40th Anniversary Edition of “Every Day With Jesus” with Mustard Seed Songs Mini CD attached
Waverley Abbey House HQ of CWR Publishers of Selwyn Hughes’ “Every Day With Jesus”
“Lord I Come to Bathe in Your Glory” from album “Love is the Way” featuring Lucy Stimpson – inspired by a devotion from Selwyn Hughes in “Every Day With Jesus”
When taking part in the Alpha course I had started to read Selwyn Hughes’s daily devotions -“Every Day With Jesus” (EDWJ) published by CWR (Crusade for World Revival.) Some of the songs I was writing were inspired by Selwyn’s words, for example “Jesus is the Alphabet” and “In Times of Trouble” from our first album “I Look Up To The Heavens.” “Lord I Come to Bathe in Your Glory,” “Glorious is His Humility” and “How Can I Love You More?” (see blog June 12th) from “Love is the Way,” our second album and from our third “Uplifted” “ We Can’t Set The World on Fire. “
I had become a Partner (supporter) of CWR and on one visit to their HQ, the beautiful Waverley Abbey House in Farnham, (see pic) I visited their shop to find only a limited number of CDs on sale. Mick Brooks, the CWR Chief Executive explained that the shop was run by a franchise but soon CWR would be running it themselves. I left Waverley with the idea that I would send them some Mustard Seed CDs in the hope that they would be interested in selling them in their shop.
I did this and then waited and waited. I decided it was another rejection just like all the pop songs I had written previously. However after a month or two I decided to give CWR a ring and when I did I was told “Have you not received our letter? We have invited you to Waverley to discuss how we can use your songs – to be honest when we read you are a PE teacher with no musical experience we were not expecting much but when we heard the songs we were amazed.”
So off I went to Waverley to have a meeting with Mick Brooks and Mike Ashford, the Head of Marketing. Mick told me that they were considering giving one of our CDs away to every new subscriber to EDWJ. I asked how many this might be and was told about 500 – I was overjoyed; although our three CDs were selling well it was hard work doing it all by word of mouth. Then Mike Ashcroft interjected to say that the marketing department had just had a meeting in which they floated the idea of making a mini CD of Mustard Seed songs and attaching them to every copy of the 40th Anniversary edition of EDWJ. Again I asked how many this might be and nearly fell off my chair when the reply was 80, 000 – distributed world- wide!!
The song I have chosen to feature this week is one that Selwyn inspired in the year 2000, when writing his devotional about the Book of Revelation. He explains that the image of Christ in Revelation 1: 12-16 is the one that he always holds before him when he prays
And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man,] dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash round his chest. 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
The song is “Lord I Come to Bathe in Your Glory” – again featuring the beautiful voice of Lucy Stimpson.
Did the support from CWR finish there? Oh no – next blog I will tell you what they did next