What would God make of this building? - a hymn about welcoming
1 What would God make of this building,
house of eloquence and praise,
God who walked the earth before us,
Christ of Galilean days?
2 He who left a home and family,
had nowhere to rest his head,
cast his lot with those derided
framed his life with what he said.
3 He who built a human temple
with the ones he sought to lead,
fended off each great temptation:
born of human power and greed.
4 Would he choose a place, more simple,
less ornate, of greater use,
where the hungry and the homeless
could be healed of their abuse?
5 If we follow in his footsteps
then this place must come to be
open to the poor, the homeless
where the richest grace is free;
6 Where our hope will glaze for glory
windows looking on the world,
where the broken will be welcome,
where love's given, never sold.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2001 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 Trochaic
Tunes: GOTT DES HIMMEL; RATHBUN
Matthew 10: 40-42 speaks of how we should welcome people. This hymn questions whether the church mirrors this example, and for ‘church’ you can think of a congregation, a parish, a circuit – buildings or people - or even a denomination…
Tag: church
Words for our time 5…
Can we still hear within the church the gospel read and preached?
Then might we try to model here truths poverty has breached, where all can share the common wealth that Earth and grace afford,
that none through hate,
or grasping greed,
will dominate or Lord?
A challenge to the church to change – ‘When the church, afraid of changing’
A challenge to the church to change – ‘When the church, afraid of changing’
Hymn writers sometimes ask questions of the church and then flesh out the consequences of the actions they have described. Fred Pratt Green’s - ‘When the Church of Jesus shuts its outer door’ is one such hymn (perhaps too challenging, or near to the bone, to be in Hymns & Psalms or Singing the Faith?) As we live out the time through lectionary readings from resurrection to Pentecost we have a chance to reflect on what the church is, and what it might be expected to be. Remember that Jesus death was partly a consequence of his challenging people to change their perspectives of faith.
When the church, afraid of changing,
clings to glories of the past,
holding fast to long lost memories,
sure that it will always last,
lost in time, devoid of spirit,
know this truth, its fate is cast.
When the church no longer welcomes
people other than it's own,
when it thinks its understanding
stands complete, is fully grown,
love is rarely seen in action,
grace is only, thinly, sown.
Jesus challenged expectation,
turning tables upside down,
those who once were thought as holy
he confronted with a frown.
When, then, will we learn the lesson,
own that cross, that thorny crown?
Andrew Pratt 3/5/2025
© Words Andrew Pratt © 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: 87 87 87
Tunes: PICARDY; RHUDDLAN
God still needs prophets – old hymn perhaps for now?
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.
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.
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 Pratt 23/11/2008
Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Pleaseinclude any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All widerand any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Vision – based on Ezekiel 37: 1-14
Vision – based on Ezekiel 37: 1-14 And I looked as I led worship and saw the dried and brittle bones of the scattered few before me and there was no life. Too old, too desiccated, too worn out, or lived out ever to be able to stir again. And I wept as I looked and prayed for answers, but my heart told me it was too late; the life had gone. There was acceptance of an unchanging future; the stillness of lethargy and emptiness of spirit. And I looked again and saw my prayers were not to empty air for a breath of God moved among the weary; new energy began to stir; movement was discernible and purpose was born again. And God had shown me, in spite of all my doubts, that hope is never completely dead and there can be new life, even in old bones. © Marjorie Dobson published on Worship Cloud Used with permission.
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