Enduring Hymns Songs of Praise


Enduring Hymns

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They're sung in concert halls...

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..on the terraces...

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..in school...

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..and of course, in church.

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Well, as the new Methodist hymn book, Singing The Faith is published,

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I'm here in Oxford to find out what makes a hymn not just inspire, but endure.

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We have a celebration of hymns, both old and new from our congregation,

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from Wallingford Parish Church Choir

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and from soloists, Wynne Evans and Melanie Marshall.

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It was here in Oxford

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as undergraduates in the 18th century that John and Charles Wesley founded the movement

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which became the Methodist Church.

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Charles wrote so many hymn texts - more than 8,000 in all -

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that it's said that Methodism really was born in song.

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So where better for our congregation to sing out their faith

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than here - at Oxford's Wesley Memorial Church -

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starting with Charles's hope never to tire of singing God's praise.

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John Betjeman described hymns as "the poems of the people".

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They've given countless phrases to the English language

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and are Britain's most distinctive contribution to Christian worship and literature.

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No other country has produced such an abundance of great hymn writers,

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like the man they call the "Father of Hymnody", Isaac Watts

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and of course, Charles Wesley himself.

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His work has certainly stood the test of time

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and in fact there are nearly 80 of his best-loved hymns

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in this new edition.

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Hymns have always been special to this year's head of the Methodist Church, the Reverend Alison Tomlin.

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I think the reason that I sing is because

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music touches the depths of who we are -

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music touches the heart, music touches the soul.

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And sometimes it's more possible to express what is going on for us

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in our worship and in my personal praying by singing it.

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# Hum, hum... # Keep going...

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Let me hear you. # Come all ye people come and pray... #

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Another advocate of community hymn-singing is the hymn writer,

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John Bell.

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Methodists do it very well because they believe they can sing and they live out that belief.

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Anglicans and some others believe that the choirs can sing

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and so the congregation feels it's not their job so much.

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When you reverse that

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and allow people to know all God's people have a voice,

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and that when God says, "Sing me a new song,"

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it's not just the choir that's involved, it's the whole community.

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When you persuade people that that is their duty and their joy,

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then magic things happen and people enjoy it.

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For me personally, it's very important,

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because my mother, who was a singer,

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sang her faith when she was washing up, when she was cleaning,

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in the garden. I was brought up singing my faith

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and it goes on being very, very important to me.

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The last Methodist hymn book, Hymns And Psalms, was published in 1983.

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Singing The Faith has been produced in response to the explosion

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in the amount of music that has been written for worship since then.

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With literally thousands of hymns to choose from,

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how on Earth do you decide what to include and what to leave out?

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We sang them!

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Every hymn and psalm, we have sung,

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to ensure that it was singable.

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We want the hymn book to be for congregational use,

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for people to use it in our churches and chapels on a Sunday.

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The only possible way to do that was actually to try out every hymn and every psalm.

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The new hymn book is very much a matter of preserving

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the best of the old and trying to bring in the best of the new.

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Singing is an emotional experience - it's not just from the head.

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It's from the heart as well.

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A great hymn enables us to join those two things together.

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Some hymns lend themselves to being sung in different ways

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on different occasions, like the hymn that's often thought of as the unofficial Welsh National Anthem,

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Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer.

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And in fact it was in the Methodist hymn book which was published

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in 1933 that those words were first partnered

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with that magnificent tune, Cwm Rhondda,

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so it's going to be sung for us now, of course, by a Welshman - the wonderful tenor, Wynne Evans.

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# Guide me, O thou great redeemer

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# Pilgrim through this barren land

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# I am weak, but thou art mighty

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# Hold me with thy powerful hand

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# Bread of heaven

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# Bread of heaven

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# Feed me now and evermore

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# Feed me now and evermore

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# Open now the crystal fountain

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# Whence the healing stream doth flow

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# Let the fiery cloudy pillar

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# Lead me all my journey through

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# Strong deliverer

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# Strong deliverer

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# Be thou still my strength and shield

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# Be thou still my strength and shield

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# When I tread the verge of Jordan

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# Bid my anxious fears subside

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# Death of death

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# And hell's destruction

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# Land me safe on Canaan's side

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# Songs of praises

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# Songs of praises

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# I will ever give to thee

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# I will ever give to thee

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# Bread of heaven

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# Bread of heaven

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# Feed me till I want no more

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# Feed me till I want no more. #

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The new book from the Methodist Church has over 800 hymns and songs.

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These are for singing at every stage of life,

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at every time of the year

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and at every point on a journey of faith.

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There's a hymn for every human emotion and condition

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and more than ever, hymns are a resource

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for life in the modern world.

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# Alleluia... #

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The largest number of hymns by a living composer

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in singing the faith,

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44 of them in all,

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are by John Bell.

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People's understanding of God and discipleship

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is much more often based on what they sing

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than on what they hear preached.

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You sing a hymn, perhaps four or five times a year

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but you only hear the best sermon once in your life,

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unless the vicar thinks, "That's so good, I'll do it again next Sunday."

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A hymn only has longevity

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as long as it speaks to people.

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When it becomes an antique that you bring out and dust,

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we should leave it alone.

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It's very interesting how some of the oldest hymns,

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like, O Come O Come Emmanuel or some of the hymns by Martin Luther,

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endure forever.

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So, I would never write off old hymns because they're old.

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There are some which speak

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with an eternal truth and resonance.

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The music is a means, by which the words can be conveyed.

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A good example of that would be the word "alleluia".

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On its own, it doesn't really say very much

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but put that to a melody and the delight in it comes out.

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The same with Happy Birthday To You.

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I mean, if I were to say that to you, it would be pretty dull,

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but if I were to sing it to you, then it might be more enjoyable.

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So, the music is the vehicle by which the words

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are both remembered

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and also transmitted.

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When the music becomes so decorative

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that it becomes a distraction from the words,

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then we're in danger of getting the balance askew.

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You will often include modern day issues

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that other writers shy away from.

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Abuse, for example.

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Are you deliberately trying to push boundaries with that?

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We have been remiss

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in allowing these very genuine experiences of life

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to be reflected in words and music

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and in worship.

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That means people who are affected by these particular eventualities

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have a part of their life always omitted. Always omitted.

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We'll, we're about to sing one of your hymns now.

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Tell us about it, what prompted you to write it?

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The hymn, Today I Awake...

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..comes out of realising that we didn't have many hymns for mornings.

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It doesn't matter if it's a dull morning or if it's a bright morning,

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it's a new morning, it's a new day.

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And I wanted to celebrate that.

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And remember that within the Celtic tradition,

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the old Saints, Columba and Patrick

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had an affection for wrapping round themselves

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the attributes of God.

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And also it celebrated that God was three persons -

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Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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So in this hymn,

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we surround ourselves with the attributes of God

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and we remember Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

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all one God in the Trinity.

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What makes some of the hymns we love really powerful

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is the unforgettable bond

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in our minds and memories

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of the words and the music.

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But for me, it's the words that really count

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and I think that's because many hymn verses started life as poems,

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often written at times of great emotional insight.

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And however long ago

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the words were written,

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the sentiments might well echo

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our own today.

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Like those expressed by the 17th-century writer

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of My Song Is Love Unknown.

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In his text, Samuel Crossman is full of wonder for a God

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who is not just a majestic king able to create the Heavens,

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but also a caring friend,

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showing love to the loveless,

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willing to die for our sake.

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# My song is love unknown

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# My saviour's love to me

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# Love to the loveless shown

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# That they might lovely be

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# But who am I

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# That for my sake

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# My Lord should take frail flesh and die?

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# He came from his blest throne

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# Salvation to bestow

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# But men made strange, and none

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# The longed-for Christ would know

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# But O! My friend

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# My friend indeed

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# Who for my need his life did spend

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# In life no house, no home

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# My Lord on Earth might have

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# In death no friendly tomb

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# But what a stranger gave

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# What may I say?

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# Heav'n was his home

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# But mine the tomb wherein he lay

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# Here might I stay and sing

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# No story so divine

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# Never was love, dear king

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# Never was grief like thine

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# This is my friend

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# In whose sweet praise

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# I all my days

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# Could gladly spend. #

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In 1761, John Wesley published

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his Seven Rules For Singing

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and in one of them he said, "Sing lustily and with good courage.

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"Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep;

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"but lift your voice with strength.

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"Be no more afraid of your voice now,

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"nor more ashamed of its being heard,

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"then when you sung the songs of Satan."

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PIANO PLAYS

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Someone who helps congregations

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sing lustily and with good courage,

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is Paul Leddington Wright.

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He's conducted numerous editions of Songs Of Praise, including this one

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and has contributed to the new hymn collection.

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It's been great fun,

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seeing what the needs are of the book.

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I think there are times when there is a tune,

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which couples with a set of words.

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So, you see a true marriage of melody and of text

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and it really works

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and then it can be absolutely scintillating.

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They support each other, like a true marriage of a man and a woman,

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how in a great relationship, things can really take off

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and it's the same with a good hymn.

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If you're writing a new tune,

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the words are always the springboard.

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I'll look at the text and decide on the sort of style it might go

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and then I'll just play around, literally sitting at the piano

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and play around with melodic ideas,

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harmonic ideas and see what emerges.

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Tell us about our next piece,

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because you've written the music.

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Well, the words are by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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and I'm sure everybody knows

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that he was a German pastor

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and he was imprisoned in the Second World War.

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His writings are so important,

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so valuable to the work of the church, and very sadly

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he was martyred,

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literally days before the end of the Second World War,

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which is just such a tragedy.

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But one of his texts,

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"We turn to God

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"when we are sorely pressed,"

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is in the book

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and there are just three verses

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and it's just really about how, in times of trouble

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and in times of need,

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we turn to God and God is there to help us

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and he is with us whatever,

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through thick and through thin.

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Christianity spread across the globe

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to become the world's largest single faith.

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In many parts of the world it's continuing to grow.

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Whereas some of the early Christian missionaries

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imposed their own Western ideas on other cultures,

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today, British churches are drawing on the music and traditions

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of many other parts of the world to inspire their own worship.

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From the global church,

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I tend to take courage in approaching subjects

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which otherwise might be avoided.

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And also, you find a liveliness in music in other cultures,

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which we don't always have here.

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Typically, hymns in Britain are quite foursquare.

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People are a wee bit afraid of syncopation

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as if it were a medical procedure that wasn't very good for them.

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And so, when we sing a song from Africa or from South America,

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and it is slightly lively,

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people think, "Oh, no. This is not quite right."

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What's happening is a part of our brain

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is being encouraged to be part of worship,

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which lies dormant when we're singing a foursquare hymn.

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Christ's church is an international church, it's a global church

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and it's about all those people who have a faith,

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who worship the same God, wherever they might live on this globe.

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You know, clearly we wanted to have something from another country

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and I felt that this song was great fun - Santo Santo Santo.

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It's got very jazzy rhythms,

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very syncopated

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but it's very workable.

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Life-giving God

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Thank you for words that challenge

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Thank you for music that inspires

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Thank you for song and dance

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And tears and laughter

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May our worship offer you

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All the praise you deserve

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And may it also unite us

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In your service and in Your Name

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Amen.

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Well, a truly classic and inspiring hymn

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may well have been written centuries ago

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but it might also be a relative youngster,

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like our last one today,

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written in 1972 by Methodist minister, Fred Pratt Green.

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And in this timeless favourite, he sums up

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just how much hymns and great music can bring to our worship.

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So, from me, to hymn lovers everywhere, goodbye.

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Next week,

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Songs Of Praise comes face to face with some famous people,

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as Aled visits Madame Tussauds'

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wax museum to discover how a French woman

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created a British institution.

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And he'll introduce more fantastic hymns.

0:33:400:33:43

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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E-mail [email protected]

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