Category: worship

Sunlight glinting on the water – a hymn of hope

 

For all its beauty snow and ice can be dangerous, or keep us in our homes. This week’s text looks back to memories and forward to hopes, to sunlight glinting on the water

1          Sunlight glinting on the water,
            moonlight filtered by the trees,
            nature constantly reminding,
            spirit moving with the breeze,
            God is present in creation,
            God is here in such as these.

2          Holding visions in our memories,
            cherishing all we have known,
            things of beauty, scenes of wonder,
            gifts of grace we cannot own,
            all the joys that God has given,
            all the love that Christ has shown.

3          Now we come to offer worship
            for each heart and mind’s delight,
            for all human care and friendship,
            for the soaring spirit’s flight,
            God we offer praise each morning
            for your living, dancing light.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2015 Stainer and 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 7 8 7 8 7
Tune: RHUDDLAN

A hymn for renewing our Covenant – God’s love can never be undone

As Methodists enter a season of renewing their Covenant with God, this hymn is a reminder that, whatever might befall, we cannot be separated from Love. 

1	God's love can never be undone, 
	the covenant be broken, 
	God's mercy never fades or ends, 
	the source of grace has spoken.
	
2	No disobedience demands
	a final separation, 
	whatever we have said or done 
	brings us no condemnation.
	
3	Our history shows a God of love, 
	not one of crass rejection, 
	audacious love is ours because 
	of God's divine affection.

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 7 8 7
Tune: ST COLUMBA (Irish)

When the weeping of the nations – a hymn at the turning of the year

1	 When the weeping of the nations 
	fills our hearts with holy dread, 
	when a devastated city 
	cannot bury all its dead, 
	God is in the conflagration, 
	crying where our children bled.
 
2	 Dust will settle on the dying 
	cradled in a mother’s arms, 
	fearful faces meet the camera 
	knowing human hatred harms, 
	knowing only humane kindness 
	brings the peace that heals, disarms.
 
3	 God remove our warring blindness, 
	give us grace that we might see 
	through the mists of mortal malice 
	how we fuel life’s agony, 
	how inaction, sullen silence,
	marks our own complicity.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2016 Stainer and Bell Ltd. 
8 7 8 7 8 7

Tunes: GRAFTON; PICARDY

Holy Innocents Hymn 28th December

Harassed, haunted child of Mary – Holy Innocents

1	 Harassed, haunted child of Mary
	ran before he learned to crawl,
	filled with horror, those who loved him,
	those who gave to him their all,
	tore him from his bed and birth place,
	blown before the sudden squall.

2	 Doubt and danger dogged each footfall,
	normal sounds now raised their fear;
	noises in a cobbled courtyard:
	Herod's minions drawing near?
	Or the waking sounds of morning?
	Nothing now is safe or clear.

3	 Out of this endangered childhood,
	rootless, no asylum found,
	grew the strength of God to greatness,
	yet with thorns his brow was crowned:
	clothes divided, scourged, derided,
	suffering without a sound.

4	 Dare we beautify the image
	when Christ's heirs still walk this earth,
	when our children, harassed, hounded,
	suffer death before their birth,
	while their parents' haunted hunger
	speaks of their discarded worth?

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2000 Stainer & Bell Ltd
Words © 2000 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.
8 7 8 7 8 7 Trochaic
Tune: PICARDY

Christmas Hymn – Long shadows fell across the floor

Long shadows fell across the floor – the first Christmas

1 Long shadows fell across the floor,
the sign of early morning light,
as Jesus gasped a human breath
and stars were fading from the night.

2 His parents waited for this dawn,
a dawn of love, of faith and grace.
But could a little baby boy
be God born in this horrid place?

3 The angels heralded such hope:
that God is very real and near,
and in the person of the Christ
love entered life and cast out fear.

4 We hear the angel song again,
today the story is re-told,
that in that squalid manger bed
our God was laid and love took hold;

5 Took hold of every willing heart,
began to build with child-like hope
a way of loving and of life
to challenge narrow human scope.

6 But then as now the season passed,
the seeming fairy tale had gone.
Sophistication countered truth.
In childlike hearts, hope lingers on.

Andrew E. Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2004 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: WAREHAM