and cake at 1600. You are all invited! (Please tell us if you are coming to give us some idea of numbers.)

Helen works hard at keeping the CMM BLOG up to date. Do keep checking it out: http://christianmusicministries.blogspot.co.uk/

Finally, I'd like to give you a free Ascension Hymn from our "Seasons and Reasons" collection, "Heaven's throne ascending":
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37965878/Heavens%20Throne.mp3
The Music Book, CD and Backing Tracks are available from our website:
http://www.cmm.org.uk

Bless you all and keep in touch,

Roger

CMM Choir Simeon again!

CMM choir at Lickey back in January

Due to the snow a few months ago, the CMM choir had to cancel one of their performances of Simeon at Holy Trinity church, West Bromwich.  This church is the home church of one of the soloists, Edgar, so it was really important for the choir to rearrange and hold a replacement performance.  Edgar played the part of Simeon, and Alan spoke at the end of the performance and was really excellent.

The choir seems to be really developing a lovely feeling of fellowship and support, which is great.  It is lovely when people who might otherwise be alone can meet up and share together, not just in singing but spiritually too.  The choir always have a little Bible study and prayer time as part of their rehearsals, and pray together before every performance.

Saints Alive in Harborne

Last weekend Annie went just the short drive down the road to St Faith and St Lawrence Church in Harborne, Birmingham, for a special churches together event.  Annie had been asked to lead Saints Alive in a day, and this followed on from her Apostle in a day last year.

Annie had a great team with her - Richard, Catherine, Jenny, Eddie and Amy.  Amy and Catherine both sang and played instruments - Catherine on cello and Amy on clarinet and other various bits.  Richard brought some of his family to watch the performance, but leaving his young twins at home.

There were about 30 in the choir, who were very good, and included a lot of music readers and members of the CMM choir, which was great.  Annie was very pleased with the quality of the final performance, and she gave a talk as part of it.  Her talk was about being a witness, which linked in with one of the songs 'Power to be witnesses'.  She talked about how our whole lives will be a witness, and when we're asked about our faith and the reason for our hope, don't mince words and only talk about the nice bits!

Just a few short hours to go...

Roger's sabbatical ends very shortly, and he's been enjoying the last couple of evenings with Mary, and also David and Ruth Southgate from Norwich, who have been Roger and Mary's friends for years.  It's great to see them - they have regularly organised tour performances in Norwich, and they run a card shop with a small Thornton's franchise - Roger and Mary received a fantastic 'Lemon Merringue' Easter egg!

 
Roger will be thrown right into the deep end on his return, firstly tonight with a speech at EBRG's annual dinner for the trustees.  The meal this year is to be at Barnes Close, a URC retreat centre.  Tomorrow he has a team meeting with the office staff, before travelling to Salisbury for a Two Sisters day.

Back to work

The CMM team have had a little bit of time off over Easter, but now we're swinging back into action with a busy week ahead.

In the office we're working on quite a few things.  Tim is continuing to organise sales, sending out orders but also getting the new catalogue to the printers.  Nicky is being worked hard by Roger - he gets back from his sabbatical later this week, and there's lots of loose ends to tie up.

Annie is preparing for her musical in a day in Harborne on Saturday, and also getting ready for CMM choir rehearsals for Jairus' Daughter.  The performances are going to be in June and July.  Annie is also working on various bits of orchestration - she's finally reorchestrating While Shepherds Watched, but she's also sorting out some parts for some of the new songs in Seasons and Reasons.

Helen is busy with admin too - we're having a mailing in the next couple of weeks, so that needs to be designed.  Jairus' Daughter is getting some part-learning CDs, so now the recording has been made, there's lots of editing to be done.

Roger and Mary are also busy - busy enjoying their last week of sabbatical!

Easter Performances

Many churches and choirs are well under way with their Easter programmes.

Pamela Dewick and the Gloucester and District Christian Choir are performing Snakes and Ladders at the moment.  They have swapped the backing track for a 13 piece band, and are loving it.

The night before last they performed in a school to a full-house audience of over 100, and last night they were in a church with about 260 present.  We pray that God really used the amazing message of the musical to meet with people and bless them.

We also had this message from Pete:

The church I worship at which is St Joseph’s R C Church Thimblemill lane Nechells Birmingham has a small music and drama group.  For a number of years we have performed Roger's musicals at different Catholic Churches in Birmingham.

This year we are doing Two Sisters and a Funeral at the following venues

6^th April Sparkbrook Christian Centre Golden Hillock Road Sparkbrook 7.30pm

13^th April St Josephs R C Church Thimblemill Lane Nechells Birmingham 7 00pm

15^th April Corpus Christi R C Church Stechford Birmingham 6.30pm

 16^th June The Presentation Sisters Care Home Matlock Derbyshire 4pm

Israel House Party

Over the years Roger has led a number of trips to Israel, assisted by Geoff.  After Roger visited Israel for his sabbatical, he and Geoff feel the time is right to organise another Choral Houseparty - possibly with the musical Rock.

If you're interested, follow this link and fill in your details and we'll send you more information and an application form when we have it.

http://www.cmm.org.uk/events/israel2013.php

CMM Worldwide!

We've just had two emails come in - see what you think!

Dear Nicky:
Please thank Roger very much for kindly giving his permission freely to use his songs as part of our Palm Sunday Family Service.
As to Jerusalem Joy in China: Eileen and I were posted to Beijing, where we used the first three songs with the adult Choir to re-enact Palm Sunday in 1998 at the smaller (c. 200 congregation) of the two international English-speaking Protestant churches
Looking back, we have probably done this in most churches we have attended since the mid 1970s, once even with the readings in German in the Lutheran Church in Barcelona.
Of all the ways of celebrating Palm Sunday in word, song and action, this is still the best I know for adults and young people.
Yours in His service,Andrew

The second email was also exciting and came from Sujith in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India:

Dear Roger,
Thanks for your mail and great that you were able to take a sabbatical. I do hope that it was refreshing and a time of reflection.
I would like to inform you that the CMC students are doing Pharisee for their Easter Musical this year. The musical will be tomorrow. We are expecting around 800 people in the auditorium and possibly a few more! My colleague, Denise Fleming had bought some copies through the website. We will be remembering you and your team as we do the musical and we would like to thank you for the wonderful music and messages that you have brought out through Pharisee and all the other musicals.
I will try and send a few photos once its over
Hope all is well with you.
With great regards
Sujith

Annie in Donisthorpe

The other half of the busy weekend was spent by Annie leading a Two Sisters and a Funeral weekend in Donisthorpe, South Derbyshire.  She had been invited by Lomas and Joan from the CMM Choir, and this was an extension of her work with the CMM choir.  Lomas and Joan had invited people from the local churches to take part, and some of them had never before sung in a choir, let alone sung the musical before!

Annie used soloists from the CMM Choir - Pete as Lazarus, David as Jesus, Fran as Mary, Debbie as Martha and Peter as the Priests.  The choir rehearsed for most of Saturday, with Annie taking hardly any breaks as she led sectionals first with the ladies and then with the men, but she did an amazing job and the choir were really encouraged that this was something they could achieve together in future.

There were some other members of the CMM choir taking part too, and those key people really helped the choir to get through it.

Joan gave her testimony as part of the performance on the Sunday evening, which was really lovely. 

Jerusalem Joy in Nottingham part 2!

Last weekend we had a very busy time for CMM with Helen and Annie leading days in different venues.  Helen found herself in Nottingham for the second time in two weeks for Jerusalem Joy.  This time the venue was Wollaton Road Methodist Church in Beeston, and was Helen's third visit in 3 years to the church.  Previous musicals were Jairus' Daughter and Greater than Gold, so Jerusalem Joy was a doddle in comparison.

Helen's amazing team for the day were Devon, fresh off a night shift from work so he slept through the rehearsals, Richard, Miriam, Marilyn and Kevin.

It was a brilliant day.  The choir were fabulous - all of them were clearly used to choral singing, and a lot of them had sung the musical 30 odd years ago.  There were even some first edition vocal scores hanging around!

The performance itself went very well - only the odd interesting moment when the men forgot to stand up or stood up where they shouldn't have!  There was a pretty decent audience, some of whom sang along too.  Many thanks to Paul and his team for making the event run so smoothly.

The following morning Helen returned to the church to preach.  It was the annual Boys' Brigade and Girls' Brigade parade service, and Helen talked about 'Sure and Steadfast' and anchoring our faith in Jesus.  There weren't many teenagers present as the clocks had changed, but there were plenty of younger children, who particularly seemed to enjoy the song 'Super Saviour'.  We pray that the young people and there parents will have heard and understood the gospel.

Report from Wolverhampton

Every now and again it is so nice to hear a report from a performance somewhere else.  Here's Roger from Wolverhampton:

Good morning, Roger,
Thank you for your March newsletter.
Just to let you know that we had 2 very successful performances of Apostle last weekend, with the Wolverhampton Circuiut Choir. People enjoyed the vibrancy and variety of the music, which came over in the performance. My own feeling is that it has the feel of the early days of charismatic renewal that began in the mainstream denominations in the 70's, and reflects the excitement of that time. We had an outstanding soloist, named David Corden.
I'm not sure yet what our next project will be, but in the 4 years since we began we have performed Rock, Mary Magdalene, and Apostle, as well as one or two other musicals by other writers. I might even have a go at writing one myself!
Thanks for all your work over the years, and your continuing faithfulness in using your God-given gifts to serve Him.
May God continue to bless you and your team.
Roger Hides (Rev)

Renewal Evening

Last weekend we had another in our regular series of renewal evenings in partnership with Christ Church, Ward End.  During the weekend, Mark Marx from Coleraine, Northern Ireland, had been in Birmingham leading some teaching sessions for those involved in Healing on the Streets.  Peter Smith managed to bag him to come and speak at our renewal evening, and it was an immense privilege to have him.

A few years ago Mark decided to take a team from his church - Causeway Vineyard - out onto the streets to offer healing prayer to anyone who should want it.  From that very small beginning we have the phenomenon which is 'Healing on the Streets', which now can be found all over the country, and increasingly the world.  Go to http://healingonthestreets.com/ to find out more.

The evening itself was really wonderful.  Annie led worship with her team of Helen, Amy, Dave and Pat, and we heard some great testimonies from the weekend, including one about a lady whose elbow moved 90 degrees around and her disfigurement was healed.

It was great towards the end of the evening to see so many people being prayed for.  One gentleman approached the worship group at the end of the evening to say that his high frequency hearing had been healed and for the first time he could hear ladies' singing!  Praise God.

Photos from Eccleshall

A week or so ago I wrote a blog post about Annie's gig in Eccleshall.  Just so you don't miss out on the pictures, here they are!  It looks like a fabulous day.

Time in Cyprus

While Helen and Annie were very busy with CMM, Roger and Mary were off exploring Cyprus - sight-seeing, establishing useful CMM contacts, and leading various events.

They even went sailing!

These were Roger's updates:


Roger & Mary fly out to CYPRUS tomorrow. It's another sabbatical excercise that involves a bit of a holiday but also various meetings. The Lord seems to be speaking to us about Cyprus with a view to some kind of future CMM ministry. We will see! 

Cyprus update - today we travelled to Ayia Napa (what a terrible place!) yet met some wonderful Christians at the Anglican/Scandinavian church. I played the keyboard and shared about CMM. In the evening I preached at a Greek Orthodox / Anglican service. It was truly wonderful being with these folk. They are a small fellowship but the Lord is really amongst them. Simon Holloway (formerly Birmingham and Horley) is the Chaplain here.


We have now reached our last evening in Cyprus so travel home tomorrow. It has been an amazing time, meeting lots of really lovely people. We will be praying about whether the Lord is leading us to return at some time in the future.

An evening with Alison

The day after Annie and Helen's trip to Stapleford didn't let up at all.  After both were involved in morning services in Birmingham, it was straight over to Harborne for an evening with Alison Fuggle.  As with the evenings with Devon, Alison was backed up by the wonderful CMM choir, plus a few extras.  This time the extras were Jonathan on guitar, Liz on flute, Paul on horn and vocals, and Amy on clarinet and vocals.  Annie conducted the choir and sang a bit, and Helen also sang and helped with a little bit of compering.

Alison shared a number of her poems and quite a lot of testimony, and the choir sang some of her wonderful lyrics.  We are incredibly thankful for Harborne Baptist's willingness to let us take over one of their cafe church sessions and the Minister David's wonderful welcome.  There was a really good audience - it is always good to have Devon in an audience starting the clapping off at the end of every piece!


It was clear that people were really blessed at the event, and we hope to have some more in future.  Well done Alison!

Jerusalem Joy in Nottingham Part 1

Last weekend saw the first of two Jerusalem Joy in a day events in the Nottingham area.  This first event was in Stapleford at Pastures Community Church.  We had met Yvonne at a similar event last year, and she was quick to invite us to her church, as she was very excited about the mission and community possibilities with a musical in a day.

So on Saturday Annie and Helen travelled to Stapleford, where they were met by their team of Miriam, Sarah, Alan and Kevin (as well as Kevin's wife Pauline who was most helpful too!).  The Pastures Church is in an old pub, which is gradually being renovated by the congregation.  Once the team had explored and set up, fish and chips were ordered for the team along with Yvonne, Ian, Steph their daughter and Alan's daughter Sophie.

After lunch, the choir and orchestra began to arrive, and it was wonderful to see the talent on offer.  The band were made up of the CMM team plus a piano player, guitar, bass guitar, tenor sax and clarinet.  Each player was excellent - perfectly in tune and in time - Annie had no need of her special selective hearing that she sometimes needs to employ on days like this!

The choir were made up mostly of church members who had no experience of choral singing at all, but despite this they did amazingly well.  The 5 men were amazing - each very confident (as shown by their brilliant solos - covering the parts of Jesus, Pilate, Herod, Judas and Caiaphas between them).  The women took a while to get used to singing in parts, but after a shaky start they managed very well indeed, easily matching the men.

Another delight of the day was the way the church had worked hard to advertise the performance in the area, and they were rewarded by a good audience which included quite a few non-Christians.  They used it as a brilliant opportunity to advertise their Easter services and events.

It was a blessing to take part in the day, and we pray that the Pastures church will continue their excellent outreach way into the future.

Roger's sabbatical etc

The latest leg of Roger's sabbatical sees him visiting Cyprus.  It is partly a holiday for him and Mary, but also a few ministry opportunities have opened there.  Yesterday he met with some clergy on the island to talk about mission using a musical, and today he will be leading a worship seminar with local leaders in Larnaca Community Church.  He'll be preaching a couple of times on Sunday and then he's travelling to Paphos.  Amazingly the Island are putting on their own version of From Pharaoh to Freedom later in the year, so Roger's going to gatecrash a rehearsal on Tuesday.

Sometimes it is amazing how God opens up doors for the ministry.  Do pray that we follow the right leads and that if God has something big planned for CMM and Cyprus in the next couple of years then we don't miss it!

We've also had a few phone calls recently from people who want to use Roger's music in their local school situations.  We had one lady call from the Cumbria/Yorkshire border to say that years ago she had taught a school choir Jerusalem Joy.  The children loved it so much they went around the school singing it, which then made the teachers take note.  The next thing she knew most of the school were in the choir, as well as the teachers, and they put on a wonderful performance in front of a packed house of intrigued parents.  Now she is once again leading a choir in Jerusalem Joy, and now it is the children of those original choir members that she is teaching!

Another teacher rang up from somewhere on the south coast.  Years ago she had entered her school choir in a competition and they performed Roger's version of 'When I survey' in two parts.  They easily won the competition with a score of over 95%.  Now she has been asked to have her choir sing for BBC Radio Solent, and once again they are going to sing 'When I survey'.  Pray that their rendition really blesses those who listen.

A Weekend with Devon

On Saturday and Sunday we held two very special evenings with Devon and friends.  The first was at Marston Green Baptist Free church near Birmingham International Airport, and the second was at Devon's own church, Millpool Hill Church, in South Birmingham.

Both evenings were delightful.  The 'friends' included the CMM choir, who divided themselves between the two venues, and did a wonderful job, having learnt the music over a very short space of time for these evenings.  Other soloists were Jonathan Warburton on trombone, Liz Malortie on flute, Katie Leaver, Ann Steer, Barrie Renwick, Jonathan and Linda Chappell.  Annie conducted the choir and sang, and Helen interviewed Devon to keep him on track.

As the Saturday evening was more of a concert, we were able to include a bit more material and an interval.  On the Sunday we had less material, but because it was Devon's home church, there was a really great atmosphere, and he was able to relax and enjoy himself a bit more.

A highlight of Saturday was the presence of Martin Bates and Keith Dennis, both teachers at Devon's secondary school.  Martin and Keith together wrote the musical 'King' - Devon's first ever singing role.  We were delighted to be able to hear a song from King - it was wonderfully dramatic!

Next weekend we have an evening with Alison Fuggle, again with the CMM choir.  Should be great.

Roger's latest mailing

Hi there!

I can now report on my trip to Israel. Please see:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37965878/120217%20Trip%20to%20Israel.doc

- and some selected photos:
http://s209.photobucket.com/albums/bb229/rogerwjones/ISRAEL%202012%20selections/

I would also like to give you a FREE hymn for Easter: "Christ is Alive!" (words by Chris Ellis, from "The Roger Jones Hymn Collection") You can download the recording from here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37965878/01%20Christ%20Is%20Alive.mp3

The "Roger Jones Hymn Collection" Music Book & CDs may be obtained from: http://www.cmm.org.uk/products/catalogue/index.php 

 Special CMM dates coming up this month:

Sat 03 Mar - An evening with Devon Brown - Marston Green Free Baptist Church 1900Sun 04 Mar - An evening with Devon Brown - Millpool Hill Church, King's Heath 1830 Sun 11 Mar - An evening with Alison Fuggle - Harborne Baptist Church 1800
Sat 17 Mar - CMM Youth and Young Adult day - Selly Oak Methodist Church 1030
Sun 18 Mar - Renewal Service (Speaker Mark Marx of Healing on the Streets) - Christ Church Ward End 1830

Further information for all of these:http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31871749/Events%20flyer.pdf

MUSIC WEEKS 2012: (Come and learn a Musical then perform it on the last night!)
23-27 Apr - WILDFIRE Music Week, St Winifred's Hotel, Rhos-on-Seahttp://www.christianholidays.co.uk/st-winifreds.php
02-09 Jun - SNAKES AND LADDERS Music Week, Abbot Hall, Grange-over-Sands http://www.christianguild.co.uk/abbothall/index.php
28 Jul - 04 Aug - SNAKES AND LADDERS Music Week, Lee Abbey, North Devon http://www.leeabbey.org.uk/devon/
18-25 Aug - DAVID Music and Worship Week, Willersley Castle, Derbyshire http://www.christianguild.co.uk/willersley/index.php
01-08 Sep - WILDFIRE Music Week, St Rhadagund's Hotel, Isle of Wight http://www.christianholidays.co.uk/st-rhadagunds.php

Special Interest Week:

 17-21 Sep - GEOCACHING WEEK - Abbot Hall, Grange-over-Sands http://www.christianguild.co.uk/abbothall/index.php

(led by Roger Jones, Helen Pollard, Bill Carpenter - if you are new to geocaching you are in for a treat - if you already know about it you won't need persuading - the course will involve walking (as much as you want to, travelling around the area, and praise times morning and evening)  

Roger Jones

Eccleshall with Annie

Annie's busy weekend didn't end with the Sing for Joy day.  The very next morning Annie and a team set off for Holy Trinity Eccleshall, near Stafford, for David in a Day.  Her amazing team were Paul, Barrie, Caroline and Amy, who did a fantastic job.  Paul played David, and Barrie was both Jesse and Goliath.  Caroline and Amy filled in the other solo bits and pieces.

There were a group of children who had made a massive shield and sword for Barrie to pose with as Goliath, and they also made the letters of the name 'David' ready for the song 'David is the one'. 

The choir were over 50 in number, including the vicar, and it was a really happy day.  The musical was a celebration of the completion of some building works to make the church more accessible for disabled people, and even the architect was in the choir!

Annie spoke at the end, talking about being a person 'after God's heart', which went down really well.  The vicar James read out a letter from the Bishop of Stafford who couldn't be there on the day.  They are going to be performing 'Saints Alive' on their own for Pentecost.