Tag: song

Random wedding hymn – On Ilkley Moor

church resources, hymns, marriage, weddings

I was asked to write a wedding hymn to the tune of ‘On Ilkley Moor’ and due to my complete inability to work out how to get a normal 8686 metre to fit to the tune, I wrote this instead. I now do understand how to get existing 8686 words to fit, but thought I might as well keep the words.

Jesus made water into wine
For joy and celebration,
Bless-ed abundance as a sign:
Foretaste of heaven, love divine!

In sickness or in health
In poverty or wealth
The greatest gift is love.

What God has joined we’ll not divide:
For love endures for ever.
Faith, hope and love will still abide,
Two lives entwined, lived side by side.

In sickness or in health
In poverty or wealth
The greatest gift is love.

Vows made this joyful, solemn day,
To honour, love and cherish.
This is love’s kind and patient way,
Living the wondrous words we say.

In sickness or in health
In poverty or wealth
The greatest gift is love.

All age friendly sending out song

all age, children's ministry, hymns, worship

My train was delayed so while I waited I wrote this, to the tune of ‘I saw three ships’. It’s not profound, but it might be useful to someone somewhere.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
and show the love of heaven above,
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
Your peace to grow on earth below,
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
to share your grace in every place,
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
In all we say and think today
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Now send us out to serve you, Lord,
to live for you in all we do,
We gladly go to serve you, Lord,
on this and every morning.

Lent hymn

hymns, lent, Other cool stuff, worship

Written for Helen and her churches. Tune is Slane. 

Lord of our life, our beginning and end,
Our Father, our shepherd, our Saviour and friend,
We look to your teaching in each fresh new day
To lead us and guide us and show us your way.

Ten laws to teach us to live in your love,
Ten ways to make earth more like heaven above,
Ten rules to inspire all we think, say and do,
To help us be faithful in following you.

You are our safety, our great mother hen,
Whenever we wander you call us again,
We’ll always be drawn to your loving embrace
To nestle beneath the soft wings of your grace.

This is our story, and this is our song:
For we are your people, to you we belong,
Wherever life takes us, in all that we do,
Our hearts will find peace when we’re resting in you.

 

 

Advent Sunday song

church resources, hymns

This song was intended to make a link between the ‘Jesse Tree’ / Salvation History pathway through advent, and the Advent Sunday theme of keeping alert and being ready.
Tune: Sing hosanna

There’s a story to tell of creation,
And the patriarchs’ faith of old,
There are stories of prophets and sages,
We’ll repeat them ‘til the world’s been told:

Sing together! sing together!
Sing to welcome in the King of Kings.
Sing together! Sing together!
Sing to welcome in the King.

There are stories of sin and forgiveness,
Of a Kingdom of truth and love.
Of a girl who gave birth to a baby,
To fulfil God’s promise from above:

As God’s people prepare for his coming,
And remember those days long gone,
Our own stories are yet to be written,
As we live to make God’s kingdom come:

We will patiently wait for the morning,
Through the night we will watch and pray,
As we look for the light that is dawning,
We’ll be ready at the break of day:

A hymn for the Easter weekend

hymns

Every so often I write a hymn which is completely useless from a liturgical point of view, because it spans more than one liturgical ‘occasion’.  Here is one such – and it’s archived on the hymns page of this site, too, along with all the other bits and bobs of hymnody that I’ve come up with at one time or another.  This hymn is partly Good Friday, partly Easter Sunday. So yep, it’s liturgically pretty useless!


If we’d been there so long ago
When Jesus died upon the cross
Would we have walked with him along
That way of anguish, pain and loss?

Would we have stood and watched him there,
And heard him cry with dying breath?
Would we have seen him give his life,
and hand the victory to death?

Would we have grasped what nailed him there –
It was our pride and cruelty,
Our lying, fear, injustice – these
Died with our Lord upon the tree?

When dawn first broke on Easter day
And new light shone not from the sun
But from the Son, would we have seen
that dark had died and light had won?

But just as then, we turn our back,
The light is bright, our eyes are dim,
We live as if our Lord is dead,
And hand the triumph back to sin.

So break our hearts, these caves of stone,
To set the resurrection free,
And loose our limbs from darkness’ shroud
To live, and live abundantly.