Wellspring Church Band
'Revive'

The Revive Band, 
grew out of the 
Making it Happen initiative at Wellspring.  

We had just finished a Lay Witness Weekend, and as part of this weekend we had identified a long list of areas in the Church that we felt, as a whole Church body, needed improvement. The Making it Happen Team was set up by Phil Stirk, and each member of this team was assigned an area to look at. One of the jobs I was given was to introduce new songs.

I started to gather a small group of musicians together.  Everyone in the group had to be committed to hard practice and have a real heart for worship. I knew that the group also had to be strong vocally, as it is hard to introduce new songs if no one is leading the singing. I had recruited Marie Clare Tyrrell, Heather Sparey and Ellis Stirk as vocalists, and Phil Stirk on the drums. I provided keyboard and vocals.

So we started practising, with the weekly sessions lasting about two and a half hours.  We also started listening to loads of new music during the week – lots of Hillsong, Songs of Fellowship and Spring Harvest – with the goal of expanding our repertoire.

Once we had built our repertoire and confidence, we volunteered to help lead worship on a Sunday morning, working with preachers who were open to allowing us to work with them in choosing appropriate music. As the months progressed, we realised that playing for the morning service wasn't really working out and we needed to try something else. This coincided with the decision to have joint evening services in Congleton. This meant that Wellspring Church was available for the 1st Sunday evening of the month. With this information in mind, we started to bounce ideas off each other about what we could do, and from this Revive was born.

The Revive Service gave us the opportunity to create worship sets and lead the congregation in a new style of worship for Wellspring: a more intimate, personal worship. 

Now we have an output that really fits into our core remit.  We maintain a weekly practice, continually updating our repertoire of songs. 

We are always on the lookout for new band members, particularly guitarists and bassists, as long as they are happy to commit to a weekly practice and have a heart for worship.

Richard Sparey