{"id":224,"date":"2014-05-15T11:10:58","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T11:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/?p=224"},"modified":"2014-05-15T15:24:11","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T15:24:11","slug":"224","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=224","title":{"rendered":"Blog May 15th Mustard Seed Songs Registered Charity No 177618 is formed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MSS\"
\nRegistered Charity No.1077618<\/span><\/p>\n

I Will Tell from album “I Look Up To The Heavens” featuring Lucy Stimpson. Recorded and produced by John Hodgkinson<\/p>\n

I left \u00a0the last blog saying\u00a0 that this week I would tell you how many copies of\u00a0 our first CD \u201c I Look Up To Heavens\u201d was sold – well a few more than the 50 my son James predicted!- approximately 3000 which is not exactly a Grammy but still not bad.\u00a0 Later songs taken from other Mustard Seed CDs were used on 80,000 mini CDs that were attached to the 40th<\/sup> Anniversary edition of \u201cEvery Day With Jesus\u201d and then distributed worldwide, however that\u2019s a future blog story!<\/p>\n

I had borrowed money to pay for the duplication of the first 1000 copies of \u201cI Look Up To The Heavens\u201d but was selling more that we needed to cover the monthly repayments. I remember having \u201cthat feeling inside\u201d that we should send Katherine Knight some money in Peru. Katherine was the daughter of Paul Knight who introduced me to the Alpha Course (see blog April 3rd) Katherine had taken time off from her studies to work voluntarily in Peru for the Christian agency, \u201c\u201cLatin Link\u201d. She was part of a young team that were helping build two projects, the first of which was an orphanage.<\/p>\n

I rang Paul in February 1999 to tell him that CD sales were going well and that I would like to send Katherine \u00a3500.00 – in fact they were not going that well – I just felt confident that we would be able to raise that amount.\u00a0 Paul was obviously delighted and agreed to ring Katherine to tell her the good news. When he made the phone call he did give her a chance to first say anything but went straight into \u201c I have some great news for you- the sales of \u201c I Look Up To the Heavens\u201d are going well enough for Ken to send you \u00a3500.00.\u201d Paul expected some sort of emotional reaction but not the flood of tears that followed.\u00a0 Katherine then explained that her team was near the end of their orphanage building project, but all of the materials they needed to complete the work had been stolen. The team were devastated and thought that they would have to abandon the project.\u00a0 \u00a0In tears they spent the night in prayer. That had been the previous night – so when Paul told his daughter that \u00a3500.00 was on its way, that was indeed a real answer to their prayers, \u00a0especially as when the money was converted to local currency it turned out to be the exact amount needed to replace the stolen materials \u00a0and so finish the project!!<\/p>\n

Sometime later I got a phone call from the father of one of Katherine\u2019s \u201cLatin Link\u201d team saying that he had heard the amazing story of how money received from our CD sales had enabled the orphanage building work to be completed. \u00a0He then went on to say that he was a Solicitor who specialised in creating charities and would I like our song writing mission to become a registered charity?\u00a0 \u201cYes please \u201d was the simple answer.\u00a0 Mustard Seed Songs was not a rocket science title – the parable from Matthew 13 seemed totally appropriate for a project that we felt from a small beginning would grow and grow. So in late 1999 Mustard Seed Songs became Registered Charity No 177618.<\/p>\n

I remember someone once saying to me that they became a Christian \u201cBecause it works.\u201d\u00a0 Reading the Bible, prayer, worship, being inspired by other people\u00a0 and attending church are all important factors in increasing one\u2019s faith but so too are \u00a0one\u2019s experiences. By building Memorials and creating Festival Days the Hebrew people helped ensure that they did not forget the blessings of God. The story of how Mustard Seed Songs became a charity is one that I can always look back on to help me strengthen my faith but there are many, many more – some of which I will mention in future blogs. But next week I want to tell you about Mustard Seed Songs\u2019 first ever Concert. \u00a0It was held to celebrate Mr Mill\u2019s dad- Mr Milliken\u2019s 90th<\/sup> birthday and was held in Drama Room 1 at Crofton School.\u00a0 There were only five of us there – Mr Milliken, Mr Mill, Mr Mill\u2019s sister Joy, Lucy Stimpson and me.\u00a0 However it was a wonderful concert which could really be called the embryo of \u00a0our musical Risen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Registered Charity No.1077618 I Will Tell from album “I Look Up To The Heavens” featuring Lucy Stimpson. Recorded and produced by John Hodgkinson I left \u00a0the last blog saying\u00a0 that this week I would tell you how many copies of\u00a0 our first CD \u201c I Look Up To Heavens\u201d was sold – well a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}