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.

A meal for Denise

As an office we often go out together to celebrate birthdays.  This time we had lunch to celebrate Denise's birthday.  Denise has been volunteering with us for a couple of years now, as she builds up office experience in order to be let loose on the big wide world.  Denise has been an enormous help to us, and it was great to be able to celebrate with her.

We were very brave and visited a brand new buffet restaurant just down the road from Christ Church, Burney Lane.  This was brave because this pub used to have an interesting reputation...  But now it has been transformed and we had a lovely meal.  Sadly Tim couldn't make it, but the rest of us were there.

Another archive photo!

This newspaper cutting has been sent to us by Peter Cole, who used to be part of the United Christian Singers in Manchester.  Roger is talking to Eric Thorn about Saints Alive, and since then Eric has written some lyrics for Roger, a large amount of them can be found in the new Song Collection.

And the books are here!

The books arrived early on Monday morning, and Tim has been working flat out to send them to all of the people that pre-ordered.  So if you ordered, it is in the post!

We're really thrilled with them - they have a slightly different kind of spine to our old musical books, which makes them look smarter, and will hopefully enable them to stay open on a music stand a little better...

A new venture

Over the past few weeks, Helen has been in conversation with Saltley Methodist Church about a possible 9 hour a week job there.  On Tuesday this week those talks finally came to fruition.

The aim of the partnership is for Helen to work with the young people in the church, encouraging them in singing and in worship.  The long term aim is for this children's worship to infect the whole congregation with a sense of joy and fun, as Spirit-filled worship takes central place for the church.

The first Tuesday evening session was a bit of an eye-opener, as Helen taught three advent/Christmas songs to a group of 6 children, 5 of which were quite boisterous boys.  The songs did go down well though, particularly one of them which was a bit like a song from High School Musical.  The plan is to include a couple of them in the carol service on Sunday 19th December.

Drink Deep

This year we have regularly been joining up with Peter Smith and the team from Christ Church, Burney Lane, Ward End to hold regular Holy Spirit events.  So far they have mostly been renewal evenings on a Sunday evening with various speakers, but this time we went for a whole weekend of workshops and worship, culminating in a renewal evening on the Sunday evening.

There were about 50 of us in total, and we had a wonderful time.  On the Saturday Annie kicked things off with some worship and then Roger spoke on thirsting and drinking, using illustrations from Ezekiel 47 and Jesus at the feast of tabernacles.

After this first session, we broke up into 3 workshops.  Jane and Gill led a prophetic movement workshop, which really blessed those that were involved.  Brian and Sue led a 'Using the gifts' workshop, focusing on the link between the gifts and fruit of the Spirit. Helen and Alan led a 'Receiving the power of the Spirit' workshop, which included a lengthy time of silence, simply allowing people to wait and receive from God.

In the afternoon we had two more workshops - Annie and Mary led a Ministry in the power of the Spirit session, and at the same time Roger led a prophetic worship workshop.  Those that attended seem to have been really blessed by all the workshops - what a priviledge it is to be able to train people in life in the Spirit.

After these workshops we had a final session with worship led by Helen and the Peter Smith spoke.  He didn't speak for long - the emphasis was on giving people plenty of time to simply receive from the Lord.

On Sunday, CMM took part in the regular morning service for Christ Church, and Helen spoke, linking a well known healing model called 'The Circle of God's Love' with how Jesus dealt with Peter in John 21.

In the evening we held our now regular renewal evening.  Peter Smith spoke, and it was great fun.  A lot of people received ministry, and it was so good to see God at work in people's lives.

We had a fantastic music and ministry team for the weekend - including Tim on drums and Christine on flute.  It was the first time Christine had been part of a CMM team, and it was a delight to have her.

The CDs are here!

The CDs came today on a big white van - thankfully not a pallet as has happened in the past.  Big lorries have sometimes called with their driver looking very confused at our door, expecting a fork-lift truck to unload it for them...

Hopefully the books will come early next week.

They're looking good.

A bit of history...

Roger with Tim and the choir for A Grain of Mustard Seed - Chandler's Ford Methodist 1980

Roger and Mary with Tim and Andrew at Saints Alive - Chandler's Ford Methodist 1982

I've just found these photos in my inbox.  I think I put them on the Rock blog when I wrote up our Chandler's Ford production, but I thought it'd be great for everyone to see them.  If any of you have any old pictures of CMM in action, we'd love to have them - try visiting our facebook page - type in 'Christian Music Ministries' and try and find us!

Two Sisters rehearsal

The first real outing of the new musical is coming up - we're going to Barrow-in-Furness at the end of November to hold a workshop day for a 50th birthday party for one of CMM's closest supporters.  This is really a dress rehearsal - our official launch is on 5th February.

On Tuesday evening we had a rehearsal for the soloists travelling to Barrow - Emily, Martin, Devon, Caroline, Bill and Jonathan.  One of the key things to rehearse were the narrations that Alison Fuggle has written to fit between each of the songs.  Devon, Emily and Caroline did a great job seeing them for the first time, and still putting some wonderful expression into the words.

Roger and Annie will also be travelling to Barrow, and there were also some hangers-on at the rehearsal - Amy, Helen and Richard, who just came for the company!