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Audacious grace: a hymn for an Arminian, Wesleyan Pentecost

Audacious grace: to give without receiving,
to give expecting nothing in return
And through this grace, this moment still believing,
that love is something we can never earn.
This grace extends beyond our expectation, 
for not a one is found outside its span, 
this tender care, this steadfast loving kindness
has held the cosmos since all time began. 

No word or action, prayer or contemplation
can lift us us from this earth to heaven’s height,
nor can the supernova’s startling brilliance
compete with God’s eternal, ceaseless light.
In faith we sing beyond imagination,
beyond the limits of our common sense.
We frame a vision out of time’s contention, 
yet know its truth within our present tense. 


Andrew E. Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2024 © 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.
Tune: LONDONDERRY AIR

A hymn for this time and context -when a world calls out for healing – Christ’s Body has been broken

Toward Pentecost – when a world calls out for healing - Christ's body has been broken 

1	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.

2	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 parent, 
	'our Father' as we say, 
	when will we own the the meaning 
	of empty words we pray?

3	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 E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2018 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: 7 6 7 6 D
Tune: AURELIA