prayer – hymnsandbooks

Broken buildings, flooded rivers – a hymn for Pakistan amid the floods

1          Broken buildings, flooded rivers
            foaming like a liquid hell;
            jagged rocks and raging waters,
            currents twisting break the swell
            into such a tortured maelstrom;
            people reach and lives are saved;
            human beings loved and treasured
            where the waters heaved and raved.

2          Devastation, ruined farmland,
            crops destroyed compound the threat,
            images assail our conscience,
            sights we never will forget;
            here where homes had offered comfort
            degradation meets our eyes,
            while the thunder of the waters
            drowns the sound of human cries.

3          God, we cry, as lives are wasted,
            hold us when all else is lost;
            where the floods have brought destruction
            hold us, help us share this cost.
            Lift us out of dereliction,
            help us reach to those in need,
            love them till all fear has foundered,
            till they know they’re safe and freed.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)

Metre: 8 7 8 7 D

Tune: HYFRYDOL

Words © 2022 © 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., adapted from ‘Swirling winds and raging oceans’ © 2017 Stainer and Bell Ltd.

Great God we need your present grace – a hymn at the time of the resignation of Boris Johnson

Great God we need your present grace,
for honesty’s been shaken.
We need integrity and truth,
enliven and awaken
a seam of trust, a sense of faith,
while life is so uncertain,
the future hidden from our sight,
opaque behind a curtain.

God give a calm and steady hand,
unshackled by ambition,
to challenge hatred and distrust,
yet not employ derision.
Give us the time to act and learn,
to unify this nation,
a place where all might live as one
in spite of rank or station.

Is it too much for us to build
in gracious love and living,
a place to care, not built on greed,
but generous in giving,
where children grow in peace with hope,
as sister and as brother,
that, hand in hand, within this world
we’ll live with one another.
Metre: 8787D iambic
Tune: CONSTANCE (Sullivan)

Andrew Pratt 7/7/2022 – Responding to the resignation of Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party
Words © 2022 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.

A number of my hymns selected by Pam Rhodes reflecting on Ukraine and included in Hearts & Hymns, Premier Radio including ‘We hear the news in anguish’

Each of these links will open an audio file from the programme first aired on 13th March 2022 –

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

All of Andrew Pratt’s hymns are copyright Stainer & Bell Ltd and texts can be found on HymnQuest

Pam Rhodes – Hearts & Hymns, Premier Christian Radio, 13/20 March 2022 – Ukraine, suffering, war and peace

Reflections for Ukraine based on some of my texts on Premier Christian Radio were broadcast (Freeview channel 725) on Sunday 13th March 2022 0800 hours (UK)

A video prepared for SUNDAY NIGHT LIVE is available here with thanks to Pam Rhodes and Gareth Moore (to be broadcast Sunday 20th March 2022 at 1800 hours UK)

Also see hymn @ https://hymnsandbooksblog.uk/2022/03/01/we-hear-the-news-in-anguish-hymn-at-time-of-russian-invasion-of-ukraine/

Hymns responding to Christopher Walsh’s Seminar for Bramhall Methodist Church Climate Change Series

Pre-meeting text

Is it time to pause the picture,
freeze the frame until we learn.
Listen more to one another,
as we focus to discern
differences of our perspectives,
how our neighbours live and grow,
till in Christian understanding,
Jesus’ love begins to show?

Accidents of birth have placed us
into poverty or wealth,
having access to possessions,
bringing peace? Destroying health?
When will humans learn together
how to meet our common need?
How to live with one another,
nurture love, that precious seed.

God enable us to treasure
those with whom we share this earth,
those whose lives are marked by difference,
yet who share our human birth;
bring a clearer understanding
of the planet that we share,
till we grasp the trust that’s given,
measured out for all to care.

Andrew Pratt 15/5/2021
Words © 2021 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 D
Tune: BETHANY (Smart)

Hymn responding to Christopher Walsh
PhD Student, Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester

How we trust and work together
with our partners on this earth,
will sustain, or damn our planet,
place of nurture, home of birth.

Yet removed and isolated
we have not been stewards of faith,
as we pray with understanding
may we channel active grace.

May our prayer inspire our actions,
not just words or empty rhyme,
all our lives are interactive,
interwoven threads in time.

With a common understanding
sisters, brothers work as one,
reap the value of creation
as our time on earth is run.

Metre: 8.7.8.7
Tune: ALL FOR JESUS
Andrew Pratt 18/5/2021
Words © 2021 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.

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