1 Infectious faith we demonstrate by action, when words are lived and people feel God's grace, when platitudes are kept in quiet abeyance, and love expressed through every human face. 2 This is the witness we are called to offer: the smile of welcome and the touch of care, when every neighbour frames the Christ we honour, the angel that we're greeting unaware. 3 My friend, we cannot claim to grace the Godhead when those who stand in tatters at our door are turned away without a moment's notice, while others sleep upon a stone cold floor. 4 Our faith and love are nothing, simply empty, just words we fling against a cloud filled sky, when those we see derided, disregarded, are left, without our protest, just to die. 5 Are we to be just noisy, clanging cymbals, or signs of hope upon this cold, dark earth? Ours is the calling now to re-imagine the love of God, to sign each person's worth. Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2016 © 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 10 11 10 Tune: INTERCESSOR
Tag: care
Trickledown – Howard Jacobson
Trickledown – Howard Jacobson – essential listening for those who support trickledown economics – encouragement for we who oppose it https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cq8h
Idyllic beaches break the waves – a hymn relating to migration and asylum – sadly still pertinent..
These images will not be diminished by persecuting migrants, nor by making a false distinction between those seeking asylum and so called economic migrants. We need to welcome as fellow human beings people coming to our shores who are fleeing fear or poverty and to provide them with safe passage to our shores and a humanitarian reception. 1 Idyllic beaches break the waves as bathers line the shore This view of peace is now disturbed: an aftermath of war. The ones who fled from lives they knew have gone in fear and dread, the ships that offered hope to them are sunk with many dead. 2 And where is God amid the swell where tides still ebb and flow, unfeeling of this loss of life, as others come and go? The commerce of the world goes on. Can we ignore the pain? It is as though we're blind to see Christ crucified again. 3 The ones who drown are ones we own as neighbours we should love; how can we turn our eyes away, avert our gaze above? For when our politics conspires to shut the door to grace it is as though we turn away from Jesus' tortured face. 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. CMD Tune: KINGSFOLD
Cities of sanctuary – welcoming migrants
This hymn was written some years ago, responding to a call to provide sanctuary for people on the margins by Rev’d Inderjit Bhogal, (Past President of the Methodist Conference) - https://inderjitbhogal.com/category/sanctuary/ - Sadly both the call and the hymn are still pertinent. We wait to welcome guests to our countries.
‘Cities of sanctuary’, could read, ‘Towns offer sanctuary’, ‘Places of sanctuary’ or Churches of sanctuary’, depending on your situation.
Cities of sanctuary, places of safety,
here where all strangers are welcomed and blessed,
we stand with Jesus in love of our neighbour,
here in our actions his love is expressed.
We will act justly while offering mercy,
nurturing humbly a gospel of peace,
welcome all people regardless of status,
counter celebrity, value the least.
Here in a world that is cruel and unyielding
God's hospitality values the poor;
this is the scandal of love without limits,
loving the unloved, then loving them more.
We will not rest till each migrant is welcomed.
We will share bread till the hungry are fed.
We will confront each injustice that greets us,
loving with vigour till hatred is dead.
Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2008 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.
11 10 11 10
Tune: STEWARDSHIP
Why I became a Methodist
I was welcomed unconditionally, with no requirements or beliefs to be fulfilled, simply by saying to a Minister that I wanted to be part of a people who through a single, simple act, not knowing me, had made me feel valuable and trusted.
I wonder if this ever happens today in churches?