choice – hymnsandbooks

At the rising and the setting – a hymn

At the rising and the setting – a hymn. Matthew 18:20 At a time of a Methodist New Year, a time of meetings and decisions this text reminds us that, ‘…where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’

1         At the rising and the setting
           of a thousand golden suns,
           life is turning on a pivot,
           birth to death each journey runs.

2         Through our morning’s contemplation,
           God is present in the mist
           of a thousand conversations,
           speaking words we might resist.

3         Speaking words that urge us forward,
           words to hasten or restrain,
           words to energise our gladness,
           words to comfort in our pain.

4         In the reading of the scripture,
           in our prayer and in our praise,
           in mundane and daily actions,
           God be with us through all days.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)

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

Tunes: SUSSEX; WRAYSBURY

Crafted from wood – a hymn on the cross – Luke 9:23

Crafted from wood - a hymn on the cross – Luke 9:23; 14:27

Crafted from wood, the grain of our decision,
where faith was hung, a challenge to God’s love,
the Christ had carried it to execution,
this then our choice – the wing of hawk or dove?

Some made the choice that led to their extinction,
their’s was a loss, but not of love or grace,
accepting in each place of human crisis,
this challenge that each Christian has to face.

Take up your cross each day was Christ’s suggestion,
if you would follow in the path he trod,
yet we would minimise the resurrection,
that love transcending death can lead to God.

Words 2025 © 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: O PERFECT LOVE (Barnby)

Some thoughts on this hymn to take us further.

I had in mind, as I wrote it:

Luke 9:23;14:27
23 Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised)

14:27Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Also:

Søren Kierkegaard

In Kierkegaard's view, the Church should not try to prove Christianity or even defend it. It should help the single individual to make a leap of faith, the faith that God is love and has a task for that very same single individual. Kierkegaard identified the leap of faith as the good resolution. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard)

And

Dietrich Bonhoeffer ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ – Bonhoeffer stood against Fascism and was ultimately sent to a concentration camp and he was hanged on 9 April 1945 during the collapse of the Nazi regime.

All these point for me to Jesus’ words and how others have seen them and sought to live by them.

As an election approaches a hymn (poem,song) – If love is foremost in our faith

If love is foremost in our faith 
we have a choice to make 
on this and every other day, 
for all else is at stake; 
we see a world that’s broken down, 
where poverty and fear 
are trampelling the weakest ones, 
with hatred lurking near.

‘Today’, God said, I give a choice 
where life and death compete. 
The chance is now for us to take, 
to finish, to complete, 
the turning of the tables here 
as Christ, one time, had turned
the temple tables, scattering greed, 
to free those power had spurned.

Where selfishness can cripple lives, 
or love can set them free, 
what happens from this moment on 
rests now with you and me: 
if our audacious words of grace 
can frame what we would pray, 
then from this moment, in our time, 
let love infuse each day.

Andrew Pratt 22/5/2024 on the announcement of a General Election
Words © 2024 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: CMD
Tunes: ELLACOMBE; COE FEN; KINGSFOLD

A hymn for a time of decision – Two ways or more – Written for Comberbach Methodist Church

Two ways or more to risk or rupture faith, 
this pearl, this gift, entrusted to our care, 
Which way to take, the smooth way or the rough
a challenge and a question hover there.

We wonder and we wander through our thoughts 
as all seems foreign, different from our hope. 
The ground is shaken, all seems insecure, 
where can we sow a seed that fosters hope?

Help us, good God, to see the way ahead, 
to take the risk that leads us from the night.
To plant while not yet knowing what might grow, 
surprising, thrusting, blindly into light.

Andrew Pratt 12/3/2024 For Comberbach Methodist Church at a time of decision.

© 2024  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
Metre10.10.10.10
Tune: MORECAMBE

A troubled soul – a hymn for Lent 5

A troubled soul, the Christ of God – inspired by John 12: 20-33

1	A troubled soul, the Christ of God, 
	humanity exposed, 
	with all the turmoil that we feel, 
	when choices are proposed.
	The monumental choice he faced, 
	the crisis must be met, 
	to take the path of love to death, 
	or turn away, forget.
	
2	The riddle of the grain of wheat 
	was told with fear and dread, 
	yet mention of new fruit gives hope 
	that God might raise the dead. 
	The loss of life, the gain of life 
	are tangled in this game, 
	yet those who live in love of God 
	are held within love's frame.
	
3	So Jesus chose and we must choose, 
	which path we are to take, 
	the one which will deny God's love 
	or cause the earth to quake.
	God give us courage to deny 
	the self that harbours hate, 
	to trust in your eternal grace, 
	before it is too late.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2012 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: DCM
Tune: ELLACOMBE