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!

We were invited to join Didcot Baptist Church for their “Weekend at home”, to run the children’s programme for the Saturday, and during the Sunday service, while the adults had some great teaching from Paul Griffiths

The theme for the adults was “Tell your story”, so we took a similar theme for the children of “The greatest story”, and as well as looking at the stories of David & Goliath and Samuel from the Old Testament, we talked about the gospel story, and how the children’s own stories as their lives unfold can become part of the same great story of God’s kingdom.

The children made booklets – click the picture below for a Sildeshow of some of the booklet covers
Note: we take your privacy very seriously, so if your child’s image appears in the pictures below and you would prefer that it didn’t, please email and we will remove it immediately – thank you

Didcot Baptist Church

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.

Old friend (well, not that old), Ian King, who was pastor of our home church, Ichthus Downham, for many years, and a key encourager for me in getting the FW series of songs and recordings off the ground, has been associate pastor for the past several years at Vineyard, Loughton. Wes Sutton, the founder of the church and senior pastor, has recently accepted a new role working with Steve Chalke and church.co.uk, so on 6 Jan, there was a “handover” service at Vineyard. We were invited to go for the morning to lead a celebration for the children while the main service was happening, which was great fun.

Many congratulations to Ian and Chris King on their new appointment, and to Wes and Mary in their exciting new role too.

The trip was at the invitation of a large church in the capital city, Harare. Friend and record producer, Dave Bankhead, had been to Harare the previous year for a conference, and found himself working with the children of some of the delegates to that conference. He taught them songs from Heal Africa, and presented them on the final day, and it was so well received that the church (One Way Ministries, pastored by Langton Gatsi) wanted him to come back the following year and put on a whole conference just for children.

So, Dave invited us to think about going with him and his wife Jean. I was born in Zimbabwe but had not been back in 40 years, so jumped at the chance. Of course we knew that the country is in terrible turmoil at preset, with massive food shortages, hyper-inflation, unemployment, and a volatile political situation, so we prayed, and Sue did as much research as possible to find out whether it was safe and wise to take our younger two children as part of the team. Some people urged us to be cautious and some thought we were crazy to even think of going at this time, but in the end, we felt God was saying to go, so we did.

We stayed with local families from the church, and were overwhelmed by their hospitality and generosity. We had heard that meat was very hard to get hold of, so were surprised to sit down to a first meal of chicken. It turned out our hosts had been rearing some chickens especially for our visit, and had killed them all just before our arrival, so we had chicken all week. Very humbling, when we knew that millions in the country would only eat meat rarely at present.

The conference was held in an old hotel that the church had just purchased (the story of which was a miracle in itself), and there was a limit in terms of the number we could fit into the hall – had there been more room then we were assured that we could have had thousands in attendance, but with a team of 7 of us, we were more than happy to try to cope with the 250 or so that had registered to come. Electricity is often out for hours or days at a time, and so the church had arranged for a generator, and managed to get hold of petrol for it, which is also in very short supply – on the rare occasions that it is available, then people will queue in their cars for hours at garages to get a few litres.

We had the children for 5 hours each morning, from 8am to 1pm – the kind of length of time that would be a real challenge for a kids club in the UK, but African children have a far longer attention span it seems, and are so well behaved, that it was no problem. We used a mixture of songs, dances, drama, puppets, talks, DVD’s and games – it was the games that were by far and away the children’s favourite activity, and perhaps one of the greatest benefits of the week for the children was just to have a load of fun. The children were very keen to copy out all the songs and bible verses we used into their notebooks.

In the afternoons, the church was keen that we should have the chance to see some of the sights, and so took us out and about. There are virtually no tourists visiting the country at present (and those that do visit mainly go to Victoria Falls in the north) so on one trip, for example, we had an entire lion park to ourselves, apart from a brief appearance of a minibus with some Chinese tourists! A particular highlight for me was the chance to visit the house where we lived when I was born – it was in the process of being renovated so the workmen there invited us in to look round the house and garden. As the youngest of 4 children, I am the only one in the family who has no memories of the country, so I was really thrilled to see for myself the country where my family had lived happily for many years.

Many people have asked us since we returned what it was like to visit a place that is so notorious in the news at present. The people there, in the midst of extraordinary hardship and suffering, were warm, welcoming, friendly, and hopeful, and it was the hope in particular that made an impression on me. We took as the theme for our conference “Arise, shine Zimbabwe”, and it is always the hope of Christ that can sustain a person, a family, a church, and a nation through adverse times, to a brighter day. The church in that country is a living example of Paul’s injunction in Romans to be “joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer”. Our prayer for the children especially is that they would know the peace and joy that can only come from knowing the God who is love.

For the final FW booking of 2007 I was invited to lead worship for the staff retreat for the 120 or so team members in the Abernethy Trust, having met the Director, Lorimer, earlier in the year. The Trust does great work from their four centres in Scotland, and is also involved with a number of overseas projects in Brazil, Tanzania and Poland.

It was a great conference, and it was lovely to play again with Paul and Jane Parmenter, and 2 other great musicians, both called Steve.

The conference was held in beautiful surroundings on the Gartmore estate near Loch Lomond, and I enjoyed the chance to escape London for a few days and to spend some time working on new songs. Earlier in the week I had attended the annual UK Worship Songwriters’ Consultation, which always inspires me to write more, and so it was well timed to then have the chance to get on and do it.

We are looking forward to a visit to the Garstang Methodist circuit, for workshops, an evening celebration, and Sunday morning service. May sees a rare overseas excursion for FW as we visit Switzerland for a church weekend. More details on the diary page.
We are hoping to visit Zimbabwe this summer with friend (and FW album producer) Dave Bankead. The nation is in turmoil of course at present, so your prayers are appreciated.

Not our normal Roadshow this time – we were invited by old friends (well, not that old), Chris & Judith Forster, to do the children’s programme as part of a new event at River Church, a group of thriving churches in the Maidenhead area.

Titled the Big Gathering, the day was held at the local leisure centre, and was designed as a relaxed, friendly event, ideal to invite friends to, and for the whole church to gather.

For some obscure reason, despite the nearness to Christmas, the theme for the children was Pirates and Princesses, so used as they are to unusual requests from me, the team rose to the challenge of dressing up accordingly!

We had some fun, and think the kids did too, and it was a fun way to end the year on the road. Huge thanks for all the hard work in 2006 to Roadshow regulars Sue, Sophie, Josie, David, Bethan and Neil, and to other friends who have joined us through the year including Richard & Caro, Pete, and Sandy and Andrea.

We are booking now for 2007, so if you would like to explore the possiblity of Family Worship Resources leading a service, or taking a children’s event, or running some workshops, or whatever, then do drop us an email – more details on the Roadshow page.

More pictures

Someone said it must have been a man who decided Mothering Sunday should fall on the same day that the clocks went forward! We were up bright and early for a sound check at St John’s, a large, thriving Anglican church, on the outskirts of south London. The band featured Sophie, Bethan and Josh (making his roadshow debut) on vocals, David on electric guitar, and Neil on keys. Josie danced, and the children in the church were enthusiastic in following her lead.

Many churches struggle with how to “pitch” their all-age services – do you aim it at the younger children, and run the risk that the youth will be bored? Do you aim it at the youth and run the risk that older members may wonder what happened to the hymns? Our aim with the Roadshows has always been to make sure there is genuinely “something for everyone”. It was clear from the reaction from the church, and talking to people afterwards, that St John’s have alreay been doing a great job of pitching their services right, as evidenced by the numbers of children, youth, families and older people happy to fill the church and worship together.

For Mothering Sunday, we focussed on the theme of sacrifice, using a clip from Star Wars when Anakin’s mother lets him go (to become a Jedi Knight), and the (true!) story from 1 Samuel of how his mother gave her son up to serve God in the temple, in gratitude to God for the gift that Samuel was to her. (We acted the story out with members of the church, which we’ve done on a few different Roadshows over the years, but this was the first time the baby we picked out from the congregation turned out to be called Samuel in real life. He must be destined for great things!)

Bethan sang “Jesus, thank you for the cross” beautifully, which was a great reminder of the sacrifice that God made for each one of us in giving up his Son.

This church was a real treat to visit – the welcome was warm and friendly, and Sue and I discovered we knew more people there than we thought, including a friend we’d not seen in over 15 years. St John’s has a focus and emphasis on being “Church for Eden Park”, not just a church in Eden Park, and our prayer for the church, as they continue to grow and serve the local community, is that they would continue to be be salt and light in a needy world.

More pictures

Staplehurst Free Church, located in the “Garden of England” – Kent – is a local church with a great vision. We really enjoyed the morning – the church clearly has a passion for worship, and is committed to partnership between the generations. They have a thriving puppet ministry, and we were pleased to discover that the puppet team were about to visit Ghana, as two of the team we took that morning are also due to visit there in April this year.

With Dave Fordham on guitar, Neil Barnes on keys, Sophie on vocals and Josie dancing, we were really pleased to be joined by two of the church musicians who added some great colour to the music, with flute and violin.

The church has an ambitious and exciting building programme ahead, and clearly has a heart to serve the local community and further afield. If all local churches were like this, the nation would be in great shape! Check out the pictures from the roadshow