Author: Chris Jefferies

I live in the west of England, worked in IT, and previously in biological science.

Sarah Reynolds

Sarah has focussed on collaborating with producers, writing, tracking and editing vocals, and releasing some songs

Sarah Reynolds is a talented song writer, composer and music producer who also has considerable ability as a singer. Her most recent release is ‘Covers Me’; she wrote the lyrics, composed the music, and sings the track too.

I was impressed when I first heard this song and liked it more and more on listening again – see what you think…

This particular song fits right into the genre of Christian music, but Sarah’s musical tastes are far more wide ranging than that. She’d like to develop her work in a variety of ways, writing music for TV and film for example; she has abilities and skills in recording, mixing, and production as well. That adds up to an unusual and valuable breadth in understanding and communication across the whole spectrum of roles in the music business.

Bio in a nutshell

Sarah was brought up in the Cotswolds in a house that was full of music. She learned piano and flute during her school years, at ten she was performing the lead role of Joseph in the school production of ‘The Techicolour Dreamcoat’, and she has a Music A level. Sarah achieved Grade 8 on the piano and then began improvising, taking a keen interest in the music of Alicia Keys’ early albums. She taught herself guitar while at university.

Sarah began writing songs as a teenager, and played in a songwriting competition at ‘The Cavern’ – Yes, that Cavern! She also began working with sound engineers, producers and other musicians, recording some of her songs, performing gigs around London, and learning more about production, recording, sound engineering and mixing.

Going forward

Recently, Sarah has focussed on collaborating with producers, writing, tracking and editing vocals, and releasing some songs. She works with others online a good deal, quite an advantage in these days of Covid-19. She’s always looking for talented writers, producers and artists to co-operate with, and to learn from. Here are some examples of her work with others:

In the future, I hope Sarah finds more great people to work with – I know she has significant talent and wide experience and won’t disappoint!

You can follow Sarah online:


Another way – write.as

The focus moves from advertising, costly payments and central control to an absence of these things

There’s more than one way of doing most things, and write.as is an alternative way of writing stuff online. Whether you want to create a blog, a story, or just private notes, write.as is well worth a look.

It’s part of a long standing move by some web users away from the commercial world of Google, Facebook, Twitter and so on, towards a very different model of which Wikipedia is the best known example. The focus moves from advertising, costly payments and central control to an absence of these things.

If you like freedom, privacy and simplicity, you’ll find all three at write.as . I suggest you take a quick look around, you can begin with a simple page I put together in less than five minutes – write.as/chrisjj

Marble Machine – Wow!

What an amazing device

I came across this marble machine today, somebody posted the link to Mastodon, I watched it once, and absolutely had to write about it here. What an amazing device. It does lose its marbles – well, a few of them anyway towards the end.

The astonishing Marble Machine

What is Mastodon, I hear you cry? It’s sort of a bit like Twitter, but is an open, free and distributed system. Wikipedia, the fount of (almost) all knowledge knows what it is. (Wikipedia even knows about the Marble Machine.)

Eradicating coronavirus

By determined and sustained action the virus can be confined and eliminated

There’s lots of good advice out there about combatting the Covid-19 disease as it continues to ramp up around the world. Official figures at the time of writing are ten million infected and half a million dead; the true figures are almost certainly far higher than that. But those numbers are rising daily – who knows where we’ll be this time next year.

A virtual model of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (image copyright Wikimedia)

There have been successes in eliminating human diseases in the past, smallpox in 1977, and polio (close to extinction but still persisting at low levels in Afghanistan and Pakistan). In both cases, progress was achieved by use of vaccines that provide lifetime immunity.

Is this possible for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19? The simple answer is that we don’t know; many vaccine candidates are being developed, but it will be some time before we find out how effective they will be, nor do we yet know how long immunity might last.

A vaccine would help, but we do have some other ways to attempt eradication. Countries like New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam might give us a clue. By determined and sustained action the virus can be confined and eliminated so that only importing it from an external source can bring it back; we have seen this happen several times.

So here’s a strategy that is worth considering

  1. Use restrictions on movement and contact to reduce the size of the infection in a defined area. This has been done many times already in areas from whole nations to small districts. We know it works.
  2. Test and trace while cautiously lifting restrictions, re-imposing them quickly wherever there is a local resurgence.
  3. Once the defined area is free of virus, allow life to return to normal except for travel into the area. Use strict quarantine measures to contain new imports.
  4. When two or more adjacent areas achieve step 3, their common borders can be opened.

Such a strategy has the potential to rid larger and larger parts of the globe of Covid. Would it be easy to do? No, it would be hard work, costly and it would demand constant vigilence as well as coordination by a body like the World Health Organisation. And we won’t know if its possible unless we make the attempt. Would it be worth it? Almost certainly if we can get something like this agreed internationally and adequately funded. Less wealthy nations with limited health care resources would need monetary and practical help along the way. The economic costs of eradication would be very large, but the ongoing annual costs of living with Covid-19 will be larger still.

Maybe it’s too early to start a Covid-19 eradication programme, but it’s certainly time to begin conversations about one.

Is church unbalanced?

If we learn to cooperate with one another … we will catch a view of [Jesus’] nature and so will the world around us

Part 6 of a series – What are we doing?

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So – Is church unbalanced? What a question! And what do I mean by unbalanced, anyway?

A rose with three petals missing is barely a rose at all

Let’s put it it like this. I’ve been talking most of my life about five things that seem to me to be of the utmost importance. I’ve been trying to live and grow in these five things, and I’ve always wanted to express them and share them widely. But I’ve found few who will listen, and even fewer who understand at a heart level. Here are the five things briefly described; as you read the list consider their effectiveness within church and beyond church (out in the world).

  • The church should spread and multiply everywhere
  • The church must speak truth into its own culture and into the culture of the world around it
  • The church should stir up desire in people’s hearts and minds, and help them find the way to live and move in truth and light
  • The church needs to nurture and encourage people, especially when they face pain, danger, hardship or doubt
  • The church should communicate in effective, memorable ways

Although the church is working in some of these ways, it doesn’t seem well-equipped to move equally in them all. What’s the problem and how can it be resolved?

Alan Hirsch, one of my favourite authors, explains this very clearly in a short video. It takes less than five minutes to watch, but they will be five minutes well spent. Can I encourage you to watch and listen as he explains where these five things come from, how they are all essential, and where they should lead us? He has analysed and expressed it all very clearly, but if you’re new to this stuff you’ll need an open and listening heart for the pattern to emerge and gel.

All of this is especially relevant to the series of articles on what we are doing in church life and how we might make some changes. We really do need the mind of Christ; our own minds alone are not up to the task. If we learn to cooperate with one another so as to allow Jesus to express himself in us and through us corporately, we will catch a view of his nature and so will the world around us. Being church on our terms will not take us any further than we have already gone, being church on Jesus’ terms will transform everything. What have we been missing?

I’d like to develop some of this in further posts. But finally, please note that Alan talks about realignment, how the five functions are fundamental, and how we don’t have permission to extract parts we don’t like. We’ll discuss some of these other dimensions in future posts too.

Additional resources

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