love – hymnsandbooks

With daring we enter the future that beckons – a hymn for new beginnings (Matthew 28: 16-20)

With daring we enter the future that beckons – 
a hymn for new beginnings (Matthew 28: 16-20)

With daring we enter the future that beckons,
our feelings in tension - excitement and fear.
Wherever we're walking we know God walks with us,
before and behind, God's protection is near.

Alone in the desert God's people felt empty,
the land that was promised of honey and milk
seemed distant, reality made hope distorted,
clothed them with despairing, more sackcloth than silk.

And sometimes the way that we find in the present
has troubles and heartaches enough of its own;
but still God walks with us through valleys of darkness,
encompassed with loving, we're never alone.

So welcome the future and enter it boldly,
look back, God was with you wherever you trod.
This God is your lover through life and forever,
take hold of the certainty: this is your God.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2006 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: 12 11 12 11
Tunes: WAS LEBET, WAS SCHWEBET
Created by HymnQuest.com

Pentecost – a hymn ‘Is this a void, or just a time of challenge?’

Pentecost signalled a time for a new start? A time of change for the disciples. For us? – a hymn ‘Is this a void, or just a time of challenge?’

Is this a void, or just a time of challenge, 
a new found joy, beginning or an end?
Yet God has travelled with us on this journey 
along with each acquaintance, neighbour, friend.

And will God leave us as we travel onward, 
abandon us to all the future holds? 
But God, is here, behind us and before us, 
as every chance is greeted and unfolds.

So God, we offer thanks for every blessing, 
for times of care and gifting, now long past, 
and hand in hand we seek a common purpose, 
assured that love and grace are sure to last.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2015 © 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

Created by HymnQuest.com

When grief is raw and anger burns – a hymn for those who grieve

1 When grief is raw and anger burns
and lives are churned about,
the reed will bruise, but will not break,
love's flame will not snuff out.

2 Our depth of love is signalled by
this parting stress we feel
and neither platitudes, nor prayer,
can make our loss less real.

3 Yes, death will sting and pain will hurt,
but love will not recede,
for God is greater than our loss
and to our God we plead.

4 We cry for peace, we plead for rest,
we ask that we might trace,
through every mem'ry that we hold,
God's present love and grace.

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.
Metre: CM
Tune: BEATITUDO

On the Sunday between my wife’s death and her funeral one of the lectionary readings is John 14: 15 – 21
Jesus’ words…18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

HymnQuest.com suggests this hymn, written 18 years ago as one related to this text.

God we need your holy wisdom – a hymn – pertinent, I fear?

God we need your holy wisdom – a hymn written nearly 20 years ago…still pertinent, I fear.

1	God we need your holy wisdom, 
	need to know your presence here,
	through audacious, fearless living, 
	and your dying, draw us near.
	
2	We are failing, needing loving, 
	so addicted to despair,
	come with healing, mend the broken,
	with your grace renew, repair.
	
3	Feed our rich imagination,
	let the poets speak again
	words of hope, profound redemption,
	foil this sharp, systemic pain.
	
4	Then unleash our lives to follow
	Christ our leader, yet our friend,
	and through risks of selfless living,
	find through love your goal, our end.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2007Stainer & 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: CHAPEL BRAE; ALL FOR JESUS

Such blasphemous extravagance – a hymn inspired by the raising of Lazarus but pertinent at this time

John 11:1-45 – The raising of Lazarus - Jesus’ assertions that his actions would demonstrate who he was were, to those around him, blasphemous in the extreme…and all this in the context that he was moving nearer to Jerusalem where he would be crucified.

This lyrical poem seems pertinent in the world at this time…

1	Such blasphemous extravagance 
	as limb is torn from limb;
	expense is unaccountable, 
	is this the final sin? 

2	There is no god, yet pain is god,  
	and God is very real, 
	amid the carnage and the fear, 
	the hatred that we feel

3	And did God look through human eyes 
	and touch with human hands, 
	and did a human mind discern 
	love's seed sown in these lands?

4	Yes, Christ is God, incarnate God, 
	and still his flesh is torn; 
	and eyes that look on all the world 
	with tears and cares are worn.

5	And still God hangs with wondering eyes 
	and all the world seems lost, 
	and no one dares to face the facts, 
	while parents count the cost.

6	When will we learn, O can we learn, 
	the lesson that Christ taught: 
	that wood and nails can never end 
	the love for which he fought.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
© 2010 Stainer and Bell Ltd., London, England, 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
Metre: 8 6 8 6
Tune: BRISTOL Ravenscroft – ‘Hark the glad sound’

Created by HymnQuest.com