Last Sunday (30th June 2024) Methodist Presbyters and Deacons were Ordained at the Annual Methodist Conference in the UK. Those in Leeds were able to witness and share in this in person. Some of us followed the preceding service on-line.
ALL CHRISTIANS have a vocation, a calling to follow Christ and to share God’s love whoever we are and wherever life takes us. This hymn was written FOR US!
1 We are the rainbow's colours,
the thundering sighs of love,
the shakers of foundations,
the seething clouds above.
We are God's chosen people,
from exile we are freed,
our common consecration
means liberty indeed.
2 A hope for every nation,
we come to bring God's peace,
the reconciliation,
the prisoner's release.
This is our sole vocation,
the reason for our birth,
to offer hope through loving,
to bring God's peace on earth.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2002, 2006 Stainer & Bell Ltd (alt 2024 by the author)
Metre: 7 6 7 6 D
Tune: PASSION CHORALE
Tag: hope
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
Hope
Hope copyright Andrew Pratt 2024
A hymn for New Year – Oh where is there love
Oh where is there love in a world that is tired,
across the year's threshold, where hope has expired?
We wait amid movement, to pause and to pray,
to nurture our God at the dawn of each day.
Our eyes have been opened, compassion unlocked,
the road has been cleared, and the future unblocked.
The narrative moment has fractured the storm,
the chill of the moment unfrozen, now warm.
Such newness is waiting with every new day,
the new year is dawning through danger and play.
The dance is still twisting through hate into light,
is spinning and turning creating new light.
We hold in our neighbour the broken and hurt,
those lost within living, God would not desert.
The frail and the fallen, the fraught or the free
are reaching for Jesus, will Christ be in me?
© Andrew Pratt 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: 11 11 11 11
DATCHET; CRADLE SONG (Kirkpatrick)
Where the jackals scratch a living – hymn – prepare the way of the LORD
Isaiah 40:3 A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God”.
1 Where the jackals scratch a living,
in this wild, deserted place,
springs will bring refreshing water,
grass and reeds will sign God's grace.
2 Here our God will build a highway
striding out across the land,
bringing hope to what was barren,
once again the people stand.
3 Once again a smile is dawning
on the face of every man,
all the children play together,
women talk, it's time to plan.
4 As we tell, recount the story,
in this present time and place,
may we build in recollection,
room for hope and gracious space;
5 Space where God can offer comfort
through our human words and lives,
love that shows in every instance
faith can live and hope survives.
© Andrew Pratt Words © 2010 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: ALL FOR JESUS
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