Thursday 21 April 2011

Holiday club time!

While Roger, Mary and Annie have been living it up in the sunshine on the Isle of Wight, Helen has been busy back in Birmingham.  She has been doing some work with the children at Saltley Methodist Church for the past few months, and this week it has culminated in a holiday club.

It is a very poor area of Birmingham, so it is wonderful to see the kids coming and enjoying themselves.  A major part of the holiday club has been learning some songs for a special Holy Saturday presentation.  The children are being really good and enthusiastic about the music, which is impressive because quite a lot of it is a bit sombre.  One of the members of the CMM choir, a lady called Jan, has been one of the helpers for the week.  This afternoon she is leading a craft session which involves icing cakes - could be messy!

Do pray that as the children learn about Holy Week and Easter they would get to know Jesus more.

Jerusalem Joy on the Isle of Wight (1)

During Holy Week, Roger, Mary, Annie, Jonathan (& Linda) and Trish have been at St. Rhadagund's Hotel on the Isle of Wight.  They are leading a special Holy Week music week, using the musical Jerusalem Joy as a tool to study Jesus' passion, death and resurrection.

Despite worries about numbers a few months ago, there are a good number of guests, and the week is going really well.  Highlights of the week so far have included Annie leading an epilogue about jewels, and one lady hearing from God what kind of jewel she is - wonderful!  Jonathan preached in the morning on Palm Sunday, all the team have been contributing to leading worship, and Roger has been leading the morning Bible teaching.  Annie has been working hard training up the choir and also including the array of instruments, which includes Phil on bass.

Last night Brian Harley, a local URC minister, came in and led an evening about the Passover meal with the guests, which went down really well.

Two Sisters in Weston-super-Mare

While Helen was busy in Beeston, Annie was working hard in Weston.  Peter Perrin in Weston had organised a special Two Sisters and a Funeral weekend for the churches in Weston-super-Mare, which involved a day of rehearsing and then a performance the following day.

Annie spent the day with the choir on the Saturday, teaching them the musical from scratch, and as there was plenty of time, taking the opportunity to share some of what the Bible has to say about the story.  The biblical foundation to the ministry of CMM is essential, and it is wonderful on days like this when we have chance to bring to people more than just the story.

Annie was supported by a wonderful team on the day - Caroline, Kaye, Wendy, Bill and Phil.  It is great that we have so many vocalists fairly nearby who were able to help out.  Annie also did a wonderful job including some of the words and pictures EBRG had received while praying for the event.  It is so amazing that we have a God who speaks personally to each of us, and that CMM can share some of that in its ministry.

On the Sunday, Roger and Mary joined the team for the afternoon rehearsal and then performance.  Roger took over the conducting duties, and Annie switched to viola.  The team was also augmented by Richard, who was down in Weston from Nottingham to see his beloved Dover play - and he will have been delighted to see them beat the locals 4-1.

The performance at Clarence Park Baptist went really well, and was well received.  Thanks so much for Peter for organising the event - it is always great when CMM can visit Weston!

Monday 18 April 2011

Greater than Gold in a day - Beeston

On Saturday 9th April, Helen travelled to Wollaton Road Methodist Church, Beeston, Nottingham to lead a musical in a day.  Last year Helen, Richard, Felicity and Miriam had led Jairus' Daughter in a day at the same church, but this year the musical of choice was 'Greater than Gold'.  The reason for the choice was that 26 years ago Roger had come to the Albert Hall in Nottingham as part of the official church, and many members of this church had sung in the choir.  Loads of memories came back, which was useful for Helen as this musical is very tricky to teach in a day, but thankfully most of the choir knew it.

Helen had a big team for the day - Felicity led some dance, Paul played the father, Catherine the mother, Amy was Mary Jones, and Sarah and Miriam played their violin and clarinet respectively and sang various other solos.

Despite jet-lag from Helen, the day went really well.  In the afternoon Helen and Miriam's mum and dad arrived after synod, and so Chris was coerced into taking the narration role.  The choir really enjoyed this, as Chris is currently their minister although he is moving to South Wales in the summer.  His attempts at pronouncing the Welsh village name caused a great deal of hilarity.

Felicity had four girls in her dance group, and they worked really hard.  She taught them a dance to song 1, which is reprised at the end of the musical, and she also taught them a dance to song 4 - Tell me the stories of Jesus.  Felicity herself did two solo dances, including a beautiful ballet piece.  The dancing adds so much to the day.

The final performance went well, except for a slight problem with the sound system.  Thankfully the singers were able to overcome it, and the choir sounded amazing.

The following morning Helen came back to the church with Amy, and led the morning service.  It was a special morning service for the Boys and Girls Brigades.  The church was really full, and people seemed to really enjoy themselves.  Margaret on piano was joined by two wonderful guitarist.  The congregation were great sports and joined in well with the song 'Words are not enough' and also congregational 'Guess Who?'.

Thursday 14 April 2011

Rock on Vancouver Island 4

Devon and Mat
Ann with Sue and other choir members

Ann again!

Roger keeping everyone on track
The group that travelled to Cathedral Grove

3 of five of us stretched around a tree

ROCK!































The final Vancouver Island update.

Thanks so much for all your prayers.  I know that good weather for our day off seems like such a silly thing, but it meant a lot to us - we travelled up Island away from Duncan, and had cloudless skies almost all day.  To our amazement when we returned to Duncan we found that they had had terrible rain and hail.  We had a wonderful day off, visiting Qualicum, Coombs and then Cathedral Grove.  Four local folk came with us - Shirley, Sue, and then Wayne and Claire.  Qualicum and Coombs are both shopping touristy areas, but Cathedral Grove was really special - some ancient woodland with Cedars and Douglas Fir trees hundreds of years old, and incredibly huge.  Wayne used to be a forester, so he loved telling us all about it.  We then had a lovely dinner in on the way back and met with Dale the vicar and his wife. It was good to meet with them in a more social setting.

Today we took part in the morning service at St. John's in Duncan. This time we were just leading the music and Dale preached.  We used the new liturgy, and it went really well.  The congregation seemed much more united today than last week - last week it felt very much like the traditional service people were at the back looking grumpy, and the modern service people were at the front enjoying the worship. It felt like everyone was with us this morning, and really going for it in worship.

After the service we had lunch at Sarah's with quite a number of key people from St. John's.  It was also nice to eat a sensibly sized meal - just some soup and bread.  Later in the afternoon before heading out to the performance we finally managed to sit down for a meal with Deborah, the boys' host.  She had cooked the most enormous amount of ribs for us.

The performance this evening went really well indeed.  There were close to 400 there, so it felt really full.  The audience really loved it too, and stood and clapped along to most of the final song.  Bill really milked his part, getting some big laughs.  We also had some great conversations afterwards, and there was also some prayer ministry.  At least one of the words from Thursday's EBRG was claimed - actually thinking about it, there's been a few over the last few days - including a fresh fall of snow on a high part of the main highway when this is the time of year when it should only be on the mountains.

The after-show party at Shirley's was fun too, but now it is really late and we have to pack - we're being collected at 7am tomorrow by Shirley and Sue.  They will drive us down to Victoria and put us on a coach at 9am which will take us all the way to the airport via the ferry.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Helen
x


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As it happens, our flight home from Vancouver was cancelled due to a mechanical fault - and you don't really argue with that.  After a long discussion or two at the airport we managed to get free accommodation and food before getting a flight nearly 24 hours later.  We made it safely in the end though, and all our luggage too.

Rock on Vancouver Island 3

Lunch in Victoria


Sea Planes in Victoria

The CMM team with Shirley

Ann, Trish and Joline
Mat and Bill
Hi Everyone,

Probably the penultimate Vancouver Island update!

We had a good day off visiting Victoria on Wednesday, although the weather wasn't great.  It's been cold and wet pretty much the whole time we've been here sadly.  In the evening we had dinner with Shirley again, and this time she cooked us chicken curry, which is Roger's all time favourite - she'd even made us some chapattis!  

Yesterday was a very busy day - and the first day of sunshine and we had to be indoors...  First thing in the morning we went to Deborah's church, St Peter's for the morning communion service.  The liturgy we had practiced on Tuesday didn't entirely go to plan, but everyone there still found it incredibly uplifting.  It seemed to have a big impact on people - they are still talking about it now, and planning on using it in future.  It isn't necessarily the liturgy they want to take on, but the way music is woven into it.

After the service, we went over to St. John's to meet with the clergy.  Sadly this was only the anglican clergy, but it still was a good session - there were 6 of them, and Roger led the 'Ways to Praise' teaching, which focuses on psalms, hymns and songs.  The aim was to encourage them to include all of these things on worship, and not overemphasising one.  We had a wonderful comment afterwards from Dale, who is a bit of a traditionalist.  He said that he feels comfortable and happy with hymns, and has really struggled with songs over the years, but after Roger had spoken he began to understand their place in worship and it was a 'revelation' for him.

Finally at the end of the day we had our final rehearsal for Rock. This time we rehearsed at the Christian Reform Church which is the performance venue.  It took a while to get set up, but the rehearsal was excellent - particularly helped by Margie, their wonderful sound technician.  She enabled everything to run incredibly smoothly.

Then today we had some spare time, but it was pouring with rain all day.  Devon, Ann, Bill and I got very wet wandering round a forest looking for geocaches - Roger was very sensible staying in.  This evening we had the first performance of Rock, and it went really well.  I forgot one line, and Mat forgot a few more, but apart from that it
was good, and very well received - I think there were about 150 there.  We got a standing ovation at the end, and many of the people say they are coming again on Sunday and with friends.  The auditorium holds 450, so let's see!

We've got a day off tomorrow, so hopefully we'll get some good weather!

Helen

Rock on Vancouver Island 2

The truck half way up a mountain
Here's the next update!

On Monday during the free day Bill, Devon, Ann and I went out for a bit of an explore, driving the truck up one of the local mountains until we hit snow and had to come down again.  After lunch at Deborah's house (she's bought in loads of wheat-related products like pizza which she can't eat herself, so we have to help), we all went to Cowichan Bay, and had a look around while finding a few geocaches. 
Geocaching in Cowichan Bay

The early evening rehearsal went pretty well - the choir are singing well, and they sound good.  We're joined by two soloists - Trish and Mat.  Trish is playing the part of Zillah, and is really good and confident.  Mat is playing the part of Jesus.  Roger got him having a go at the prophetic moment at the end of song 15, and he went for it, which was brilliant.  There is also a young girl called Joline, who filled in the solos for their rehearsals, and she is really good indeed, so we have managed to get her singing all kinds of bit parts - it's a shame there isn't more for her to do.

On a walk near Alison's House
Yesterday Ann, Bill and I went out for a lovely walk near where Ann and I are staying.  It is a fantastic bit of woodland - it isn't evergreen, so it is full of wildlife and wonderful moss-covered rocks. After lunch at Deborah's we had a bit of a rest, and then travelled to Deborah's church - St. Peter's.  Roger has brought with him a special communion liturgy devised for us by Peter Moger, who used to be the Archbishop of Canterbury's adviser on liturgy.  It intersperses the song 'Behold the Lamb' with a special liturgy, and the people at St. Peter's are very excited about having a liturgy with some music interspersed.  They have a wonderful grand piano, which Roger loved playing.  
Inside St. Peter's Church

After the time at St. Peter's we went to Sue's house for dinner.  Sue is the main organiser of this trip, and also the musical director at St. John's.  She's married to a man from Middlesbrough called Dave.  Roger loves talking football with him!

Yesterday evening we held a music and worship workshop at St. John's. There were 20-30 there, some of whom are involved in leading worship at their own church.  Roger led his planning and leading worship workshop, and also his structuring praise workshop.  Both of which added up to nearly 2 hours of Roger talking, plus some songs.  Our bottoms felt it on the pews, but otherwise everyone was really engaged.  A lot of what Roger had to share was new to people, and they seemed to really appreciate it.  The new version of 'O the deep deep love of Jesus' is really going down well.

Today is our day off, and we're planning to drive down to Victoria and have a look round.







Rock on Vancouver Island 1

On the morning after the Michael Card evening, Roger, Helen, Ann, Devon and Bill left the UK for Canada.  Here are Helen's emails back home to give you an idea of how it went:


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St. John's Church
The team at St. John's
The team at St. John's with Sue
Sarah's House
On the Ferry
Alison's house by the bay
The flight over was very smooth, and our bags were all there at the other end, which was a good start!  We found our way to the hotel in Vancouver without any problems, and all had a reasonable night's sleep - considering we'd been awake for nearly 24 hours.  Jet lag has taken a while to shake off, but I think we're all sleeping normally now - not waking up too early.

Sarah and Sue (the main organisers) met us at the hotel and drove us to the ferry port just outside Vancouver, and we had a lovely ferry ride in the sunshine over to the Island.  It was amazing to see the mountains on either side of the channel.  We went straight to Shirley's house - Shirley is one of the main characters of St. John's church, and is singing in the choir.  She's larger than life and great fun.  She fed us a lovely dinner and then we went to our hosts houses.  All of us are staying at Maple Bay, which is about a 10-15 minute drive from Duncan.  Roger, Devon and Bill are staying with Deborah, who is the vicar of St. Peter's church.  She lives in a lovely house right on top of a hill with a view down into the bay.  Ann and I are staying at Alison's house.  Alison is also a member of St. Peter's, although has a salvation army background.  She is very trusting and incredibly generous, as she only spent the first two evenings and mornings with us, and then has flown off to Florida, leaving us in charge of her house for the rest of the time.  The house is amazing - right on the waterfront.

On Friday we had a restful morning and then a team meeting over lunch.  Alison took Ann and I for a walk around her house in the morning, and we saw deer, bald eagles, robins the size of pigeons, woodpeckers, a humming bird, and her next door neighbour - 93 year old Laura.  We had a pot luck dinner with the choir, and then a rehearsal at night.  I don't know where Roger got the energy from to lead the rehearsal, but he did amazingly well.  We covered about half of the songs, and we have a rehearsal tonight.  The choir have been very well trained by Sue.  Devon seems to know everyone and is greeting each person like a long lost friend.  Amazing.

Saturday we held a Rock Roadshow at St. John's.  About 40 or so were there.  I led some worship to begin with, and they were all really up for it - it was hard to stop them at the end!  Roger then spoke about 'I will follow you' - really the basics about following Jesus.  After a break he led a creative/prophetic workshop, and got everyone improvising in worship.  I think they really enjoyed it.  After lunch I led a Holy Spirit workshop with everyone - the most basic one about receiving.  They were so open and receptive, and lots people shared about how they had received.  We also had at least one of the words we had received at EBRG claimed - the one about the broken collarbone.

On Saturday evening we went to Sarah's for dinner, and her husband Gary had cooked for us.  He had been fishing that morning and caught fresh salmon, huge prawns and crab.  Wonderful food, if very messy to eat!

Yesterday was another full day.  We took most of the morning service at St. John's.  Dale, the vicar, was very generous in giving us plenty of space to lead worship and for Roger to preach.  There were quite a lot of people there, which was encouraging for the church congregation.  Normally they have two services - a 9am traditional service, which is the most popular, and then a 10.30am more modern service which only gets 10-20 people.

In the evening they wouldn't normally have a service, but they deliberately organised a united service with the other churches of the area.  Roger began by explaining the tabernacle structure for a block of praise - enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise, and then entering the most holy place.  Ann then led a block of praise afterwards which followed that structure.  I think the block was a lot longer than they are used to, but most people went with it.  Then Roger spoke about the Transfiguration, and we ended the service with some more praise and a bit of ministry.

Today we have a free day, which is nice, and then a rehearsal with the choir at 5pm.

I hope you are all well.

Helen
x

An Evening with Michael Card

A couple of months ago while on the beach in Weston, Roger had a surprise phone call from a member of Michael Card's team to say that there was a spare date in his tour schedule, and would we like to host him.  Roger's instant answer was yes, and then the office staff got down to some seriously hard work getting it all off the ground!

Michael is a wonderful singer-songwriter, well known for songs such as El Shaddai and Immanuel.  He has many fans in Christ Church, and so they were delighted to have him come.

Annie gathered together an amazing string quartet made up of herself and three players from the CBSO - Libby, Heather and Corinne.  The strings added a huge amount to the concert and made it incredibly special.

Helen sorted out a close harmony group, which involved Miriam and Ann on soprano (some of which was incredibly high), Catherine and Amy on alto, Helen and Tim on tenor, and Paul and Richard on bass.  Richard is a massive fan of Michael Card, so it was great to have him singing with us - he worked incredibly hard to learn his part, which was fantastic.  We were also supported by Martin who did a wonderful job setting up the sound.

Michael brought with him Ron on sound, Gordon his tour organiser, and Scott his musical director.  Scott played piano for many of the songs, and Michael played guitar or piano, or just sang.  His guitar skills were mind-boggling as he plays a right-handed strung guitar left handed!

The evening was themed around Easter, beginning and ending with the song 'Only his wounds'.  There were a couple of really moving songs such as 'Ride on to die', 'Tears of the world' and 'Why', and a really special moment where the congregation joined in with the song 'Immanuel'.

Organising the concert was hard work, but very rewarding, and the almost sell-out audience were very appreciated.  Hopefully in future if we have another such event we will have longer to get the word out!

Two Sisters in Witney

A week after our exploits in Sheffield, we travelled south east from Birmingham to Witney, a town to the west of Oxford.  We have often visited Witney over the years as a group there led by Paul Herrington has often performed Roger's musicals.

The choir had been rehearsing for several weeks, although there were a few newcomers on the day.  A brilliant part of the day was that time had been left in the programme for Roger to be able to do some teaching on the theme of the musical, and to really invest in the choir.

Before and after lunch Helen and Annie took some sectionals - Helen with the ladies downstairs and Annie with the guys upstairs.  The soloists divided between the two rooms - this time we had Martin as Lazarus, Phil as Jesus, Caroline as Mary and Wendy as Martha.  In the performance we were joined by two local soloists who took the baddie parts, and Helen and Annie played their instruments.

After the sectionals, Roger led a creative workshop, which added an extra dimension to the day ahead of the runthrough in the afternoon.  We had a wonderful tea with the choir and then tried to make as much room as possible for the audience.  The room was absolutely packed, with standing room only, which was a fantastic end to the day.

Thanks so much to Paul and also to Shirley Enoch for all their work on the day and before.  The choir are learning Snakes and Ladders for Paul's swansong later in the year.  Hopefully we will be able to get the dates of their performances up on the blog before long.

Two Sisters in Sheffield

The end of a busy week saw a CMM team travelling to Sheffield for the fourth Two Sisters event in 8 days.  This Sheffield event was organised by John Mellor, ably assisted by his wife Margaret.  The church, St. Peter's Ellesmere, is an Anglican/Methodist partnership in a very poor area of Sheffield.  It stands like a beacon on the hillside, and it was wonderful to be able to take part in mission in the area.

John had held one rehearsal prior to the event, in which he and Muriel Stonehewer divided the choir up and took sectionals.  On the day itself the choir was supplemented by quite a few singers, but having the core of those that were already familiar with the material made a huge difference.

The CMM team for the day were Devon (Lazarus), Martin (Jesus), Helen (Martha), Ann (Mary), Richard (baddie), Pete (baddie) and Marilyn on flute.  We hadn't seen Marilyn since the Rock Symphony Hall finale, so it was wonderful to work with her again.  She had the chance to experiment with Annie's special instrumentalist arrangements, and it worked well.

On the Saturday we all worked really hard - Roger and Helen led sectionals, and the choir were excellent.  It was interesting to meet some of the members of the choir, who came from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures.  John had been tirelessly inviting everyone he met to come and take part in the day, whether they were Christian or not.

The same was true for the audience in the evening - the church was absolutely packed out - standing room only. There were Muslims, a Buddhist, some non-Christians, a former president of the Methodist Conference, and lots of faces familiar to CMM such as the Hopkins clan, Sally Rhodes and Liz Tipple to name but a few.

It was a wonderful day - thanks so much to John for his tireless energy.  After the performance half of the CMM team went home, but Roger, Helen, Devon and Ann remained to take the service at the church the following morning.  It was a wonderful service - the congregation were so hungry and ready to worship.  Ann led a praise block, and as soon as we started the first song percussion instruments came out, as well as flags.  Roger spoke once again about the More Than God, with a focus on Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and quite a few people came for prayer.  People chatted after the service for a really long time.  It was wonderful to be part of it all.

Two Sisters in Coventry

Another event in a very busy week saw a team from CMM travelling to Coventry Methodist Central Hall.  The organising force behind the event was Olive Holtom, a long term supporter of CMM.  She was very sad that we were unable to come to Coventry with Rock, and so bullied us (nicely) over a number of months about Two Sisters.  She managed to book the Coventry Central Hall, and also its minister, Paul Wood, to train the choir.  Paul did a brilliant job - the choir sounded fantastic.  The choir were joined by a few extras from the East Birmingham CMM choir, but they weren't really needed.

The central hall is a wonderful venue, with loads of room for audience, wonderful tiering on the stage, and plenty of space for the cast.  Paul worked really hard to set up the sound system, especially when he was surprised by the addition of Annie on viola and Helen on flute and trumpet.  The rest of the CMM team was unchanged from the Leicester performance.



At the previsit Olive had been asked how tickets were going.  She said that she was sold out, and when asked how many she had sold, she said she didn't know as she kept printing more!  The turnout at the performance was wonderful - downstairs was nearly full, and upstairs held a decent number too - probably just under 350 in the audience, which was wonderful.  Well done Olive!  Thanks so much to both you and Paul for all your hard work.

Two Sisters in Leicester

On Ash Wednesday - 9th March, a Two Sisters and a Funeral team travelled to Leicester led by Roger.  This time the team were Emily (Mary), Amy (Martha), Martin (Jesus), Devon (Lazarus), Pete and Jonathan (baddies).  It was great for Emily and Amy to perform at their home venue, and I am sure they had plenty of home support.

The performance took place at Christ Church URC, Dumbleton Avenue - just across the road from CMM's normal rehearsal place in Leicester - Trinity Methodist.  Alan Baum, the choir trainer, was one of the first people to ask to be involved in the Two Sisters performances, and he had done a brilliant job training the choir again.  With the help of Sheila on tickets and other local folk, the venue was completely sold out, and over 200 people filled the venue.

It was great to see a lot of familiar faces in the choir - many have sung with CMM repeatedly over the years at the DeMontfort Hall in the tours.  The choir sang beautifully, and Roger was delighted with the performance.