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Pentecost hymn – Come glimpsing, glancing lover

Come glimpsing, glancing Lover,*
ignite your spirit’s fire,
then fan the conflagration
and let the flame rise higher.
Inspire a dancing rhythm
till deep within each heart,
a spark will more than flicker,
a brighter light will start.

Fill every throat with music
to sing the spirit’s song,
till others come to join us,
to join this singing throng.
Dynamic dancing spirit,
give purpose to our flight
We leap into the future,
we break into the light.

Let love be born among us
and passion fired by grace,
until all those around us
will share a smiling face.
Till all the world is laughing
and laughter fills the earth,
to know that love is living,
new love has come to birth.

*Alternative first verse:

Come glimpsing, glancing Spirit
ignite your loving fire,
then fan the conflagration
and let the flame rise higher.
Inspire a dancing rhythm
till deep within each heart,
a spark will more than flicker,
a brighter light will start.

Andrew Pratt 15/4/2014
Words © 2020 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 7.6.7.6 D
Tune: TYROLESE (Junior Praise, Book 1/Combined, 207/253; Carol Praise)

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The Spirit blows where it will © Andrew Pratt 27th May 2020

Covid-19 hymn of Lament – Through every fighting moment and each breath

Through every fighting moment and each breath,
another burdened person nearer death;
and now we sing our prayer that life might last,
this time might be consigned, be something past.

Great God, we cling to hope when all seems lost,
we never thought that love would hold such cost;
and now our loving feels more like a shroud
to wrap the one we we love: we cry out loud!

How long, O God, must suffering prolong
this tension, is lament so very wrong?
Or is our understanding of your care
corrupt, or incomplete, bereft or bare?

Amid our swirling agony and doubt,
God hold us till the sands of time run out;
when light has gone, and darkness hovers round,
we wait the dawning of Love’s solid ground.

Written on 26th May after watching Clive Myrie (BBC reporter) in a ward with people dying of COVID-19.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-52809201/coronavirus-one-week-in-one-hospital

Words © 2020 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Tunes: PEEL CASTLE (Manx Fisherman’s Hymn); EVENTIDE (Abide with me)

Up! Up and away! – Ascension Hymn

Up! Up and away! Was it really that crazy?
Seems too much like magic, so hard to believe.
His ministry ended. The cross was behind him.
Disciples commissioned, so much to receive.

The Spirit was coming, the mission beginning,
the world was their parish to love and to hold.
Disciples went on in the strength of that Spirit,
a Spirit of power to inspire and enfold.

But that would come later, for now they were waiting,
in hiding, reflecting on all they had seen;
on all Jesus taught them, in words and through wonders,
in all they had heard, of whom Jesus had been.

This Jesus had promised, had challenged, encouraged,
had offered them peace that the world could not give.
And soon all the earth would be spun on it’s axis,
and we share that Spirit, in Christ we will live!

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Tune: STREETS OF LAREDO
Metre: 12 11 12 11
As published in The Seed – http://www.seedresources.com <http://www.seedresources.com&gt;

God still needs prophets – now perhaps more than at other times – thanks to Simon Sutcliffe and Andrew Emison for reminding me of this hymn.. Kiki

1 God still needs prophets who will rage,
against discrimination,
who speak God’s words amid despair,
to this and every nation;
who reach again with nail?scarred hands
into the pain we’re feeling,
to hold us when we weep at loss,
who bring a hope of healing.

2 God still needs prophets who will hold
a mirror to our blindness,
to show us, each and everyone,
how hollow is our kindness;
how empty are our words of love
when shrouded in derision;
how clever words can’t justify
unloving indecision.

3 God still needs prophets who ignore
religions that confine us,
who magnify our words of love
through actions to refine us.
May we be prophets through our words
and in our hands of healing,
that others might see Christ in us
while Christ to us revealing.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)

Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.

Metre: 8 7 8 7 D