New Hymns

This section is devoted to hymns and songs that have only recently been written. You may be one of the first to use them.

They have all been published in Worship Live, a thrice-yearly subscription periodical, featuring, besides hymns, ideas for worship, readings and comment. For only £10.00 for three issues, subscribers are allowed, without fee, to copy almost all the material for use in their local situation.

For a complimentary copy, contact Stainer & Bell Ltd at post@stainer.co.uk

Trustees for Planet Earth
8.6.6.6.6.
Suggested tune: SONALY

What risks you took, O God the Lord,
in making us trustees
of all that's in creation stored
from elephants to fleas
- and earth and air and seas.

For we, who're pledged to your true way
disfigure our own race:
injustice, want and war betray
our honoured, trusted place.
Your likeness we deface.

Though living things on us depend
for habitats secure
their needs with human greed won't blend -
and species can't endure
if greed we fail to cure.

The air and water, mountains, dales
polluted, speak our shame.
The courage stewardship entails
asserts its kingdom-claim:
must we remain the same?

Come, live within us, Christ our Lord,
and help us work and pray,
that folk* may forge a deep accord
your mandate to obey
and risks are made to pay!

Ian M Fraser
©2001 Stainer & Bell Ltd

After Genesis 1-3
and Romans 8: 18 - end

In Scotland 'folk' is used as another word for 'people'. Since in England 'folk' carries connotations of the ancient or traditional, the author is happy for 'people' to be substituted for 'folk may'.

Christ leads!
2.6.6.2.6.6.6.3
Written: New Year's Day 2001 for the Community of Christ

Christ leads!
from the shore to the hills,
from the hills to the plain,
Christ leads.
In the chill of despair
and the clamour of change
Christ Jesus is our guide.
God be praised!

Christ calls!
from the sorrows of war
and the doorways of pain,
Christ calls.
In the silence of fear
and the anger of need
Christ Jesus speaks today.
God be praised!

Christ waits!
Crucified by the powers,
undefeated, alive,
Christ waits.
To the worship of force
and the praise of revenge
Christ Jesus teaches peace.
God be praised!

Christ sings!
In a people reborn,
reconciling, re-named,
Christ sings.
In communion feast
and community praise
Christ Jesus makes us one.
God be praised!

Christ comes!
In the word on the street
and the word that forgives,
Christ comes.
At the end of the day,
at the ultimate end,
Christ Jesus lives and leads.
God be praised!

Brian Wren
© 2001 Stainer & Bell Ltd for the world
except USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
which are controlled by Hope Publishing Company

For new beginnings
8.8.8.8.8.8.
Suggested tunes: CLIFTON DOWN and ABINGDON

Into our darkness, Christ, you come,
endlessly scour the depths of night;
brighter than lightning's flash your Word
surrounds us with tenacious light
that startles, loves, disturbs, makes new
and calls us all to follow you.

'Do not delay: the time is here.
Travel upon life's way with me.
I am the way; I am the life;
I am the truth that sets you free.
Together let us walk as friends
and share my joy that never ends.'

'Come set tradition's baggage down
and free your hands to join in mine.
Take just what keeps you close to me:
my Word, your selves, some bread and wine.
To all who choose, my life is free.
Come, sisters, brothers, follow me!'

We do not know what we will face
in times to come, but this is clear:
you promise to be close as breath
with love that drives out every fear.
This love compels us every day
to join as pilgrims on your way.

Bill Thomas
©2002 Stainer & Bell Ltd

From John 14:16, 8:32, 15:11, 15:13-14; Acts 9,
Luke 22: 19-20, Matthew 9:9, 1 John 4:18 among others.

'Idle tales!' The women's witness

Suggested tune: LOVE DIVINE

'Idle tales!' The women's witness,
- Jesus risen from the tomb, -
seemed to men who knew his dying,
empty talk to lighten gloom.
Then the Lord appeared among them
unfamiliar, yet the same,
promised to be with them always
gave empowerment in his name!

Those who're meek and disregarded
treated as of little worth
Mary said would be exalted
Jesus said would rule the earth.
Thus the women, then devalued,
stand for God's intention sure:
turn earth's values topsy-turvey
to affirm the weak and poor.

Teach us Lord, your art of seeing
that God's likeness we discern
in the people classed as nothings
who your Kingdom values learn:
teach us, Lord, your art of hearing
that perceptions of your way
offered by the dumb and voiceless
lead us from the dark to day.

Ian Fraser
© 2001 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Risen Christ, our joy and glory!
8.7.8.7.D
Suggested tune: HYFRYDOL

Risen Christ, our joy and glory!
Called to serve you in your day
we have shared your Church's story,
in our own inconstant way;
we have trusted and denied you,
welcomed yet disowned your claim,
we have loved you and betrayed you:
but your love has stayed the same.

Through your birth and incarnation,
you took on humanity,
bore its shame and condemnation,
all the way to Calvary;
you have shared our grief and crying,
carried us through pain and loss,
and love's triumph in your dying
gives us strength to bear the cross.

You have loved us as our brother,
with a love that overawes,
charging us to love each other
with a love as deep as yours.
Once engaged for this vocation,
faith perceives all things made new:
we ourselves and all creation
reconciled to God in you.

For the future, stay beside us
and in ways we have not planned,
recreate, restore and guide us.
Though we may not understand,
love's commandment is repeated
and your people's praises rise;
we go on, till joy completed
crown with love that never dies.

Alan Gaunt
© 2000 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Worlds of Wonder teeming round us

8.7.8.7.D

Worlds of wonder teeming round us,
spring to being at God's voice;
word of God, made flesh among us,
seen in every sufferer's eyes;
deep within, creative spirit,
quickening gifts of sight and sound -
these are all God's presence, secret
till the Bible makes him known.

In its words are firm foundation
for a life lived out in trust,
grounded in t5he resurrection
that brought hope when all was lost:
making ever new the story
that began in ancient songs,
promising the final glory
for which all creation longs.

Through its words we shape our living,
learn the weight of God's command;
hearing still the prophet's preaching -
mercy, justice his demand;
then its final revelation,
through the Word come from above,
that the way of our salvation,
and the final word, is love.

Alan Luff
© Stainer & Bell Ltd

How can we thank you for all that you are?

10.11.11.11.

How can we thank you for all that you are?
- death-daring lover, surpassing by far
our love, with its failures through weakness or spite:
for yours is as certain as day follows night.

How can we thank you for all that you share?
- your strength in our chaos, your peace in despair,
your whisper of wisdom in our disarray,
the light of your presence to open the way.

How can we thank you for all that you give?
- your life for the world so that others may live;
your hope for our present, your grace for our past,
your promise surrounding and holding us fast.

This is our thank-you: we give you are all,
our lives to be used in response to your call.
Wherever you lead, we'll go on to the end
with you as our lover, our guide and our friend.

Bill Thomas
© 1998 Stainer & Bell Ltd

When Mary answered 'Yes'
A hymn written for Liverpool Parish Church
6.6.8.6.
Suggested tune: SANDYS

When Mary answered 'Yes'
to love that makes us whole,
she knew the joy, she felt the stress
in body, mind and soul.

When Nicholas preserved
the innocence of youth,
he showed his age what lord he served
in spirit and in truth.

When Christians founded here
a chapel by the sea,
they bore their witness year by year
to God in trinity.

Your glory, Lord has been,
in every time and place,
the light by which your saints have seen
to do your work by grace.

Help us to serve with them
the world for which you died,
and light the star of Bethlehem
today on Merseyside.

Elizabeth Cosnett
© 1998 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Round the One Table

11.10.11.6

Round the one table, one body gathering,
sharing as equals the same bread and wine,
drawn from all languages, races and peoples,
compassing space and time.

Not to the taste of those in authority;
threatening, subversive, a dangerous feast:
everyone equally loved and of value,
greatest no more than least.

'This is my body, broken for all of you',
says God-in-flesh, who must then pay the price;
those who will follow will also know suffering,
share in Christ's sacrifice.

We need not fear: the One who raised Jesus will
bring resurrection to those on the Way;
love will enfold us, unite and empower us,
strength for the coming day.

Come to us now, one God-in-community,
touch us, remake us and send us to be
signs of your glory, your radical people,
Christ's new humanity.

Bill Thomas
© 2000 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Heavenly Banquet

Tune: YE BANKS AND BRAES

You dare to claim to starving souls
that life with you is like a meal:
the outcast is an honoured guest,
life's rejects find your love is real.
And all shall eat and be fulfilled,
and wish to share your offered grace;
our hungers shall be satisfied
as we are held in your embrace.

This life with you can start today
as we say yes to what we see,
and lasts through death, beyond all time,
the banquet of eternity.
The price of entry has been paid:
the wedding-feast is open wide
to all who trust in you who bear
the marks of wounds in hands and side.

We praise you for this foretaste of
the heavenly banquet that you share:
help us to walk with you by faith
until we come to table there;
and grant us strength to go our ways
to spread your invitation wide:
to shout it wasn't just for us,
but all creation that you died.

Bill Thomas
© 2000 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Spirit of God pervading the earth as swirling mist

13.13.13.13
Suggested Tune: KING'S LYNN

Sprit of God pervading the earth as swirling mist,
enveloping creation, her presence persist;
she rests on men and women, she shares her gifts with all,
and we respond in freedom, rejoicing at her call.

Her wisdom keeps creating new wonders to behold;
through her, creation's story is constantly retold.
Mountain and river valley acclaim her name with praise;
the glacier and the desert as one their voices raise.

Midst folk she freely mingles to challenge and inspire,
dream dreams and share in visions, rekindle sparks of fire.
A passion for God's mission we all are called to share
till heaven and earth both mirror koinonia and care.

Spirit of God empowering each of us as we sing,
our faith-skills and whole being before you now we bring.
Embrace with us your blessing, transform us through your Word,
so we may live confessing the love of grace of God.

Lindsey Sanderson
© 1998 Stainer & Bell Ltd

For a Church meeting

LM
Suggested tune: DANIEL

God, you have called us to this hour:
now two or three or many claim
the promised gift of living power,
as your church meets in Jesus' name.

Open our minds and set us free
from spite and hurt, that we may face
the dread responsibility
of your church, meeting in this place.

Encouraged by the risk you take
in trusting us to do your will,
we dare to offer, for your sake,
all this church meeting can fulfil.

Janet Wootton
© 1998 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Resurrection Dance
Tune: HELSON FLORAL DANCE

Christians, together sing:
'Christ dances in our Resurrection Ring.'
Leaping hers, falling there,
dancing, laughing, everywhere -
even those with two left feet
can keep time with the Resurrection Beat.

Christians, now take a chance,
let go yourselves in Resurrection Dance.
Meet your neighbour, give a shake,
pass right through and keep awake,
meet the next and give a hand,
and keep time with the Resurrection Band.

Christians, now make a train
all join up in a Resurrection Chain.
Put your hand around each waist,
don't draw back - come on! Make haste!
Call your friends to come and play,
all dancing in the Resurrection Way.

June Boyce-Tillman
© 1998 Stainer & Bell Ltd

The dregs of supper wine

6.6.7.7.

The dregs of supper wine
and broken crumbs of light,
the stillness after singing
and a walk into the night . . .

A spluttering torch goes out
as dawn lights olive trees;
Impressed on trampled grasses
all that was Gethsemene.

A cock struts through the ash
of yesterday's concern,
a glowing watch dissolving
in the clear-eyed day's return.

A cast-off towel and bowl,
and purple threads and hair
blown on the Pavement's bloodstains,
and a scourge left lying there . . .

The track that climbs the hill
is crowded to this day;
God's drama is enacted
and forgiveness has its way.

Lois Ainger
© 1993 Stainer & Bell

God the weaver

8.7.8.7.8.7.
Suggested tune: PERSPECTIVE

God the weaver, making patterns,
spinning threads throughout our days -
Joy and sadness interwoven,
strands of sorrow, strands of praise.
Help us to discern your weaving
in the multi-coloured maze.

Teach us, Lord, to trust your guidance
when the pattern is not clear,
and to feel your strength and comfort
when life's fabric's torn by fear.
Help us sense that in the dark times
Lightening love is always near.

When we see the pattern changing
and a new direction starts,
let us know your love unbroken
winds through life in all its parts
by the threads of love and friendship
closely woven in our hearts.

Though we never see the picture
with your sense of space and time,
help us, Lord, to take our places
in our faith's continuing line,
as all lives are interwoven
in your final grand design.

Marjorie Dobson
© 1996 Stainer & Bell Ltd

The day will come, must come, and soon

L.M.

The day will come, must come, and soon,
when we will sing a song of joy
with sisters, brothers, not like us,
who share the image of one God.

Whatever name, which ever faith,
at heart we share a common bond,
a shared humanity in God,
whose name and character is love.

That love will drive us to the day
when every wall is broken down,
when love and joy and song are one:
that day will come, must come, and soon.

Andrew Pratt
© 2001 Stainer & Bell Ltd

How can people praise the Godhead
8.7.8.7.D

How can people praise the Godhead,
save in humble penitence?
How can we avoid the verdict
of these years' indifference?
If our God has come among us
then we have betrayed a call;
out of selfish pride our grasping
puts our gain ahead of all.

If that God was born among us
then the one's enabling birth
suffered taunting and derison,
persecution on this earth.
Driven from their given cradle,
scattered seeds upon the wind;
Christians led that desecration
and, we wonder, will it end?

Holocaust, crusades, apertheid,
inquisition, slavery,
all have had a Christian presence,
justifying butchery;
every century adds locations
pictured on a map or chart
scenes of human devastation
hatred honed, become an art.

Now we stand and, just like Peter,
we've no cause our case to crow,
we are self-deceived if claiming
righteousness, our debts you know:
debts of love we owe each other,
debts we never can repay;
for two thousand years' denial
Lord, forgive, for this we pray.

Enter rooms of desolation,
bring your love to cleanse, to spare;
'Peace be with you', once you uttered,
let us hear and let us share;
bring us from this darkest moment
into dazzling, gleaming light,
may the blaze of this millennium
end the horror of our night.

Andrew Pratt
© 2001 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Let us join in song recalling

8.7.8.7.D
Suggested tune: HOME GUARD

Let us join in song recalling
city streets in time of war,
people who when bombs were falling
lived and sometimes died next door.
Now's the time to tell their story,
hold them steady in our thought,
recognise the hidden glory
which in life they never sought.

Those from different faiths and nations,
Jew and Gentile, black and white,
faced each day the same privations,
feared the same dark wings each night.
While their private lives were turning
into bloodstained history,
still they kept the home fires burning,
still they dug for victory.

Dig within themselves and fashioned
ways to cope when times were bad,
found the springs of grace unrationed,
strength they never knew they had.
Buildings, bodies, hopes were shattered.
Could there be a god above?
Yet what more than all things mattered
was the courage born of love.

Let no glamorising
veil the truth of those sad years.
Facts deny romanticising:
pain is pain and tears are tears.
From an age now fast receding
speaks our blood, our flesh, our bone,
for a world at peace still pleading,
and we make the prayer our own.

Elizabeth Cosnett
© 2000 Stainer & Bell Ltd

This hymn was written for the unveiling of a memorial to civilians killed in the wartime blitz.

Spirit of God, creation's force

8.8.8.8.

Sprit of God, creation's force,
and power of evolution's course,
gave breath of life to humankind
and then inspired inventive mind.

Spirit of history's linked events
has shown repeated evidence
of hidden influence, working through
all our world leaders try to do.

Spirit of prophet's utterance
proclaimed in needy circumstance
a word of God, through human voice
with challenge to courageous choice.

Spirit of Pentecostal power
poured out with sign of wind and fire,
created Church to work and pray
and open up the Kingdom's way.

Spirit of power and truth and grace,
renews today the human race,
bestowing gifts, producing fruits,
promoting godly attributes.

Spirit, possess and fill us whole,
fill every heart and mind and soul,
infuse our being with your power
that we may serve this present hour.

Richard Firth
© 1997 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Silent like the lamb that's slaughtered

8.8.8.8.7.7.

Silent like the lamb that's slaughtered,
still to be your sons and daughters?
Or will even you disown us,
turn your back, despise, dethrone us;
shrouding light, consuming hope,
thrusting us beyond love's scope?

Why are we so lost, forsaken?
Kindle, God, some expectation:
Mend the reed that's bruised and bending,
fan the smouldering emblem, flaming
into love we know as real,
into grace, our heart to heal.

Then, when scars of violation
spurn each act of re-creation,
and the Church, itself, abusing,
in derision, trust confusing,
multiplies our powerless plight;
let us not succumb, but fight!

Andrew Pratt
© 1997 Stainer & Bell Ltd

8.7.8.7.
Suggested tune: RECONCILIATION by Hal H. Hobson

On the side-walk, by the shop-front
I laid down my mat to sleep;
tears of sadness welled within me;
thoughts of all that might have been.

Lost within this hidden city
where the subway hums and groans,
left unnoticed and defenceless,
God forsaken and alone.

Can you sense my thrumming heart-beat,
can you feel a reason why
in your wealth you’re just as lonely,
waiting for your time to die?

Maybe I should look more clearly
through the eyes of given hope,
maybe you could stoop more lowly
that together we may cope.

Andrew Pratt
© 2002 Stainer & Bell Ltd

8.7.8.7.
Suggested tunes: GOTT DES HIMMELS and RATHBUN
What would God make of this building,
house of eloquence and praise,
God who walked the earth before us,
Christ of Galilean days?

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.

He who built a human temple
with the ones he sought to lead,
fended off each great temptation:
born of human power and greed.

Would he choose a place, more simple,
less ornate, of greater use,
where the hungry and the homeless
could be healed of their abuse?

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;

Where are hopes will glaze for glory
windows looking on the world,
where the broken will be welcome,
where love’s given, never sold.

Andrew Pratt
© 2002 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Author’s note:
Verses 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 of this text were written for my last service at Kingsleigh Methodist Church on 29 July 2001, and adapted from a text inspired by Wesley’s Chapel, City Road, London, where I attended the Memorial Celebration for Fred Pratt Green on 9 June 2002. I love aesthetic beauty and am surprised to find a Puritan streak in my character. The final verses were as folows:

Let us choose a place more simple,
less ornate, of greater use,
where the hungry and the homeless
will be healed of their abuse.

Here our hope will glaze for glory
windows looking on the world,
here the broken will be welcome,
where love’s given, never sold.

The first of these stanzas, slightly re-cast, has now been interpolated as verse 4.

8.8.8.8.
The tune THOU HIDDEN LOVE is commended for this text.

No place had you to lay your head
O Christ whom we call King of Kings;
you came to share the painful lot
of all the homeless, life’s foundlings.
You had no home to call your own
though earth’s your footstool, heaven your throne.

At last, through wood and nails, you found
a home, spread-eagled on the cross,
where all could see the face of God
made one with human pain and loss:
and hear God’s call, and find God grants
to each a niche of relevance.

Lord, make us restless till we rest
in your good will for humankind
that, while the birds have each a nest
and foxes holes, we learn your mind:
that all your cherished human race
may claim a sheltered dwelling place.

Ian M Fraser
© 2001 Stainer & Bell Ltd

I can’t hear the angels,
The bombs roar and slay:
Somewhere a baby
Is wounded and crying,
Somewhere a baby is crying.

I don’t need to look for
A stable today;
Somewhere the homeless
Are searching and trying,
And somewhere a baby is crying.

I can’t see the manger
The feast’s in the way;
Somewhere the people
Are hungry and dying,
And somewhere a baby is crying.

Cecily Taylor
© 2002 Stainer & Bell Ltd

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