Christian Music Ministries: CMM at Scargill House

During the half term week in October, a team from CMM (Roger, Mary, Annie, Helen, Paul, Ann, Jaime) travelled up to Scargill House in the Yorkshire Dales for our Inn Crowd music week. It is the first time in four years that we have been able to go to Scargill - it has been closed for a couple of years and now the community has reformed and moved back in. It was wonderful to be back in such a lovely place.

Here are Helen's updates from the week to give you a picture:

Hi Everyone!

I've managed to find a bit of time this morning to send you all an update from our week at Scargill. We've got a nice lot of guests here who seem to be really enjoying themselves and mixing and mingling well. There are also quite a few children and teenagers around, and it's great to spend time with them.

On Saturday we had a good introductory evening, and have been introduced to a few members of the new community here - the leader of the community, Phil, is great, and he's been really encouraging to have around. There are also a few team members who are helping by leading some kids work, which is great.

Sunday's morning service was good fun - our team are providing most of the music, but we've been joined by a young drummer, Mark, who is adding some wonderful percussion to what Jaime is playing on the drums.

On Monday we had our first morning session, which Roger led. The group really responded well and were very open when Roger led into a time of waiting on the Spirit at the end. The teenagers have so far been to all of the bible studies, which is amazing, and they are really participating well.

The orchestra and choir rehearsals have been interesting so far - the orchestra have a huge range of ages and abilities, but Annie is doing a great job with them. The choir is getting better as the days go by, but the soprano section is surprisingly quite small - so I need to encourage them to sing a bit louder!

Yesterday was a bit of a mammoth day for me - I was doing the morning talk, and have spent a lot of time wrestling with it - I ended up staying up until 2.30am in order to finish it - I had loads of material, but none of it felt quite right. Paul prayed with me in the evening, and while he prayed something he said resonated with me and gave me the finishing point for the talk, so I felt much happier. People responded really well, and we've managed to pray with a few people that have responded to words of knowledge etc.

Today is a day off, which'll be good, and the weather is wonderful. It seems like everyone needs a rest - almost everyone I have spoken to this morning has had a bad night in some way or other, be that getting a sore throat, struggling with pain, or vivid dreams. So do pray protection for everyone as we go into the second half of the week. Roger is planning to speak about the gifts of the Spirit tomorrow, which should be exciting.

Anyway, I hope you're all well.
Helen
x

And here is update 2:

Hi Everyone!

Another quick update.

We had a lovely day off yesterday and good rehearsals in the evening. People seem to have slept better overnight, which is good.

This morning, Roger spoke about the wise men, then linked it in with spiritual gifts - I'm not sure how he worked it round to that now I type it out, but it made sense at the time! At the end of the session we spent a long time waiting on God, asking the Spirit to come and give gifts to people. Loads of people joined in, and there were quite a few words of knowledge from among the guests, many of which were claimed.

The final rehearsals were good - just got to work with the soloists now, to make sure they're ok.
This evening we have a sing new songs/praise and worship evening in which we're using a lot of stuff from the new book - it should be a lot of fun.

Finally, do pray for Roger as tomorrow he needs to spend all of the morning conducting and leading the rehearsal, and then conducting the performance at night - his shoulder has been ok so far this week, but conducting can sometimes be a problem.

Lots of love, and thanks for your prayers.
Helen
x

The final day went really well. The choir, orchestra and soloists were all brilliant, and worked amazingly well together. Unfortunately Lucy wasn't well enough to play her trumpet in the performance, but she did manage to sing a solo. A particular mention goes to Barrie who sang and narrated the part of Sam brilliantly - especially considering he had had a bad throat all week. Scargill had worked really hard in advertising the performance in the local area, and lots of people came to watch, which was so encouraging for the guests. The performance was finished off beautifully by 5 year old Mia, who said a prayer for us all.