Tuesday 30 March 2010

Clarence Park Baptist

One of the long standing friends of Christian Music Ministries, Kaye Cooke, is a member of Clarence Park Baptist Church in Weston-super-Mare. She, along with a number of other members of her church organised for Roger to visit their morning service the day following the Rock Roadshow in Bristol. This was a wonderful opportunity for Roger to share with the whole congregation some thoughts on freedom in worship. Kaye helped by singing solo, and Lorna came and played violin.

Sometimes it is difficult to say all you want to say just in a short space of time left for the sermon, but Roger was really pleased with the morning. One lady felt able to dance in worship for the first time, and others were really blessed.

Thursday 18 March 2010

Jairus' Daughter in Nottingham

While Roger, Annie and another CMM team were in Bristol (see the Rock blog), Helen went to Wollaton Road Methodist Church in Beeston in Nottingham for Jairus' Daughter in a day. The day was organised particularly by Helen's dad Chris, who is a Methodist Minister, with lots of help from her mum Viv with advertising around the churches in the circuit.

Helen's team for the day included Richard Harvey, who took the part of Jesus, Felicity Norris, who led a dance workshop, and Miriam Gray (Helen's sister) who played clarinet.

It was a fantastic afternoon workshop, beginning after lunch. There were over 40 in the choir, and 4 excellent dancers. Very few of the choir had heard the music before, and they learnt it incredibly quickly. One of the worries of the day was finding soloists who could cover the woman, Jairus and child's parts. Thankfully the worry was squashed pretty early on with some excellent volunteers, including the 4 young dancers who together sang 'Jesus, friend of little children'.

It was great having Miriam on clarinet. She was really on team to help if anyone should have brought their instruments. Although no-one else brought an instrument, there was plenty of opportunity for Miriam to shine and be the centre of attention - there are quite a few long instrumentals in the musical, so the audience could look at Miriam playing rather than the conductor!

The dancers did an amazing job. Felicity worked with the four girls on the two songs which include 'You've turned my weeping into dancing for joy'. The dance they learnt in just a few short hours was fantastic. Felicity also added a couple of extra solo dances - firstly in song 4 'If I can just touch him' where the woman is debating whether or not to approach and touch Jesus. She then continued into song 5, which mostly consists of a long instrumental where the woman touches Jesus and discovers that she has been healed before the choir join in and sing 'If with all your heart you seek him, you will surely find him.'

The performance itself went well until technology got in the way! The connection between the laptop and the sound system seemed to break down a bit, and cut in and out. Two breaks in the middle of the performance sorted it out though - thankfully Felicity had brought with her some powerful speakers to go with her laptop.

A lovely extra dimension to the musical was provided by our 4 narrators, who told the story through the eyes of 4 bystanders. The audience was much bigger than expected, and it was a great occasion.

The following morning Helen preached at the church for the annual Girls' Brigade and Boys' Brigade parade service. As Jairus' Daughter was originally written for the Girls' Brigade Centenary in 1992, it made an excellent link between the musical on Saturday with church on Sunday. The Boys' and Girls' Brigades learnt all about how to 'Seek, serve and follow Christ'!

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Renewal Evening 2

Back in November we held a day together with Christ Church, Burney Lane. This was a day with Helena Wilkinson, in which she shared in the morning service, took a seminar in the afternoon, and then spoke at a renewal evening. This was the first of what we hope will be a whole series of renewal evenings held jointly between CMM and Christ Church.

So in February we held the second in the series, and this time the speaker was Ian Parkinson, one of the leaders of New Wine North and East. The music group and prayer team met simultaneously to prepare for the service, and to pray for the evening to come. In the music group, alongside Roger, Annie and Helen we had Martin and Katie leading the singing, Tim on drums, Paul on guitar and Jen making her debut on sax and clarinet.

Unfortunately by the time the evening was due to start, Ian was still stuck in traffic on the M6. So after delaying a little, we began with a nice long block of praise. There were quite a number in the congregation from the local churches, so we were thrilled, as this is only the second of its kind.

Ian did arrive after a couple of songs, so he was able to speak as planned. He spoke on the feeding of the five thousand, drawing links between that story and our approach to our relationship with Jesus and also to mission.

After Ian's talk, we had an extensive time of ministry led by Peter Smith, vicar of Christ Church. Lots of people were prayed for, including the speaker! Praise God for his love - giving words and pictures to people to aid the ministry time.

Afterwards we realised that this service had taken place on the anniversary of Peter Lawrence's death. Peter used to be vicar of Christ Church, and this was exactly the sort of evening he was encouraging. It's amazing how things come full circle.

The next evening is in April and our speaker will be Heather Butler. Heather has an amazing prophetic ministry, where God speaks through her in song. Should be a great evening.

Monday 15 March 2010

Music in Worship Week, Whitby

From 7th-12th April, Roger, Mary and Helen made their way up to Whitby and were joined there on team by Andrew Lockwood and Jonathan Chappell. This has been our annual trip to Moorlands Hotel in Whitby, one of the Christian Guild chain of hotels. In the past we have had Mike and Barbara Rowarth as an important part of the team, but this time they were sadly unable to make it.
Instead of learning a musical in a week, this time we decided to focus on music in worship, as we often have a number of local preachers and worship leaders among the group. This meant that in the weeks leading up to the week, Roger and Helen were beavering away on a teaching schedule and workshops, that will hopefully prove useful into the future.

There were about 20 guests (not bad for off season) staying at the hotel, and one of the lovely things about this week is that we have a number of people come in from the local area for the different sessions, including Helen Drummond, a local URC minister.

After dinner on Sunday we held a short introductory evening involving some praise and worship, an explanation of the plan of the week, and a lovely epilogue from Jonathan.

On Monday we began the week's teaching plan which focused on different worshippers in the bible. This first morning after worship led by Roger, Helen spoke on King David, focusing on the passage from 2 Samuel 6 which includes the famous verse "And I'll become even more undignified than this." During this session Andrew sang 'See how he dies on a cross' and we finished up with a simple block of worship songs to put the theory into practice. After this session we had a practical workshop looking at how to plan 'praise blocks' and why it is good to include them in a service. After a free afternoon and then dinner, we watched a wonderful DVD together - "Everything is Spiritual" by Rob Bell - highly recommended!

On Tuesday Mary led the worship and then Roger took over the bible teaching duties. This morning he looked at Mary the mother of Jesus, taking examples from the annunciation and the magnificat to describe the way she worshipped. Roger continued after the coffee break with a workshop on leading praise, and the guests got into groups and chose their own worship blocks. Gill and Barrie were the two guinea pigs who allowed us to test out their excellent worship-leading skills. In the evening we had 'An evening with Helen' which included singing some rounds and looking a bit at the history of singing. The evening included Andrew singing 'You raise me up' and Mary concluding the evening by singing 'Your eye is on the sparrow' - written right back in 1904.

On Wednesday Helen led worship and then Roger spoke about Jehoshaphat, particularly focusing on the story found in 2 Chronicles 20. After the break Helen, Andrew and Roger shared duties leading a new songs workshop. The workshop included some from Roger's new book 'The Roger Jones Song Collection' as well as some from Spring Harvest 2009. In the evening we had 'An evening with Roger', in which Roger told some of his testimony, and shared some of his passions in life.

On Thursday, our last complete day at Whitby, Andrew led worship in the morning and Roger spoke on Peter - but not the talks he has been using for the Rock Roadshows. Instead this time he looked at the story of the transfiguration. The morning's workshop was a Holy Spirit ministry session, and guests did a wonderful job ministering to one another after a little bit of teaching and instruction. We hope and pray this was a real blessing to each person. In the evening we had our service which included the sharing of bread and wine, and Jonathan had his chance to lead some worship.

Then on Friday after breakfast we packed our bags and headed home after a wonderful week. Sadly, this is to be our last week at Whitby as the hotel has unfortunately had to close. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the staff at this difficult time.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

From Pharaoh to Freedom

On Saturday 6th February, CMM began what was to be an extremely busy week. Annie travelled to Bakewell in Derbyshire accompanied by Pam Griffiths and Andrew Lockwood for a day learning and performing From Pharaoh to Freedom.

Methodist minister Fran Lane (who knew Helen when she was 5 years old) organised the day at Peak Methodist Church, which was aimed to be an event uniting all the churches in the circuit in fun and fellowship. It certainly did that! There were over 80 in the choir, as well as a group of dancers and instrumentalists. Fran's husband Piers sang the parts of Moses and Jesus, and a girl from Cliff College sang some of the female solos along with Pam.

It was great to have Pam involved again. She hasn't sung solo with us for a long time, and she was one of the original Pharaoh soloists, singing the part of Miriam.

The performance was such a success that there will be a further performance on Sunday 30th May at Cliff College.

Monday 8 March 2010

Associates' Day

CMM is priviledged to have a group of people spread across the country who volunteer for us. These can be singers, dancers, instrumentalists, workshop leaders, prayer ministry team, bookstall sellers and CD operators. We have CMM team as far north as Elgin and Glasgow, as far west as Bangor and Bideford, as far south as the Isle of Wight (although of course we can't forget Paul in the Algarve) and as far East as Norwich. If there's anyone outside of these extremes let me know!

We call these amazing people Associates, and on the 30th January we had our first associates' day in quite a few years. With about 40 people present on the day, it was a wonderful opportunity for both CMM and EBRG to share some of the vision and aims of the ministry with some of our closest supporters.

The day included a session on worship and worship leading, as we are hoping to ask more and more of our associates to lead worship with us over the coming months and years. Then we looked at the doctrine and practice of the ministry, covering a wide spectrum from the profundities of 'Charismatic' and 'Evangelical' right through to laughing at Roger's jokes even when you've heard them a million times. After lunch we looked at repertoire and ministry songs, and also Holy Spirit workshops and ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit.

It was a day full of information, but it was great to share with everyone. Huge thanks to our associates, and all they do for us.