Tag: welcome

Filled with fear may love surround us

Filled with fear may love surround us

 

Filled with fear may love surround us,

spirit ground us, in that love,

drench us with this expectation

here on, earth not just above.

 

May each day extend a welcome,

open hands and open hearts,

open homes that offer shelter,

love that never more departs.

 

God enfold us, always hold us,

may our human love extend

’til all people, every nation

know your love can never end.

 

Words: Andrew Pratt (born 1948) © 18 August 2026 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.

Metre: 8.7.8.7 Tune: ALL FOR JESUS

Look! The love that was unspoken

Look! the love that was unspoken

Look! the love that was unspoken
shines with colour, power and light,
love that never can be broken 
forging justice, putting right.
Here we live in grace and wonder owning God’s diversity.

Praising shards of light that glisten 
with the truth that sets us free, 
multitudes clasp hands of friendship,
all who claim humanity:
nothing can divert our purpose, one in our diversity.

All our art and music woven 
with divinity and grace 
has its origin, incarnate,
born within our human race,
disagreement cannot break our Spirit of diversity.

So the future opens for us:
galaxies beyond our glance, 
bound forever to each other,
held by more than cosmic chance.
Nothing now will fault our spirit: CELEBRATE DIVERSITY!!!

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: 87 87 87
Tune: WESTMINSTER ABBEY; RHUDDLAN
Words commissioned to celebrate PRIDE

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

A More Excellent Way –  Inderjit Bhogal – Theology Everywhere blog

Inderjit Bhogal reflects on A More Excellent Way

Loving, compassionate and welcoming responses to refugees arriving in the UK across the English Channel are lighting up ways to challenge hostility with protective hospitality…..

Great prophet of pity – A hymn inspired by Romans 12: 1-8

Great prophet of pity - A hymn inspired by Romans 12: 1-8

Great prophet of pity, subversive in love,
unsettle our comfort, divert and reprove;
that, moved from self-interest, and shielded from pride,
we might yet embody the gifts of your bride.

O raise up your people and fit them to care
for all who are lonely or lost in despair.
The reed that is bending, the wick that burns low,
through grace and persistence, God, help them to grow.

From each generation, race, colour or creed,
Christ, gather together, united by need,
the ones that you value, and God, may we find,
in spite of ourselves that your welcome is kind.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2003  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
Tune: ST DEINIO