A Music and Worship Foundation Day in Tonbridge Wells
Geoff Weaver, Stuart Townend, Geraldine Latty and John Leach. Saturday Feb 19 2005.

We Catholics are recommended to find opportunities to pray together with other Christians when we can; this event gave an opportunity to do so, but also to prepare together, for which opportunities occur less frequently.   As one might expect, there were talks/input sessions on music and aspects of Liturgy, workshops and opportunities to put our togetherness into practice.

(We did have to overcome the deep initial division created by our first speaker who invited us to argue about the colour of a carefully-held apple: clearly green - how the other half of the church got it wrong escapes me!) But it was a particular pleasure to do it with an eclectic mix of music, from Anglican words to the plainsong Veni Creator Spiritus through Isaac Watts and Bernadette Farrell to music that is not yet published.

And, with a range of participants from most denominations, we were all challenged in some ways to "Sing a New Song to the Lord". My particular debut attempt at singing Gospel, particularly getting the Stomp right whilst anticipating the beat is probably best glossed over, but it was fun, and shouldn't worship sometimes be just that. Looking anew at some of the old hymns and their testimony to God's nature, both Awesome "Immortal Invisible!" and Intimate "Come down O Love Divine" and modern treatments such as "Meekness and Majesty" gave lots to think about.

I had an excellent day, and would thoroughly recommend keeping an eye on their web-site - www.mwf.org.uk - for future events; they have a programme stretching through 2006.

Joe Wilkinson, St Wilfrid's Burgess Hill.