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Creed or Love?

Mystery and wonder, 

love and compassion have freedom 

when we recognise that 

no ‘religious’ creed can ever be 
fixed or final. 

Then love can encompass those we have, 

in our wisdom, 

deemed to be beyond love 

even if our scripture and tradition 

seem to tell us otherwise.

When will we see all people just as people - Methodist Conference Marriage and Relationships - hymn/poem

When will we see all people just as people 

devoid of labels, prejudice and fear?

When can we love our neighbours without limit,

not loving just the ones to whom we’re near?

When can we share the grace of God more simply,

not clouded by theology or fudge,

in order that the world may sense the presence

of Christ in love, and not some frowning judge?

God give to us audacity and courage

to grasp each nettle, risking others’ sting,

until the love that binds us all together

will hold us in one vast unbroken ring.

Andrew Pratt

Words © 2018 Stainer & 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.

Written in response to the Methodist Conference Marriage and Relationships Report having been delayed, as we were informed at Synod due to ‘unforeseen circmstances’.

Amien 2018

Words bear the smear of blood and dirt,
amid the broken bodies, fear and hurt;
and, as the witnesses record what they have seen,
do they forever think what might have been?
Copyright AndrewPratt 8/8/2018

Coexistence on earth

This world is tangled, lost in devastation,

people are struggling, longing to be free.

How long O Lord, must hurt and degradation

mar all that human eyes can search or see?

How long before all nations work together,
to save this planet lent to us in trust?
How long until we learn to plan and nurture,
before this land decays and turns to dust?

Give us, O God, in faith, cooperation,

that hand in hand we have the sense to share

riches that you have planted from creation,

that none go hungry, for their neighbours care.

This is our prayer that people once divided

may learn the value of another’s worth,

that those we once despised, or have derided,

may coexist on this once ravaged earth.

Andrew Pratt 18/6/2018 revised 25/6/2018

Words © 2018 Stainer & 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.

Tune:LORD OF THE YEARS

A hymn for human coexistence on earth 

Migrants in a hostile world

Christ’s body has been broken,
not bread but human lives,
each family has scattered,
just memory survives;
the parents cry in anguish,
the children cry in fear,
we label them as migrant,
not wanted over here.

These are our human neighbours,
relations from our birth,
each sister, child or brother,
as one on this wide earth;
if we claim God as a parent,
‘our Father’ as we say,
when will we own the meaning
of empty words we pray?

God, help us welcome others,
God break the barriers down,
that tears may turn to laughter,
and smiles displace each frown;
then may we live together,
forgiven by your grace,
the Pentecostal promise:
one Godly human race!
Andrew Pratt 22/6/2018
Tune: AURELIA
Words © 2018 Stainer & 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.
For Christians living in a broken world, in a hostile environment.

Glorious scars? - words for Good Friday...

1 Tortured, beaten, scarred and tainted,
Not a picture deftly painted,
More a tattered, battered being,
Torn, disfigured, stark, unseeing.

2 Muscles twisted, strained, contorted,
Body dangling, bruised, distorted.
Life blood drying, sun-baked, stinging,
Hatred, bitter hatred, flinging.

3 Crowds insensate, tempers vented,
Full of anger, discontented.
Curses scattered, insults flying,
Spurned, derided, God is dying.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)

Words © 1997 Stainer & 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.

Lent - Easter - Thomas - hymn - The world is fraught with danger

The world is fraught with danger, 

we have no way to turn,

when war or sickness threaten

faith has so much to learn.

Uncertain, lost in anger, 

frustrated, in the dark, 

unsure of any meaning, 

it seems we miss the mark.

Like Thomas we’re left wanting, 

with need to know yet more,

for all we feel is shaking 

and we are left unsure.

A mystery awaits us, 

a vast unknowing cloud, 

with nothing safe or certain, 

a hope, or yet a shroud?

Here in the heart of hardship 

where life is dead and gone 

we sense a resurrection, 

we meet the risen one?

One lasting fact surrounds us, 

for though our grasp is slight, 

God’s love will beckon onward, 

a soft yet healing light.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948) 23/2/2018

Words © 2018 Stainer & 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.