Obviously, I will do everything I can to minimise the disruption and ensure as seamless a service as possible, but it looks as though it will be nigh on impossible to accomplish the move without the site being offline for a little while (possibly even a few days). The plan is to move one site at a time, so when this site goes down theREIGN’s site will still be available and once this is back then theREIGN’s site will be moved, and so on.

Please accept my apologies in advance for any inconvenience … I will, of course, post more once I know exactly when the outage will take place.

Every blessing,
David

Preparations for RE3: Though We Are Many have gone well so far, and the band are in good shape to kick off the Autumn season, which includes three events in the space of 6 days starting on Monday 19 October, so your prayers would be greatly valued for our stamina, fingers and voices as well as for the churches where these events will be held.

Likewise, I would value your prayers for my home church, St Barnabas. After a year long interregnum, 8 October sees the institution of our new minister, Francis Scott, who has a great interest in music (as well as a highly musical family). Please pray that his introduction into the life of the church and the community goes smoothly and that the Lord blesses him and his family in the new job/home/community.

Finally, I am still suffering a measure of writers block … particularly where lyrics are concerned. At the last count I have at least half a dozen songs at various stages of development which I just cannot move forward with for whatever reason. Please pray that this blockage is lifted so that my ministry in this area can continue to grow and glorify the Lord.

That is about it for now. As always, your feedback is welcomed on the songs and anything else you fancy, and if you get the chance to attend one of our Rock Eucharist events over the next six weeks, I would love to see you there.

Every blessing,
David

Tomorrow (October 25th) theREIGN are leading worship for the Marfleet Mission Team’s commissioning service at St Hilda’s Church, Greatfield. It is a great privilege to be asked to take part in this service, and the team itself is an exciting development in what is a very poor and spiritually barren part of the City.

The band have also been invited to lead the music for the Christmas Service at Archbishop Sentamu Academy (formerly Archbishop Thurstan School) in East Hull.

Finally (for now), Holy Trinity, Barrow on Humber, have asked us back again for the weekend of 7 and 8 February 2009 … this time for a Saturday evening concert, followed on Sunday evening by Rock Eucharist version 1.0. The two events we have held at that church in 2008 have been brilliant and spiritually uplifting for both the band and the church(es), and we are already looking forward to another return visit.

Outside the band, following a successful gig at Manna last weekend, Kat and I are awaiting a return invitation to play at another of their music evenings in 2009 … otherwise known as another opportunity for Kat to put on her high heels and sing some sleazy jazz numbers. Or something.

We have also been invited to lead worship for St Barnabas Church’s youth leaders “Pudding and Praise” night on 28 November, at which there will definitely be Christmas pudding and no sleazy jazz.

It is great to be busy, but it is also pressurised, particularly with day jobs and family commitments to also fit in, so we (and theREIGN) would greatly value your prayers over the next few months.

Every blessing,
David

The new page templates have helped to give the content pages a much clearer, more consistent and more appealing look than I was able to achieve before, and WordPress can be made to act much more like a full blown Content Management System than a simply blog platform.

The one quirk is that the main sidebar from the old theme is only available via the Blog pages, so you will need to go there to look at the Forthcoming Events list (although the full calendar is always available above), the Chart of most downloaded songs, the links to other sites and the search function. I am told that this can be changed with a few tweaks to the php files, so it may well be appearing on other pages shortly.

There are still a couple of obvious “Work In Progress” markers dotted around and these will be dealt with in coming days but, in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the revamped site and find what you need, but please let me know if you have any problems, find any broken links, or have any suggestions or requests.

Oh … and there are a couple of new songs coming soon, too!

Every blessing,
David

The trailblazers have now released both a book and DVD covering, in extraordinary detail, their amazing journey. The film was made by acclaimed international documentary film-maker Claudio Von Planta (the third motorbike on the Charley Boorman/Ewan MacGregor TV series “Long Way Round” and “Long Way Down”), whilst the book includes hundreds of incredible photos and personal thoughts from those on the journey.

I don’t make it a habit to plug stuff on the site here, but this is was just an amazing project, and an inspirational example of how ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things and make a real difference in the lives of others around the world.

I really do urge you to check out both the book and DVD because you never know where that inspiration might lead you.

Every blessing,
David Cooper