Nephew of Tom Mills, who produced iPraise for us, and grandson of Ishmael, pioneer of children’s worship in the UK, little Quinn is gravely ill. Please pray for him – thank you.

Details here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=109855339044766

I’m writing this from Washington DC where I’ve just enjoyed a long weekend break with Sue. It’s been an exhausting couple of months work wise for both of us, so a short break before the excitement of Sophie’s wedding at the end of July really kicks in seemed a good idea!

In the meanwhile, the design is nearly finalised for the cover of iPraise – Caro Swan has done her usual excellent stuff – and it should all be ready for manufacture in the next week or so.

While we have been in the US, our good friend, and current part time administrator for FW, Natalie Howard, has been on a trip to Thailand, to spend some time there with friends who are involved in working with projects to help get girls out of street work. Amazingly, it is her first trip abroad, and to have gone to Bangkok following all the recent troubles there certainly took some courage. I’m hoping she’ll write a report for this blog soon.

The final stage before manufacturing is to get the CD mastered, and as with the past few CD’s, we’ve used Denis Blackman from Skye Mastering. He has a brilliant ear, and has mastered too many secular and christian CD’s to count. Design for the CD cover is underway, and we should be on track for a release end June/Early July. We’ll get a preview track or two up soon – I think it is sounding just great, and hope people agree!

Meanwhile, the sun is shining today like mid summer, so being English, our reflex is to get the BQQ out, as rain is never far behind…

since I posted anything – sorry!

Much of this year has been spent dealing with the sudden death of my Dad in May. As sad and heavy as that has been, our current focus is now totally joyful and light – our eldest daughter, Beckie, is getting married to Matt this Saturday (22 August). Congratulations to them both!

In June, after 6 months training, fulfilling a long-held ambition to increase my general fitness and decrease my general fatness, I climbed the UK’s 3 highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales. Details here.

On the ministry front, we had a great time at Revive this year; Sophie is off again to Zimbabwe this month, and plans for “iPraise” are back on track after the turbulence of the past few months.

Sue & I hope you had a great summer (if it’s been summer where you live) – I will make an effort to post something before several more months fly by…

Mike

When we started the FW site, about 10 years ago, one of the first (and easiest) decisions we made was to make all of the songs available for download for free. This included MP3 files, backing tracks, lyrics, guitar chords and sheet music. As a small, relatively unknown, non-profit ministry, it seemed to me to be a very effective way to get the songs out, and it has been an exciting journey ever since, seeing where the songs have ended up.

Of course we do also record and sell CD’s of the songs (7 so far), and we have been assisted in that process by long-term partner, ICC Records, who act as our publisher and distributor. As we plan for the next FW recording, ICC have made a request that we stop making the FW songs freely available, as they feel that it detracts from selling CD’s, and songbooks/sheet music. They also suggest that with CD sales down in general, in the secular and christian “markets”, making the songs and albums available on iTunes is a better approach than making them available for free.

In other words, if you wanted to get hold of one of our songs in future, you may need to pay 79p (or 99 cents) for the song, and maybe £1.49 for the sheet music. My worry is that while some people may be happy to pay that, and so support the FW ministry (which I stress again is a non-profit ministry), and also support ICC who are themselves a charitable company, others may be put off and not get to hear or use the songs.

So, before making a decision on their request, I wanted to get some feedback from visitors to this site, and if you have a moment to send me an email with your frank thoughts, comments and suggestions on this tricky subject, then I would be very grateful.

Thank you!
Mike

We’re just back from a really good week with the Ichthus Bible Week, “Revive”, where we were leading the children’s work for the 5 to 10 age group. A fuller report will be coming soon, but in the meanwhile, here is a picture of the amazing team we were working with – stars one and all!

For anyone who aspires to write songs for children, and to lead all-age worship, there is one trail-blazing pioneer in the UK who towers above all others, and that is Ishmael. I have met him on a number of occasions, and had the privilege of playing keys and bass for him on a number of his visits to Ichthus in years gone by. I check his website from time to time, for news of what he is up to, and have followed with great interest his recent ordination into the Anglican church in Chichester.

So, logging on to his site today, I was devastated to read the news that he has been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. There is no doubt that because of the impact Ishmael has had on countless thousands of people in the UK and the world over, there will be countless thousands praying for him, so I simply encourage you to join with them in prayer.

Visit www.ishmael.org.uk for news and updates.

We received a request from the promotion company for Sportrelief to add a link to the video for this year’s charity single.

I remember hearing Leona’s single “Bleeding in love” on the radio last year, without knowing who she was (I didn’t watch Pop Idol!) and was struck by the strength & beauty of her voice, and the power of the song itself, and I wondered about her beliefs at the time.

So, when the request came in to link to her single, I was curious, and discovered that the song chosen as the Sportrelief single is based on the most downloaded poem on the web – “Footprints in the sand”, and the video contains images of Africa, which is always on my heart and mind, so I am really pleased to link to the video, and warmly invite you to check it out for yourself.

View the video on Leona Lewis’ site here

Jan 12 was a wonderful day when FW Writer and colleague (and the designer of this website), Chris Juby, got married to Hannah Brown.

I love weddings, and this was a brilliant one – full of life, joy, hope, colour, warmth, and two people clearly head over heels in love. Marvelous.

Many congratulations to Chris & Hannah, and every blessing and happiness for the future.

I have been involved with charity CCI for a couple of years now, primarily in the context of hosting their website through Solidrock where I am involved as a Director. CCI does a great work, linking conference centres, holiday organisations, youth and children’s ministries, and so on, through their association and network, and so I was delighted to be invited to lead the worship for their conference. Held at the Pioneer Centre in the beautiful (if somewhat wet) Shropshire countryside, it was a great 3 days.

In the UK, where church attendance has been in decline over recent decades, many people, especially young people, come to faith through holidays, conferences, outdoor activities, and other similar events, so the work CCI does is a vital and valuable part of keeping the gospel alive and relevant in our nation.