Diocesan Readers
Lord of the Church adored in timeless worship
Who with the Father reigns on heaven’s throne,
Whose sending Spirit calls your baptised people
And gives them gifts to serve and make you known.
All praise to God the Three in One exalted
In heaven’s realm and all throughout the earth,
Be with your people in their various callings
As with one voice they join to tell your glorious worth.
Lord of the Church whose call to Reader service
Is held in prayer which seeks to know your will,
Be with each one admitted to this office
And through their work your purposes fulfil.
All praise to God...
Lord of the Church we seek the Father’s blessing
For every Reader ministering God’s Word,
Give to each one in telling the Christ story
That heart which preaches ‘Jesus Christ is Lord!’
All praise to God...
Lord of the Church we seek the Spirit’s filling
For Readers in their daily walk with you,
May each one know the love you set upon them
In all they are and all their work for you.
All praise to God...
Alan Brown 2003
Possible Tune: Londonderry Air.
Christian Aid
Lord your hungry world is groaning,
Starving victims die in pain,
Strengthless limbs collapse and stumble,
Tearful orphans beg in vain.
Lord your warring world lies wounded
Hostile factions spurn your peace,
Lives are wrecked by savage madness
Fear and hopelessness increase.
Lord your captive world is crying
Slanted justice rules by night,
Tortured prisoners plead for mercy
Robbed of every human right.
Lord your needy world is begging,
Crippling misery grinds the poor,
Homeless people search for shelter
In the city’s empty lure.
Lord your ravaged world is suffering
Human greed exploits its wealth,
Earth’s polluted air and waters
Show creation’s fragile health.
Lord your world is lost without you
All things cry to be restored,
Move in kingdom healing for us
Showing Jesus Christ is Lord!
Alan Brown
Possible Tune: ‘Cross of Jesus’ (Stainer)
Sea Sunday
Lord of the oceans vast and wide
With their deep and natural store
And each surging, racing tide
Breaking white on rocky shore.
Be with those whose venture’s call
Leads them on the untamed sea,
Bring them safe to their landfall,
Lord hear this our prayerful plea.
Lord when strong winds gale with might
Or their sudden beating squall,
And when tempest’s deadly bite
Threaten craft both large and small.
Be with...
Lord of nations, bless each crew
Sailing out on seaborne trade,
Grant them justice fair and true,
Let Christ’s church give caring aid.
Be with...
Lord with nerve and strength infill
Those who race by turbine power
Or sail seas in tested skill
When the wind make oceans tower.
Be with...
Lord beyond all human might
Fill with courage those who brave
Savage seas and danger’s plight
To save lives from water’s grave.
Be with...
Lord your way of faith holds sure,
Hope’s strong anchor in life’s need,
Grace and mercy stand secure
In salvation’s word and deed.
Christ who sailed on Galilee
Facing winds and stormy blast,
Keep us with your grace ‘till we
Reach your haven, safe at last.
Alan Brown: 2003-05-15
Possible tune: Hollingside (Jesu lover of my soul)
Written for the Trinity Praise Festival at Holy Trinity, Cowes.
Great God who robed in awesome light
Is hid from mortal human sight,
Though veiled in mystery from our gaze
All Heaven sings your glorious praise.
With angel hosts we bless your name-
One God unchangeably the same!
Great God whose truth and grace were seen
In human form on earthly scene,
Who in love’s service lived and died-
Now reigns, ascended, glorified!
With angel hosts we bless your name-
One God unchangeably the same!
Great God who came in tongues of fire
To fill ‘Christ’s Church and to inspire
Her life with kingdom zeal and love
Poured down in blessing from above.
With angel hosts we bless your name-
One God unchangeably the same!
Great God revealed in Christ the Son
In true Eternal Being one,
United with the Spirit Dove
In Godhead life and holy love.
With angel hosts we bless your name-
One God unchangeably the same!
Great God help us to love you more
That we may joyfully adore
The Three in One and One in Three
Of glorious triune majesty!
With angel hosts we bless your name-
One God unchangeably the same!
Canon Alan Brown :
Possible tune: Colchester, St Petersburg
Epiphany Carol
Learned wisemen saw the bright star
Rising in the eastern sky,
Pondered deeply on its meaning
As it shone down from on high.
On the journey from their homeland
This clear starsign lit their way,
So they followed where it led them
Seeking where the new king lay.
Over desert lands and mountains,
On through great Jerusalem’s walls
Seeking at the city’s palace
Their new king within its halls.
Herod’s scholars searched the scriptures
Knowing that its truth would yield
Lowly Bethlehem’s new ruler
In prophetic word revealed.
As the magi travelled onward
So the starsign led their way,
Stopping at the very household
Where the growing Christchild lay.
Like the wisemen knelt in worship
Bowed to David’s greater Son,
Give to him our love’s devotion
Worthy of God’s Holy One!
Canon Alan Brown
Possible tune: 175 Hyfrydol
The Baptism of Christ
Lord who stepped into the waters
One with human nature’s need,
In your sinlessness you showed us
Grace and mercy in love’s deed.
Lord who standing in the waters
Shared in baptism’s great rite,
In its faithfilled sign you raise us
Up from death’s destructive might.
Lord who rising from the waters
Knew the Dove’s descending flight
As the Father’s full anointing
Flooded down in Spirit-light.
Lord who moving from the waters
Heard your Father’s voice proclaim
You to be his Son from heaven,
Honoured in his love’s acclaim.
Lord who in the cleansing waters
Shows your saving love’s design,
Grace that comes to save and heal us,
Pledged in sacramental sign.
Lord who in the timeless waters
Makes your pilgrims people one,
Marks out our disciple journey
Serving you till life is done.
Lord through your life giving water
Help us live as those baptised
Into you in union’s oneness,
Free by love- with joy surprised!
Canon Alan Brown 2002
Feast of the Baptism of Christ
Possible tune: Love Divine
Lenten Hymn
Dear Lord you kept these forty days
With fasting and in prayer
And through the Spirit’s filling strength
Defeated Satan’s snare.
Lord in temptation’s cutting thrust
Which searched you through and through,
You used the written Scripture’s words
To set forth what is true.
Lord in deep hunger’s strong desire
And on the temple’s tower,
As at the mountain’s kingdom view
You conquered Satan’s power.
Lord in your testing faced and fought,
Your solemn hour drew on
When on the cross all Satan’s spite
Would strike you as God’s Son.
Lord give to us at every turn
The grace to do your will,
And through the Spirit and the Word
Choose you through good and ill.
Lord make your glory our first aim,
Your truth our love’s delight
To worship and to serve our God
With our whole beings might.
Canon Alan Brown: Len 2003
Possible tune: Metzlers Redhead Bristol Gerontius
Eastertide
Within a borrowed stone-sealed tomb
Christ’s broken body lay
In death’s strong grip and hold to wait
His Resurrection Day.
At dawn in early morning light
The women were dismayed
To find the Saviour’s body gone
From where he had been laid.
Though men had schemed and done their worst
Their plotting was in vain,
For God the Father’s mighty power
Had raised Christ up again.
The cast off grave clothes told their tale
As did the empty tomb,
That Death could never hold or keep
Christ in its misery’s gloom.
Christ raised to resurrection life
By love’s transforming lives
To share the hope his victory brings
With all his Father gives.
Christ’s glorious day we tell again,
Sin’s deadly sting is drawn,
And life and joy have come to birth
Through his great Easter’s Dawn!
Canon Alan Brown: 2003
Possible tune: Bishopthorpe, St Ethelreda
Lord of resurrection victory
Raised in triumph from the grave,
Conqueror of Satan’s terrors
Through your cross and power to save.
Alleliua! Alleluia!
Worthy is the Lamb once slain!
Alleluia! Alleliua!
Christ has died but lives again!
Lord of resurrection power
Bursting from Death’s stone-sealed tomb,
Seen alive by glad disciples
In their doubt-filled Upper Room.
Alleliua! Alleluia!...
Lord of resurrection glory
First-begotten from the dead,
Raised up by the Father’s power,
Worshipped as the Church’s Head.
Alleliua! Alleluia!...
Lord of resurrection living
Fire us with your Spirit’s blaze
Let your Easter people’s worship
Exalt you in joyful praise.
Alleliua! Alleluia!...
Canon Alan Brown:
Possible tune: HTC Ode to Joy
Ascensiontide
Reigning in ascended glory
Seated at the Father’s side,
Crowned with coronation splendour
Sits the Lamb once crucified.
Sing his praise, declare his honour
Praise his name through heaven and earth,
Join with angels as they worship
Christ in all his glorious worth!
Caught up in the clouds of glory
From the gaze of earthbound friends;
Angels welcomed him with rapture
In a joy which never ends.
Sing his praise, declare his honour
Laud his name through time and space,
Join with angels as they worship
Christ in all his majestic grace!
Bless the Father, bless the Saviour,
Bless the Spirit whom they send,
Bless the Three-in-One united
Bless with praise which knows no end.
Sing the praise of glorious godhead;
Praise the awesome Holy One;
Join with angels as they worship
Christ the crowned and reigning Son!
Canon Alan Brown: 2002
Tune: Hyfrydol
Remembrance Sunday
Lord of our memories distant days
As we remember times long gone
Of wars raw conflicts and its pains
When evil’s raging deeds were done,
Lord guard our world from war’s dark threat,
Let justice flow – lest we forget!
Lord, in those years of sacrifice
As we recall what duty claimed
In broken lives and crippled minds
Or wounded bodies harmed or mained;
Lord guard our world from war’s dark threat
Let healing flow – lest we forget!
Lord on this day when time is stilled
And Legions march with honoured pride,
When blood-red poppy flowers recall
Those friends who fought and fell and died,
Lord guard our world from war’s dark threat,
Let bugles sound – lest we forget!
Lord on this day, with thankful hearts
We ponder all you did and gave
To help us stand for freedom’s cause
And prove your mighty power to save,
Lord guard our world from war’s dark threat,
Let praise be sung – lest we forget!
Lord of these present restless times
When human suffering does not cease
And hope is driven from fait hearts,
Bring in Christ’s kingly reign of peace,
Lord guard our world from war’s dark threat,
Let faith grow strong – lest we forget.
Canon Alan Brown:
Possible tune: Colchester, St Petersburg, Melita
