Scargill House, June 2021
I’ve been away for a few days without a computer or Internet access, hence the lack of blog posts this week. I’ve kept up singing a hymn a day (actually rather more, having been on a walking holiday at Scargill House, Christian holiday centre) but rather than write about each of them separately, here’s a sort of summary of this week’s Sing Praise choices.
The actual hymns are: “Lord as I wake I turn to you” by Brian Foley; “Glory to God, the source of all our mission” by Christopher Idle; “Go into the world” by Sylvia Dunstan; and “At the dawning of creation” by David Fox.
The first is a morning hymn, reminding us that to keep in a good relationship with God requires us to remember God from our first waking thoughts, to praise him and pray to him regularly, give thanks, and live a life of love. That sounds like a lot of demands, but perhaps the key is in the last line of the first verse: “yourself the help for which I pray”. God does give us the help we need to do what he requires. His grace comes first; our praise, prayer and thankfulness are a response to it.
The middle two are both on the theme of mission. Sylvia Dunstan’s hymn is based on the Great Commission given by Jesus to his disciples before returning to Heaven, to take his message to all the world. It’s something we know we have to do but most of us find difficult to engage with, especially in a society that prizes freedom of belief and where evangelism can be criticised for “imposing our beliefs” even where that’s not the intention. Some of the phrases which stood out for me in Christopher Idle’s hymn were “Christ’s fellow workers”, and “linked by the cross… joined by the love… one in the hope…”. From Sylvia Dunstan’s I highlight “Go into every place, go live the word of Christ’s redeeming grace”, and “Go as the ones I send, for I am with you till the age shall end”. This mission, we have to remember, is not ours but his.
I chose the last of these because its theme is baptism, and today (24th June) is the feast of John the Baptist. He was perhaps the first Christian missionary, drawing people’s attention to Jesus even before Jesus started his own ministry, so although the hymn is not about mission as such, nor even specifically about John, there is a link with the other two, and the final line “to his life of love he calls us by his total sacrifice” again reminds us that it is Jesus himself who calls us to share in his own mission.