Wellspring began in 1984 as a collaboration of
friends, mainly from the professional classical music world, who were called to
work together to bring fresh vision to worship. Many of those involved in the
group are professional musicians playing regularly with well known orchestras
and ensembles around the UK and in Europe including the English Chamber
Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Manchester
Camerata, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Northern Chamber Orchestra – to name but a
few!
During the first years of its ministry, Wellspring were involved in many teaching weekends and days on worship throughout the UK. Since then the ministry has expanded and is now involved in many worship events, classical and jazz concerts. Amongst recent engagements the group has led worship for large conferences run by Spring Harvest, Anglican Renewal Ministries and others, and has made several trips abroad. We have visited Pakistan, Germany, The USA, France, Switzerland, China, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Jersey, Hungary and Singapore as well as participating in a national tour celebrating TEAR Fund's 25th anniversary. We led worship for the National Prayer Breakfast for MP's and their friends, as well as leading worship and teaching at a number of teaching and intercession conferences throughout the UK. The group has performed over 100 times live on BBC radio and television including the 'Daily Service' on BBC Radio 4 and 'Songs of Praise' on BBC 1.
God has called us to teach what He had given to us
as a group - and also to model worship that is acceptable to a wide
cross-section of the church. Our desire has been to broaden people's
understanding of worship so that it isn't just a narrow spectrum of likes and
dislikes. We have sought to help people to see the value of different forms of
music in worship - from contemporary choruses to traditional hymns, classical
music, jazz, improvised music - and linking prayer and worship together. God has
given us the opportunity and privilege to minister in many parts of the church,
from charismatic house-churches through to formal Cathedrals, including those
which have closed to contemporary worship or had rejected anything more than 10
years old!
Although the outworking of our ministry has changed over the years the group has been together, our basic calling has remained the same. Using the gifts that God has given us, we've been able to be bridge-builders between those of different churchmanship (e.g. charismatic, evangelical, high church etc.) - and between the different generations in the church. We also want to release gifts that are often left unused in many churches: too often instrumentalists and singers sit in church with no outlet for their God-given skills.
One of God's main giftings to the group has been the use of the instruments in ministry situations. Improvising with our instruments has become a hallmark, not only within the context of worship - but also in situations where prayer or ministry is being offered. We have found that as we offer our instruments to the Lord, he can speak very deeply to people and ministers His love, healing, hope, faith etc. in ways that words would be unable to do.
Wellspring have made a number of recordings - which can be ordered from our secure credit/debit card order page using PayPal. Our most recent recording 'Sanctuary' is a beautiful instrumental album, similar in style to 'Benediction'. Our previous recordings include 'Christmas Scenes' (released in 2005), 'Mysteries', (released in 2004), and 'Seasons' featuring solo singer Sally Thornton, (released in 2003). In 2002 we released an instrumental album entitled 'Benediction' - another beautiful instrumental album featuring improvisations around well known spiritual songs. Other recordings include 'Lord of the Ages' (a popular worship recording with a 'classical touch'), an album of Jazz standards by Wellspring jazz, 'The Best is Yet to Come' (worship recording), and also a classical recording entitled 'Ancient paths'. Another recording, 'Elegy', is a mixture of beautiful classical music alongside some of the favourite tracks from earlier albums. Our recordings have been broadcast by BBC Radio 2 and GMR, Classic FM, UCB and by London Premier Radio. See our recordings page for further details of our recordings.
Wellspring also produce a quarterly prayer letter. Please go to our contact page to let us know if you'd like to receive this regularly via email.
Wellspring is also a registered charity - number 1105245. The trustees are Peter Adams and Mike Thornton.
Information
about our recordings
If you have further enquiries,
please use our contact
page
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