Soteria Music

Imagine for a moment that I am your headmaster. You are in my school along with several of your friends. My school is the best in the country; the best possible grades are achieved here. Everyone wants to go to this place.

In my school we have “school rules”. Things like how you should dress, how you should behave, etc are all included in the rule book. Where my school is different from most others is that should you break a rule I have only one punishment, and it is the same punishment that is applied to all the rules no matter how slight. No matter whither you took someone’s pencil or kicked them over in the playground, the punishment is the same. The punishment is immediate expulsion from the school.

Now one day you fall foul of a school rule. You are summoned to my study to account for your actions. While you may be upset, remorseful, possibly even repentant the rules still stand and your punishment is to be immediately expelled from the school. This tarnishes your record, hurts your chances of finding another school to learn in and cripples your prospects of ever finding work in the future.

Knowing that was ahead of you, knowing that the rules were so well written that you stood no hope of finding a loophole to get you off the hook, how would you feel now? I’m sure the age old thought of “but I’ll never do it again” comes to mind.

Now this interesting situation develops:

At this school is your best friend. An incredibly popular boy who achieved the best grades ever, won the most trophies at sports day; in short an all-round good guy. Someone you trusted with your very life. Someone of whom you shared your time, your secrets, your games. And it transpires that this boy is also your headmaster’s son.

Having got wind of the trouble you have landed yourself in, this friend of yours charges over to my study to plead on your behalf. He offers the most amazing thing; he insists that he be expelled in your place. So that you could continue your studies and you could go on in life your best friend and my son steps down from the great position he had in the place top free you from your punishment, knowing that it would mean the ending of his perfect and untarnished record.

The deed is done. Your friend leaves the school and I tell you that the rules have been fulfilled, you can now return to your class.

How would you now feel? How would you understand the love from your friend? Can you imagine the pain of the headmaster to allow his son to go through that? Having been granted a second chance to study at the school would you repeat that mistake, or indeed break any others?

However I’m pleased to tell you that this is not the end of the story for I found your friend, my son, later on and for the next few years I tutored him myself. He took his exams, passed, and is now appointed deputy-head of the entire school. You stayed best-friends with him for the rest of your lives.

That concludes my gospel illustration. In pictorial language here I have described for you the actions of the Lord Jesus Christ who being in His very nature God He did not feel equality with God-the-Father something to be grasped, but instead He made himself nothing, took the form of a servant and suffered the most humbling and humiliating death imaginable, crucifixion on a wood cross, to pay off the punishment for the wrong-doing of all of us.

Usually the sign that you are taking a solemn promise, or the position of your hand when suffering heartbreak. Yesterday I saw a curious act where the singer sung most of her set with her hand placed over her heart. Apparently this was not for any great profound reason however, but rather that her dress was not staying together correctly and needed therefore to be held together.

Diana Vickers sung a fantastic 45 minute set from the main stage, and backed by a standard four-piece rock band. With a good mix of soft songs and some heavier numbers, she produced a great, if a tad short, mini-concert. Some songs produced a feeling of quiet reflection, while others induced merely a sense of a good-time party.

Diana stunning voice was easily the stand-out best part of this act, although the musicians backing her were also some of the best I’ve heard on a concert stage for a good long while. The set felt well practiced and organised, emphasised every now and again by her dance movement falling exactly in sync with the drummer and bass player.

For the topper to this fine concert, toward the latter part of her stint Diana brought out “Tommy”. Apparently part of her original act from the TV, Tommy-the-Trumpet was played by Diana to make a brilliant little feature on one song. Also proving her talent was not limited to singing alone.

The only area where Diana still lacked in my opinion was her relating to the audience. For instance filling the background to a song rather than just mentioning that it has one, and even mentioning who is playing with her on stage. Anyway for whatever lack of showmanship Diana has yet to learn her on-stage performance, in particular her amazing vocals, more than made up for it. Altogether a very enjoyable set, at least 8 out of 10.

Diana was not the only musician to be playing at the Eden Project yesterday though; in the Med Biome were a number of musicians playing away from 12pm onwards. One of the musicians of worthy note was the pianist Sophie Stokes. Although we didn’t make it there for long before her set ended we did hear a few numbers of gentle ballads of merely piano and vocals.

This was a pleasant and calming act to have in the middle of quite a hot day in the Clay Countryside of North Cornwall. Similar to the performance of James Saldivar in many ways, similar in piano playing style for example. However her voice is drastically different; this particular performance had the feeling like she was holding something back in her voice and that she could do a little more to further enhance the clarity of her otherwise excellent and extremely pleasant vocals. She also seemed to be going down with quite a bad attack of nerves, but full marks to her for carrying on with the set anyway.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same sort of remarks about the main headline act…Mika’s session, although included some remarkably good pieces and riffs from the guitar and piano players, was in my opinion unfortunately disappointing. If Mika has talent as a musician and singer they were unfortunately lost in a miry sea of over-done tacky showmanship.

In addition to this he would frequently come across as not just disrespectful of the audience but also rather arrogant and bossy. There was also one occasion of seeming faking the playing of the piano and letting the keyboard player do the actual note pushing behind him.

For most of the time he would jig around in a gangling off-beat dance, while attempting to sing a lyric. However this became so distracting that the whole impact of the song was lost.

So curiously we had two acts on the main stage that were actually opposites of each other; the first which had good songs and music but lacked in showmanship, and the other which had so much show that you couldn’t find the music for looking.

Out of everything I saw there by far the most balanced act was Sophie Stokes. She was both pleasant to listen to and unobtrusive. Were I to spend my hard-earned money on listen to a musician I would have to choose both Sophie and Diane over Mika. It’s a shame that this international headline act did not follow his warm-up’s example and sing more honestly with his hand on his heart, as a result he was completely out-classed.

Jon Richards
Exec Producer
Soteria:WMD

For the first time I really felt old last Saturday. Everywhere I looked I saw cards with “30” written on them (except one with said “29 and a bit”). So that is it. I’ve officially finished the youth part of my life, my twenties are over.

I remember thinking 10 years ago that I didn’t want my teens to end because so much had happened by being restored back unto God and receiving a task from Him to lead worship. I didn’t know what could possibly left for the next decade that would match those excitement levels. I must learn to stop underestimating what God can do.

Here’s what happened…

In the last decade I’ve graduated university and become an IT professional, I’ve now worked in the IT industry for nine years this August along side John Chambers and now also Liane Holt along with the rest of the company and crew of Truro School.

I’ve had the blessing of playing in several gigs around the county, toured with one of the best Christian speakers of our time, lead bands, lead congregational worship services, recorded albums, written over 60 songs, and had published writing. I’ve had the privilege of working with some great musicians and technical crew in this as well; (this list is in no particular order):
• Phil Gray,
• Alex Parry,
• Ken Paterson,
• Andy Bryant,
• Rose Grigg,
• Mike Thomas,
• Eunice Thomas,
• Craig Shear,
• Duncan Odgers,
• James Saldivar,
• Dom Richards,
• Kate Bell,
• Jane Gray,
• Julie Hamblin,
• Nick Hamblin,
• Barbara Bray,
• Roger Bellchamber,
• Hannah Bellchamber
• David Dexter
• Sam Nailer
• Alun Densham
• Pauline Fox
• John Richards
• Leone Bodman
• Mike Saldivar
• Rodney Orr
• Kitty Hill
• Sarah Thompson
• Sandra Richards
• Ann Chapple
• Brian Edgeler
• Derek Bartlett
• Tim Bodman
• Darren Osborne
• Helen Allwright
• Barbara Baskyfield
• John-Paul Anastasiadis
• Tracey Sleeman
• Sharron Lee
• Leonie Bodman
• Eddie Fletecher
• Marc Stephens
• Jenna Hamblin
• Kath Bellchamber
• And many more besides (apologies for missing out anyone)

The preachers and pastors that have supported and encouraged me along:
• Andrew Chapple
• Colin Salter
• John  Hills
• Phil Misslebrooke
• Winston Thomas
• David Redman
• Peter Ham
• Tim Bodman

And of course Rob Allwright and Greg Messam from Soteria Mag.

This last decade has not been with out some exciting and dangerous times too. With one or two death threats, car chases, and one nasty altercation with a milk tanker, as well as a host of other things too long to remember.

And now the adventure continues…into the next age which God willing will include marrying the girl I love, further leading congregations of believers deeper into worship, training the next generation of Christian musicians, and most of all exalting, glorifying and giving all thanks and praise the my Lord and Saviour for not only saving my life (repeatedly) but also granting me this wonderful exciting rollercoaster life on earth, and promising me eternal life in heaven.

So this time I’m looking forward to what the next 10 years with Jesus may bring. I’m excited about what He may do, and a little afraid of what He is capable of.

Certainly we’ve started this new time well by the family going out for dinner on Saturday night, nice and low-key.

So as for the next 10 years…bring it on!

God bless you all

Jon Richards

Splendid news this week folks. This week for the first time ever I and my brother became uncles and my parents became grandparents! All this because baby Charlotte was born on the 1st June to my sister Tamsin and her husband Nick.

Congratulations to you both. I’ll look forward to meeting her when you next visit the county.