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

Yesterday was “Murdoch Day” in Redruth. This is the town’s festival, celebrating the inventor of gas lighting William Murdoch. This celebration involves a market through the main street, a children’s parade following behind the town band.

From my point of view Redruth Baptist has always been involved doing something as either a very obvious witness or sometimes a lot more subtle. This year we did both simultaneously, not only did we have our resident evangelists out giving out cards and engaging people in conversation, but we also did an exhibition of the Bible stories in cartoon form, cake sale, tea room, free barbecue and a live band.

Preparing for this day was a very busy week. With only 6 days to put together a band, organise some music to play and build a P.A. system when almost everyone I know who plays an appropriate instrument was already busy. Still Marc Stephens, Eddie Fletcher and I got busy figuring it all out. Eventually we had Julie on piano, Jane on flute, John and Leonie taking turns on drums, Eddie and Jenna on vocals (also later joined by Carina for the second session), of course Phil on P.A., and Marc and myself on guitars. At the last minute Roger also joined in on conga drums.

On the day we gathered early in the morning and after a quick prayer we got busy practicing and building the P.A. outside on the forecourt. From that point after the parade had gone past the church we began playing songs and inviting people to the free BBQ. From my point of view there was only one song that I was struggling with mostly just due to unfamiliarity with the piece. This was a song by Tim Hughes called “Happy Day”, otherwise known as “The Greatest Day in History”. For me and my track record of who I’ve played for this certainly was.

Before “Murdoch Day” the largest gathering I’ve played for is possibly around 150 to 200 people. Yesterday we played the music of God to the people of Redruth as they passed. We played to easily the largest number of people that I’ve ever played to, and it although it was a lot of work to get organised we all felt really grateful to our God for such a great opportunity to glorify Him in our town. And it was good fun too!

My thanks to everyone involved who helped make it happen. For all the fun, exciting and fantastic things that God has lead the likes of Phil and myself through, this certainly was the best one yet; the greatest day in S:WMD history.

Well practice for today’s Church service starts in half an hour so I better sign off and get down there.

Have a good Sunday everyone

Jon Richards

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.

Last night Soteria’s nineteenth album launched onto the Soteria music website. Also now I have a few hand-made samples of the disc made up, and ready to take to the service tomorrow night where our newest recording artist, James Saldivar will play a track from the album as part of the worship service. With all this and the fall our from the UK general election happening tonight feels like a calm moment in the middle of a storm; or rather two storms.

For both situations I’m praying and trusting in God. I pray that the right man will be placed in authority over this island nation and that he will seek God for true wisdom to govern. I also pray that James’ music will be of blessing to many people.

During the post-production phase I tried the unmastered arrangements out on a few guinea pigs all of whom were quite impressed with James’ ability and style. A few commented however that this album has the potential to be the best one that Phil Gray and I have ever put together!

While I may hope that these statements would be true, boy is it a lot of pressure! At the same time I thank God for this project; I can’t help but wonder what He has in store for us to do next? Each project has been bigger and more exciting than the last so far, so what is coming up next I wonder?

I’ll post to this blog again after the service tomorrow to let you all know how it went. Until then, enjoy the free downloads and may God bless you with the new album.

57 Free mp3 downloads and counting!

God bless

Jon Richards
Exec Producer
Soteria:Worship Music Division

This is hardly going to be the most fantastic rant on this blog, but I thought I’d give my new blackberry phone a good try out.

After fiddlling around with blackberry appworld, I found the wordpress app. Just in case you didn’t know this blog is powered by wordpress!

So after installing the app and connecting to the soteria music blog I thought it would be worth having a go at writing something on it from the phone.

So hopefully this has worked and you can read this blog entry.

Some new sermons have just now been uploaded to redruthbaptist.org.uk. (Thought I better add something of worth)

God bless you all

Jon Richards
Exec Producer
Soteria:Worship Music Division

I had a joke book a few years ago and on one page it had a list of the most annoying things you can say to wind people up. One suggestion it made was that you could tack “in accordance with the prophesy!” to the end of every sentence you say that day. For some reason that one of the list has always stuck in my mind.

A few years ago, while touring the local Churches of Cornwall, I met a pastor from Uganda. His name was Hilary and he told me that not only would I be a Christian musician but that I would go “from North to South and East to West leading worshippers and preaching the message. And it would be known that there is a young man still proclaiming the Gospel of Christ in this country.”

It has always puzzled me to know if this prophesy would turn out to be true or not. Sure God has guided me to learn to play a few instruments, and He’s instructed me to help lead people in their worship of him, and yes I’ve written some songs and produced CDs that have been gratefully received in many countries. So in part at least the prophesy was fulfilled within a few years.

The bit I really didn’t know about was the word “preaching” that Hilary had laced into his message to me. Now while I would hope that a respected Christian pastor was listening to God and accurately conveying His message, preaching was never something I felt particularly called to, so I’ve been puzzled ever since as to whether or not it would ever come to pass.

Well it now looks like that half of the prophesy may be about to full-fill itself; the other day I was asked to speak a short gospel message at the fortnightly service that is held in one of the local care-homes. The upshot of this is that this coming Sunday night I’m lead the service at Redruth Baptist with Andrew Chapple preaching, the following Sunday I’ll be speaking at the care home, the week after that I’ll be leading the evening service again with Ken Polkinghorne! Busy busy busy…

I am of course grateful to my God and Saviour for all opportunities to praise and glorify Him. I’m still a bit nervous though!

God bless you all

Jon Richards
Exec Producer
Soteria:Worship Music Division

Has there ever been a moment in your life when you are simply over-awed by the wonderment of God’s creation? Have you been amazed at a time when He’s kept you from harm? Have you been stunned into silence at something so small that He’s done that was only for you to notice? I have.

I’ve been trusting in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ since I was a child and He has kept me safe through many adventures; protected me in a big car crash, defended me when people were threatening me with death, and given me insight enough to be able to help people when they need it are just some of the things He’s done for me. If I were to list all the things He’s done it would be a very long list, and if it’s this long now I wonder how long it would be by the time I reached retirement age?

You’d think there might come a time when the miracles of God would cease to be amazing but I can tell you they don’t!

That brings me around to the main subject of this blog entry; the development of S:WMD. Just like WhiteLight before it, S:WMD is growing at a rate that is totally outside my control:

When Alex Parry and I first form the guitar duo that form the basis of WhiteLight we said that we wouldn’t push to get gigs or more personnel, but we would faithfully meet every week practice and pray and leave the rest to God. For the next two and a half years with the additions of Ken Paterson and <a href=”http://www.soteriamusic.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=74:phil-gray-bio-page&amp;catid=36:artist-bios&amp;Itemid=54” target=”_blank”>Phil Gray</a> we played all over the county and recorded some (exceptionally rough sounding) CDs that have blessed people all over the world. Given the yearly-20s male egos involved here, it amazes me that we were able to obediently do anything let alone make a sound that actually blessed people. (Just by way of interest I still have the infamous intro to Alex’s song “God Reigns” as my mobile ringtone!)

WhiteLight was very much a blessing from God to us all too, not something we created. Now Phil and I are charged with running Soteria Music, and the development of that is going no differently. We thought 2009 was going to be a quiet year and then in the last few months we end up making two albums once! Then <a href=”http://www.soteriamusic.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=58:james-saldivars-bio-page&amp;catid=36:artist-bios&amp;Itemid=54” target=”_blank”>James’s</a> album has come along, and last night I got my first reading of some songs that some of the kids from the <a href=”http://www.redruthbaptist.org.uk” target=”_blank”>Church</a> have written. To my surprise these lyrics weren’t half-bad, a little rough and only scribbled onto some A4 paper, but just as the WhiteLight days the kernel of some great songs were there on those pages. So I asked them to tidy them up (preferably type them into the computer), and develop the ones that need developing. Of course we’ll be there to help them should they need it.

I wondered what God might give us to do next. S:WMD is quickly gaining the reputation of making music in rather bizarre ways, from the most expensive grand piano in Cornwall to the dark caverns of Poldark Mine, from folk-guitar music to jazz-piano that if you closed your eyes you could almost believe you were back in an American bar in the 20s! So what will the next project be I wonder; might it be a children’s written album, or might God lead us to another bizarre location?

When Ronan Keating sang about life being a rollercoaster he really kidding. If life is the fairground coaster at Blackpool, then a God-centred Christian life is Alton Towers! You are really not in control and you can be both scared and amazed all at the same time.

Thank you my Lord Jesus for it all.

So as we say in Cornwall: “Dyw genes, onen hag oll!” (God be with you, one and all!)

<a href=”http://www.soteriamusic.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=60:jon-richardss-bio-page&amp;catid=36:artist-bios&amp;Itemid=54” target=”_blank”>Jon Richards
</a>Exec Producer
<a href=”http://www.soteriamusic.co.uk” target=”_blank”>Soteria:WMD</a>

As many of you know one of the roles I carry within the Church is to sometimes lead the congregation in worship. My usual style of doing that is to sing and play guitar along with the rest of the Church’s band. Nothing unusual there you say, we in my Church that actually is unusual as at the present time none of the others play the guitar. Some play piano, indeed one even plays a trumpet but they don’t tend to play while leading at the same time.

Our Church instead divides the usual understanding of the worship leader role into two separate parts, the worship leader and the lead musician (usually on the piano). The lead musician will hardly say a word and simply lead the other musicians under the guidance of the worship leader. The worship leader would stand in the middle-platform and guide the service by only talking and during any given song would make signals to the music team a few feet away.

This format works well for most of the worship leaders, however as my background is from small-group worship times and band leadership I’ve always felt more comfortable being both the worship leader and lead musician all at once. Indeed this style is not uncommon, around a lot of the charismatic Churches this is the preferred format. Well last night for me all that changed. I had to step out of the position I felt comfortable in; away from the familiar, and with no direct influence over the music element of the service, and I simply had to trust in the abilities and giftings of the team.

All this happened because of one rather silly mistake made by me two days previously. I thought I could accurately drill a piece of wood with a Black’n’Decker left-handed. The result was that I really couldn’t, the drill slipped and within half a second had started to make a mess of my right hand. Fortunately the wound was not too deep, but as it was right on the fold of my hand I found that doing a pincer grip (like you’d do to hold a guitar plectrum) was now impossible.

So like it or not I simply could not play my guitar. So instead I had a mic on my jacket lapel instead of in a mic stand, I stood at the lectern rather than a music stand and left the playing of the music to Jane, John, Roger and Eddie. Symbolically I found this scary as I had nothing to ‘hide’ behind and simply and really had to trust in God.

The result was fantastic! During one song people began to move around the room and shaking-hands and hugging. The following song was sung enthusiastically. Over-all between the time of worship and the powerful message people certainly went home feeling blessed and having met with the Lord God in a very real way.

My conclusion I drew from exceptionally step learning curve last night was that God really is supreme. I’ve said over and over that worship times are not conjured up by the worship leader but are only brought about by the interaction between the human heart and the Holy Spirit. So with me very much trusting in God and not relying on my own abilities and the people coming with open and receptive hearts a time of great blessing was had by all.

Thanks be to God

Jon Richards