Last week I posted about the lyrics to 'O Church Arise' and how dissatisfied I was with their military imagery. I have written 2 new verses to the tune now, though I'm not entirely satisfied with them. I have taken my text from Romans 12, deciding to write a hymn about the body of the church rather than how, as a church, we can take up arms and fight. Each member of the church, the body of Christ, should be valued for what they can bring. I know that there are many people who do not value their gifts because they cannot preach or they find it difficult to talk to new people or they stumble over their words when they read out loud... but the church is much more than this and that is why I wanted to write about these varied gifts in my hymn. Here goes -
O Holy God, we bring ourselves to you
As a living sacrifice here.
We worship you each day of every year
In a world so sore and broken.
Transform our lives, renew our minds,
We'll follow your holy will.
Then we will see, and know that you are good,
Holy Lord, we seek your mercy.
In this your Church of different people
Bringing gifts so wide and varied,
Your grace allows each person here to serve
With the gifts you have provided.
Some prophesy and others serve,
Encouraging and kind giving,
In leadership and showing mercy
With the grace that comes from Jesus.
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2 comments:
Interesting points Emma.
I know what you mean about those kinds of words but I think that some of them are good and quite useful.
I think we just need to be clear though about who the enemy is! (id est not the world around us and non-Christians)
I think the "stand up" songs are great (in a way) because they encourage us to stand and be counted rather than just sitting on our backsides and being all fluffy about our faith. St. Paul himself encourages us to "fight the good fight". We just need to be clear about what we are fighting and about what the "good fight" is.
And I think that in many songs that fight is not clear. When singing about fighting, where the music is triumphant and the lyrics ambiguous, I think it can be unclear exactly what we are singing about. If we are going to sing about fighting at all then I think it has to be super clear exactly what we are talking/singing about. Fighting against 'the enemy' is all well and good, I just think we need to be clear about who 'the enemy' is before we get ourselves into a pickle.
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