Category: Hymns

God and Money – Matthew 22:15-22

Challenged about the rightness of paying taxes, Jesus showed the Pharisees a coin and then
said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” When they replied correctly he
responded, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God
the things that are God’s.”
So what do we owe to the State? And what to God?


1 What is our ultimate concern?
Where is the centre of each soul?
What are the things that matter most?
What single sense will make us whole?


2 We recognize the depth of love,
the grace that held us from our birth,
but all too soon we lose our grasp
and other things have greater worth.


3 The things we own, the clothes we wear,
usurp the place that God should hold,
become our idols, cloak our minds
as if our faith was lost or sold.


4 The God that we purport to serve,
to love with heart and soul and mind,
is lost within our self concern
yet still is there to seek and find.


5 So God, we come to start again;
to clear the clutter from our lives,
to see you in each neighbour’s face,
to find the faith that holds and strives.


Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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 8 8 8
Tune: MELCOMBE

Hymn of Seasons

From season to season, 
through death and re-birth,
this world, through its phases, 
shows love has no dearth.

Such love is for sharing, 
to do good to all,
to nurture well-being, 
to echo God's call.

Through sensitive reason 
we fathom the need
of neighbours, of nature;
we subjugate greed.

We offer each other 
the kiss of God's peace,
embracing earth's harmony, 
hatred will cease.

Through summer and autumn, 
through winter's release,
we welcome spring's coming 
with nature's increase.

All praise for the gifting 
of harvest and life,
all power to the ending 
of all human strife.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2002 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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: 11 11 11 11
Tune: DATCHET

The simplest of words – a hymn inspired by Matthew 18: 15-20

‘The simplest of words have eternal importance’ a hymn inspired by Matthew 18:15-20 

The simplest of words have eternal importance, 
a 'yes' or a 'no' last for more than a day. 
Be careful in talking and choose your words wisely, 
then think before speaking of what you will say. 
	
How often we utter our words without wisdom.
Perhaps we should ask 'Is it true?' 'Is it kind?'
And what motivates us, should we be repeating
the words that we heard, or the thoughts that we find?
	
In love and compassion, then, let us consider
the ways we affirm and the ways we deride
the sisters and brothers, the neighbours God brought us, 
and then in God's harmony stand side by side.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2015 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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: 12 11 12 11
Tune: STREETS OF LAREDO

CLIMATE HYMNS ON-LINE: RICHARD BAKER

Dr Richard Baker is a Local Preacher and, as a lay Pastor of Bramhall Methodist Church, in 2021 he organised Seminars and Discussion Groups relating to Climate Change. In a previous series he had addressed the interface of Science and Faith.

He has written material for continuing development of Preachers entitled – Worshiping Biblically in the context of the climate emergency.

Recently he has written some thought-provoking Hymns which are available here, on his web-site.

You can download a pdf of the hymns here

Shaken confidence dismembers

A hymn inspired by Matthew 16: 21 perhaps, also useful in difficult times and when faith is tested.

‘From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and 
undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, 
and on the third day be raised.’

Shaken confidence dismembers 
faith that once had seemed secure, 
things that frighten in this moment, 
at one time had seemed demure.

Love is fractured, hope is fettered, 
grace obscured from sight or sound, 
while we cry in desperation, 
'where is safe and solid ground'.

Through the mist a form is shaping, 
living sign of love and grace, 
God embodied, present, human, 
seen in every neighbour's face.

Hold the truth when doubt is raging, 
when our lives are insecure, 
fold in love each friend and neighbour, 
till that love feels safe and sure.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)

© 2015 Stainer and Bell Ltd. 

Words: Andrew Pratt (born 1948) © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, 

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

Tune: STUTTGART