June 2004

Dear Friends & Supporters,

Greetings from Gospel Rocky... and me! Some people think that we are one and the same but it's not true. At one school last week we overheard some children in the breakfast club talking about us as we set up our scenery in their school hall. They recognised Carl and Mary as the two characters who take part in our assemblies, but didn't recognise me. "He must be Rocky" said one child. "No" said the other, "He's too old". Wonderful to think that I can stay forever young as long as I'm inside a stripey tube! It's hard to believe it's been 6 months already since I last wrote to you. Thankyou for your prayers and financial support. Carl, Mary, me and the theatre company really appreciate your interest and include you in our prayers. If any of you would like us to pray with you about a specific issue please let us know.

The Queen's Theatre

Over Christmas & New Year, Carl, Mary, David (Uncle Albert in the Gospel Rocky Show) & I all helped out with the Queen's pantomime 'Cinderella'. Mary played the Fairy Godmother, David played the Baron, I played Buttons and Carl helped out backstage. Thousands of people including many schools saw the show during its three week run. It was a lot of fun and we got to know lots of people at the theatre. It also led to some interesting discussions about our work with Gospel Rocky.

Shows

We performed our full show at the Queen's at the end of March. This was with an almost totally new cast of children drawn from auditions held in January. After only 7 Sunday rehearsals they delivered some of the best performances ever. 14 year old Lauren also did very well moving on from playing a Rocky Kid to becoming the Kids Leader. We continue to look for venues around the UK with possibilities in Grimsby, Peterborough, and maybe the Isle of Man. We are also talking with Easter People, the Methodist conference, who hold events at Southport, Scarborough & Torquay. We have one booking at the Civic Centre in High Leigh in May next year. This is just up the road from where the Church Army will be gathering for our bi-annual conference and will be a 'show-case' for officers.

Schools

Spring term saw us continue to visit our twelve scools around Stoke-on-Trent. Our assembly looked at the subject of bullying using the Bible story of David and Goliath. As well as being helped to think about the issue, the children had great fun knocking down a 9 foot tall image of Goliath. Our current assembly was written specially for one school going through Ofsted, but is proving a hit with the others also. We take an entertaining look at one way we can all care for God's world - taking pride in our enviroment by picking up litter and recycling rubbish.

Re:act

North Staffs youth for Christ called some children's workers in Stoke-on-Trent together a few months ago for a meeting at the Queen's to imagine... imagine a great venue in a central place of the city... music and video clips playing as children aged 7-11 from around the city arrive in groups from schools and churches... a professional event which lifts up the name of Jesus through worship in lots of forms - dance, music, Bible teaching, prayer, games, discussions, various workshops where the kids can express themselves through practical means, and much more... imagine children connecting with their Creator worshipping, praying, learning, growing, being encouraged and equipped in their faith, and being mobilised to put their faith into action to reach others no matter how young that might be... Having imagined, we then set about making it happen. The first event took place at the Queen's Theatre on Sunday May 9th and got us off to a cracking start with 180 people in the audience and around 50 adults, young people and children in the team. It was an action packed 2 hour programme whose theme was 'building on the rock', and included Rocky and the Rocky Kids doing a 20 minute excerpt from our show. A second re:act is now in the pipeline. It's great for kids from smaller churches to be part of a bigger group once in a while. It's a hige encouragement for them to see just how many other children there are out there like them learning to be followers of Jesus.

One child emailed YFC leader Jayne:
'Dear Jayne, I had a fantastic time today at re:act. I liked Rocky and the puppets. I also prayed the prayer and asked Jesus to be my friend and help me to live my life his way. I look forward to the next one. I will bring some of my friends next time.
Love Kayleigh aged 9'

Events

We are so far booked to take part in the Leek Churches together day, a family fun weekend at Bilston, an event in Coventry, and possibly a day at Summer Fire week at Southport.
We have also been doing quite a few Birthday Parties on Saturday afternoons. Carl provides the music, I lead some games, Mary and some of the Rocky Kids help out, then finally Rocky turns up with the presents and a song! It's lovely to introduce Jesus as a friend who shares in the good times as well as the bad for a change! After each party we usually get another booking! And we get paid by the host to evangelise - how unusual!

100,000 - not out

That's how many sticks of rock have now been given out since we started 10 years ago! We have a vision for a Million in a Month! It would only take 30 or so individuals, groups or churches in each of the top 30 UK seaside resorts to give out 1000 sticks of rock. That's 1000 individuals / groups required. Next summer perhaps?

Picture above shows rock being given
to children at St. Philip's, Marobo, Bungoma,
Kenya - Oct '03.

R.S.V.P. - new CD!

Once a week or so I've been spending a few hours with our local church worship leader Paul Critchley in his studio, working on a dozen songs I've written over the past 20 years! The title is 'R.S.V.P.' which stands for Revised Standard Version Psalms...of course!
My Christian faith was built up on passages from the RSV Bible translation which I found easier to learn if I put them to music. I've been waiting for the right time for decades (literally) to record the songs and now have the opportunity. It just so happened that Paul went full time in Worship Ministry at the beginning of the year and could offer me some of his time.

As you know, I'm looking for financial support from friends, family and others who want to see the good news shared through Gospel Rocky. While thinking about different approaches to fund raising I kept thinking of the little boy in the Bible story who gave his picnic lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish to Jesus. We know the outcome - 5000 were fed
I heard someone preach on this once, saying 'What have you got in your hands that you can offer to the Lord?' Well, I've usually got my guitar, and it seemed obvious that I could offer my songs - they're all His words anyway!

All proceeds from the sale of this CD will go to support my work with Gospel Rocky. It will probably sell for a minimum donation of £10 - what a bargain I hear you say! We aim to have it ready for the Autumn with some sample tracks on the website - I'll let you know nearer the time. I've a sneaky feeling it could also become a multi-media presentation to tour churches.

Thank you

Thanks for taking the time to read our news. I hope you have enjoyed it and will want to keep up to date with Rocky. On behalf of everyone here at Gospel Rocky, God bless!

Yours sincerely,

Director
Gospel Rocky Theatre Company

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