{"id":260,"date":"2014-06-20T17:51:57","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T17:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/?p=260"},"modified":"2014-06-20T17:51:57","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T17:51:57","slug":"blog-june-20th-love-is-patient-love-is-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=260","title":{"rendered":"Blog June 20th Love is Patient Love is Kind"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nJames Townend playing Thomas in the 2013 stage production of Risen!<\/p>\n

“Love is Patient, Love is Kind” from CD “Love is the Way”\u00a0 featuring Lucy Stimpson on vocals, Ross Gill on guitar. Arranged and produced by John Hodgkinson<\/p>\n

My very special friend Bob Milliken, known as Rob to some and affectionately as Mr Mill to hundreds of Crofton School students had, together with his dad and Rev. Michael Christian- Edwards, been instrumental in me becoming a Christian (see blogs March 27th<\/sup> and April 3rd<\/sup>) \u00a0\u00a0Bob is a Trustee of our charity Mustard Seed Songs and six years ago was Best Man when I married Caroline (Miss Bocking to Crofton students.) Bob retired from Crofton last year and on September 20th<\/sup> we are having a party at the Fernham Hall, Fareham to celebrate his retirement together with \u00a0the 40th<\/sup> Anniversary of Crofton School. All those connected with Crofton are invited. Tickets are on sale from July 1st<\/sup> and details can be found on my Facebook page.<\/p>\n

Anyway I remember being in the school minibus for some reason and asking Bob what our second album should be called and he replied \u201cLove is the Way.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0In last week\u2019s blog I talked about one of the album\u2019s songs \u201cOut of the Depths\u201d and the week before I described how its last track \u201cGreat and Marvellous\u201d came about.\u00a0 The song featured this week is another from \u201cLove is the Way\u201d – \u201cLove is Patient, Love is Kind\u201d and it is dedicated to my good friend James Kennedy who on Saturday is marrying his beautiful bride Leanne in Romsey Abbey. I have been given the great honour of reading at their wedding ceremony from 1 Corinthians 13 which is, of course Love is patient love is kind. It does not anger it does not boast\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/em>I would like to take this opportunity to wish them every possible happiness together.<\/p>\n

My old mate John Hodgkinson \u00a0arranged, recorded and produced the song and I have to say it really is his \u201cpiece de resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time \u201cLove is the Way\u201d was recorded we were producing more and more Mustard Seed concerts (see blog May 25th<\/sup>.) In one we were raising money for two ex -Crofton students – Jez Field and Clare Townend who were both off to Kenya to work voluntarily for Tearfund.\u00a0 I mentioned this in that May 25th<\/sup> blog and also explained that James Townend, Clare\u2019s brother sung at that concert and that later I would tell you the story – well here is what happened:<\/p>\n

Ever year at Crofton Mr Mill would organise a Charities Week and one of the fund raising events was an \u201cUnplugged Karaoke.\u201d\u00a0 I was sitting in the audience next to Lucy Stimpson when James Townend came on and sang \u201c Walking in Memphis.\u201d It was fantastic and at the end Lucy and me instantly rose as one to give James a standing ovation as did the rest of the audience.<\/p>\n

When it came to putting together a Mustard Seed Concert programme to support Jez and Clare I thought it would be a great idea if James sang – after all it was his sister that we were raising money for.\u00a0 I chose a song I had made up that I thought would suit his voice \u201cYou are my Rock.\u201d\u00a0 Anyway to cut a long story short it was just not happening for James- however right at the last minute I had the idea of asking \u00a0him to \u00a0sing \u201cWalking in Memphis\u201d instead – when he did \u00a0it sounded great so I then suggested he \u00a0just sing \u201c You are my Rock\u201d in \u00a0the same way. James was reluctant as he was \u201cputting on a voice\u201d to sing \u201cMemphis\u201d and he thought that it would be dishonest if he did the same for \u201cYou are my Rock.\u201d I assured him that this was not the case and he ended up giving a great performance.<\/p>\n

James would then have been 16 then and although I stayed in touch with his family who went to Holy Rood Church I lost contact with James himself. \u00a0However I was discussing our musical \u201cRisen!\u201d with my dear friend Dr Graham Giles and the fact that we needed some singers for a forthcoming production.\u00a0 Unbeknown to me Graham had recently been chatting to James who had just seen the film version of Les Miserables and so felt inspired to get involved with a musical himself. When Graham told me this my mind went back some 12 years to when James sang \u201dWalking in Memphis\u201d and so James and me met at Holy Rood church and he sang me the part of Cleopas from Risen! which I had earmarked for him. However he told me that he had also practiced another song from Risen!- one sung by the disciple Thomas.\u00a0 I thought that I might as well hear it and when I did I was speechless – it was so emotional and powerful.\u00a0 So the part of Thomas has become James\u2019s own- he has sung it for the last two Risen! Easter Sunday performances and also sings it on our forthcoming double Risen! CD.\u00a0 The 2013 Risen production included a number of professional singers and they all thought that James was professional as well! When you hear him on the Risen! CD you will understand why.<\/p>\n

So what came after \u201cLove is the Way?\u201d Answer \u201cUplifted\u201d but more of that next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Townend playing Thomas in the 2013 stage production of Risen! “Love is Patient, Love is Kind” from CD “Love is the Way”\u00a0 featuring Lucy Stimpson on vocals, Ross Gill on guitar. Arranged and produced by John Hodgkinson My very special friend Bob Milliken, known as Rob to some and affectionately as Mr Mill to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","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\/260","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=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}