Give Us A Heart On Fire featuring the Portsmouth Gospel Choir from the album How Great Are His Signs recorded and produced by Joffy James.

I have already shared the faith of explorer and TV presenter Bear Grylls e.g. https://risen.org.uk/?p=1343 and it is now reported in Christian Premier Media that he has fulfilled a lifelong dream by being baptised in the Jordan River, the same sacred place where Jesus received baptism from John the Baptist.

Grylls shared a picture (as featured) of this significant moment on X, formerly Twitter, writing: “It had always been a dream of mine to get in the water that Jesus was baptised in by my hero John the Baptist. The story is so amazing, & it seems wherever Jesus went, that new birth, new life, a new vision followed. Luke (in the bible) was probably a Syrian doctor before he met Jesus. He writes a reliable, poignant account of his life. It’s short. I like it.”

The Gospel of Luke tells the story of Jesus Christ’s life, teachings, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension and it is often used to help new believers understand Jesus’ teachings and how to live the new life in Christ.

Grylls has often been open about his faith and is an ambassador for the Alpha Course, which introduces people to Christian basics.

Earlier this year, the adventurer made headlines after he said he believes “Jesus would struggle with 99 per cent of churches nowadays” during an interview with the Christian Post.

For him, Christians should prioritise a personal relationship with God over religious rituals.

He said: “Our job in life is to stay close to Christ and drop the religious, drop the fluff, drop the church if you need to because that means so many different things to different people anyway. Keep the bit of church which is about community and friends and honesty and faith and love. All the masks, performances, music and worship bands and all of that sort of stuff—I don’t think Christ would recognize a lot of that.”

Grylls was also famously seen praying for former president of the USA, Barack Obama during an episode of his TV show Running Wild with Bear Grylls.

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Although I have shared a highlights video of the staged concert version of our “Theophilus- The Musical” I have not shared the complete show. Last week I shared Act One and this week it’s Act Two. Once again, I am a tad embarrassed that the title is Theophilus By Ken Shearsmith – it should have read “Mustard Seed Songs Present Theophilus The Musical”.

The Cast were:

Theophilus + Priscilla- Natasha Bain
Luke + Aquila – Edward Baker- Duly
Peter – Richard Mellion
Paul – Mark Bernard
Mary Magdalene- Katie Forge
John and Ananias – Andrew Dovaston
Crippled man and Simon the Sorcerer- Casey Lloyd
Stephen the first Martyr and Julius the Centurian- Sam Townsend
Philip the Evangelist and Barnabas – Adam Collins
Tabitha- Mei-Ling Thomas
Lydia – ChiChi Uzodinma
Woman from Ephesus – Amy Millar
Imprisoned woman – Evieanna Mullane

Musical Director – Joffy Girling
Tech team led by – Adam Kemp

The Staged Concert took place on May 14^th 2023 at Bay House School and Sixth form and was filmed and edited by Tom Clark

Quote of the week.

Although I have shared a highlights video of the staged concert version of our “Theophilus- The Musical” I have not shared the complete show. So here is Act One – I am a tad embarrassed that the title is Theophilus By Ken Shearsmith – it should have read “Mustard Seed Songs Present Theophilus The Musical”.

The Cast were:

Theophilus + Priscilla- Natasha Bain
Luke + Aquila – Edward Baker- Duly
Peter – Richard Mellion
Paul – Mark Bernard
Mary Magdalene- Katie Forge
John and Ananias – Andrew Dovaston
Crippled man and Simon the Sorcerer- Casey Lloyd
Stephen the first Martyr and Julius the Centurian- Sam Townsend
Philip the Evangelist and Barnabas – Adam Collins
Tabitha- Mei-Ling Thomas
Lydia – ChiChi Uzodinma
Woman from Ephesus – Amy Millar
Imprisoned woman – Evieanna Mullane

Musical Director – Joffy Girling
Tech team led by – Adam Kemp

The Staged Concert took place on May 14^th 2023 at Bay House School and Sixth form and was filmed and edited by Tom Clark

I will share Act Two next week.

So today’s video features Allie Sherlock aged 11- 16  (in last weeks video she is 18)

Here are a few facts about her:

Allie Sherlock (born 7 April 2005) is an Irish singer, guitarist, songwriter, and busker. A video of her performing a cover of Ed Sheeran‘s “Supermarket Flowers” went viral on YouTube in June 2017. She appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2018.

Sherlock began busking in Cork and later, from the age of 11, began performing almost weekly on Grafton Street, Dublin. Her father, who is her music manager, is also present and remains “on guard when people are inappropriate”. He films and uploads her YouTube videos.

In 2014, Sherlock’s YouTube channel was created and, as of April 2023, had over 5.73 million subscribers and generated over 1 billion views.^] She later started a Patreon channel,^[10] and (as of April 2023) had over 2.3 million Instagram followers and 3.5 million on Facebook.

In 2017, she was on the twelfth series of Britain’s Got Talent and advanced to the second round.  In August 2017, she performed at the 2017 Miss Universe Ireland pageant.

In early 2018, she performed the song “Million Years Ago” by Adele on ABC‘s The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran on RTÉ One‘s The Ray D’Arcy Show. Later in 2018, Sherlock signed a five-year contract with Patriot Records, owned by OneRepublic lead vocalist, Ryan Tedder.

Live concerts by Sherlock in Ireland have included performances at the Cork Opera House (December 2016), Cyprus Avenue in Cork (December 2018),  and at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin in April 2019.  She performed at the Elbphilharmonie Concert Hall in Hamburg, Germany in early 2020.  During their European tour in March 2020, Sherlock supported OneRepublic at concerts in Paris (France Cologne (Germany), Utrecht (Netherlands), and the London Palladium (UK).

In February 2020, she released a first extended play (EP) of a cover of “At Last” by Etta James.  In June 2020, she performed with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra as part of the final episode of RTÉ‘s Home School Hub. Also in 2020, Sherlock was part of a collective of female artists called “Irish Women in Harmony“, that recorded a version of Dreams in aid of a domestic abuse charity.

In December 2021, Sherlock performed on Virgin Media Television on Dave Fanning‘s Fanning at Whelan’s show.^[28]

On 4 June 2022, Sherlock performed at the AO Arena in Manchester (shown on ITV) for the Queen of the United Kingdom‘s 70th Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

On 7 April, 2023, Sherlock celebrated her 18th birthday and released the album “Allie”, including 11 cover songs

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I have just arrived in Scotland during a two- week holiday with Caroline my wife and our two doggies Genna and Dylan.  As I was not sure about the internet connection quality up here, I had “pre – recorded” today and next week’s blogs which feature Irish busker Allie Sherlock.  Ill give a bio of her next week but today is just about enjoying her and the young Ed Sheeran lookalike sing Leonard Cohen’s classic “Hallelujah”.

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The Gospel of Christ featuring the Mustard Seed Soul Band from the album Heart and Soul recorded and produced by Ross Gill

Although I support England in all sports and not least Rugby – I was delighted with the way the Fijian’s played on Saturday and thought that they thoroughly deserved their first ever win over England.  What really took my attention was the way that a number of the Fijian team dropped to their knees to pray at the end of the game.   (I could not find a photo of this so the featured pic is of a Fijian team praying at another game)

I was interested to read that before the last World Cup the Fijian players said that they are united by a deeply held Christian faith. One player remarked “We Fijians don’t have large facilities like other teams have, but we know that being here is not from our strength but from God and it’s all God’s plan that we are here. Even if we lose we know that there is something bigger. Another player said “Faith helps keeps us together. It helps bond us as a team”.

Prior to the 19th century, indigenous Fijians practiced various traditional religions based on divination and animism. With the arrival of the Europeans in the later years, the religious landscape of Fiji started to change, with Christianity gradually gaining popularity. The conversion of Fijian tribal chiefs to Christianity helped spread the religion among their followers. The colonization of Fiji by the British led to further changes in the country’s religious landscape. While Christianity became hugely popular during this time, other religions like Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam were also introduced in the country by indentured laborers that the British brought from India to work in the country’s sugar plantations.

According to the most recent census in 2007, most people have a Christian background (64.4% of the population), with a sizable Hindu (27.9%) and Muslim (6.3%) minority. Religion tends to split along ethnic lines with most Indigenous Fijians being Christian and most Indo-Fijians being either Hindu or Muslim.

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We Are Hard Pressed featuring Ross Gill and Helen Joy Rubio from the album “The Season of Singing” recorded and produced by Ross Gill

Last week I shared a video featuring “We Are Hard Pressed” sung by Evieanna Mullane. It is from our work in progress “Theophilus- The Musical”.  I said that we are yet to decide which causes it may support, but neglected to say that the song was originally recorded some 11 years ago by Ross Gill and Helen Joy Rubio- their version features today.

I also did not say that the charity “Release International” had used Ross and Helen’s version 11 years ago. I decided to ring Release to see if they would be interested in using the latest video.  They were, in fact delighted and will feature it in the near future when they decide how best it can be used.

For those who do not know “Release International” their website states:

Release International is a Christian ministry working through local church partners in around 30 countries across the world, helping persecuted Christians prayerfully, pastorally and practically.

We were founded in 1968, inspired by the testimony and ministry of Pastor Richard Wurmbrand. Following the demise of Communism in Eastern Europe and the increase in the persecution of Christians elsewhere in the world, the Ministry broadened its activities and changed its name to Release International.

Our ministry is based on Hebrews 13 v 3: ‘Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.’

In 2008 Mustard Seed Song’s first musical “His Story” was produced by Release International to become part of the London Pentecost Festival. “His Story” was performed three times at the Central Hall, Westminster.  Details can be seen on today’s image.

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“We Are Hard Pressed” is a song taken from our work in progress “Theophilus- The Musical”. In the musical it is sung by Paul and Silas while they are imprisoned- here it is sung by the wonderful Evieanna Mullane who previously sung “Out of the Depths” in a staged concert of “Theophilus” and also in a video filmed at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Portsmouth- that was in aid of Ukrainian child refugees.

We have yet to decide which cause to support with this “We are hard pressed” video – hence it is unlisted on YouTube – blog viewers being one of the first to see it.

We are grateful to English Heritage, who manage Titchfield Abbey, and who allowed us to use it f.o.c,   also for arranging the site to be opened early before the public arrived.

Actually, it poured with rain all day, but there was an hour in which there was only intermittent drizzle allowing Evieanna and Joffy, our brilliant videographer and MD, to get the job done – and I trust you agree what a great job they did!

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Lean on Me (Withers) featuring the Mustard Seed Soul Band from the album Heart and Soul  recorded and produced by Ross Gill

Chloe consoles Nigerian Goal Keeper, click here for the video

Regular readers of this blog will know how much I appreciate examples of good sportsmanship (sportswomanship.) My favourite example is still that of England cricketer Andrew “Freddie Flintoff to Australian cricketer Brett Lee in the Ashes series of 2005 – see Blog August 25th “Sportsmanship” | Risen
I was also impressed with the current Aussie cricket team when, in the final Ashes game of this year’s series, they formed a guard of honour for retiring English cricketer Stuart Broad (shown in one of today’s featured videos.) This was particularly impressive as the series had been marked with controversy and also Broad is not the most popular cricketer in Australia.
However, even better was the sportsmanship of English footballer Chloe Kelly after she scored the winning penalty against Nigeria in the recent World Cup match. Please take a look at how she and two other team-mates leave their team’s celebrations to console the distraught Nigerian goalkeeper.

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Crofton School PE Department 1975- 2011

Love is the Way featuring Lucy Stimpson Maynard with Ross Gill on guitar from the album Love is the Way recorded and produced by Bob Ross.

As soon as I saw the featured video I knew it was something I wanted to share. It made me think of all the times I have stood by and watched as injustice played out in front of my eyes. I remembered when I was about seven a boy in my Infant school called Clive who wore shabby clothes and who always looked dishevelled – members of my class would say that he had “fleas” and that if anyone got near him they would catch “fleas” themselves. Needless to say he sat on his own in class, in fact I cant remember anyone ever talking to him. Oh, how I wish I had taken the risk of getting “fleas” and had shown him some care and compassion. I never said anything horrible to him, but I was guilty of watching while others did – doing nothing about it. Ok I was only 7 years old but how many other times since then have I been guilty of “looking on” when injustices have taken place?
By the way – yes there are flaws in the video – we are not told if the student expelled was part of the demonstration of injustice and would later return to the class. Or it may be that her classmates did not protest as they thought she had done something terribly wrong to which they were not privy – regardless, the message is still strong – there is too much injustice in this world that we allow, and too many Clives in this world that need to be loved.

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