Praise, Creation and Trinity
God formed the mountaintops
and gave to each their height,
and shaped the starry skies
that twinkle through the night.
So let our voices join in praise,
for God is good, our hearts we raise!
As age-to-age has passed,
the Spirit’s made the call
and lives have been transformed
like Samuel, Ruth and Paul.
God came to earth and shared
in human life and death:
Its joy, its hurt, its pain
and loved with every breath.
With justice, love and peace,
the hands of God embrace
the world and yearn to bring
release in every place.
This same creating God,
who circles us with love,
is here amongst us now,
present, and yet above!
© Gary Hopkins 2007
Metre: 66 66 88
Suggested tune: Millennium
Love, Relationships and Belonging
Come, all who seek for love and its renewing,
gather in peace and look to God above;
unfold hard hearts and let Christ’s swift enduing
renew, restore and fill each heart with love.
Love is the key to unlock heaven’s beauty,
with every turn God’s power can make a way;
strength found in love that’s true and not cold duty:
love’s climax opens God’s eternal day.
When guilt destroys the hope, and joy is far gone,
love’s promise stays and echoes once again:
nothing can part us from God’s love and pardon,
the end in Christ is in God’s heavenly reign.
Then at the end, with Christ, there’ll be love’s treasure,
sealed with the kiss of Spirit, Maker, Word,
flung open wide with joy beyond all measure,
consumed in love and harmony restored.
© Gary Hopkins 2010
Metre: 11 10 11 10
Suggested tune: Highwood
Thanks for friends who keep on loving,
finding ways to help us grow,
celebrating our achievements,
sharing in our pain and woe.
God is glimpsed where love is faithful:
mirrored here in time and space.
Thanks to God for friends who love us:
Christ revealed in every face.
Other people help to shape us
when they take the time to share
words of wisdom, honest actions
through our journey in God’s care.
In our faithful, honest learning
we discover things unknown.
Thanks to God for friends who teach us:
seeking talent yet ungrown.
When we find our friendships challenged
through mistakes and different views,
we discover deeper living
as the love of God renews.
For in Christ we see forgiveness;
know a strength still to embrace.
Thanks to God for friends who keep us:
making real the gift of grace.
Praise to God for this great gifting
of relationship and friend:
imaging divine relating;
found in heaven with no end.
Bless us Maker, Word and Spirit
as companions on the way.
Thanks to God for friends who help us
to fulfil our lives each day.
© Gary Hopkins 2012
Metre: 87 87 D
Suggested tunes: Heanish
Available in Singing the Faith, no. 619
This day we come to celebrate
the love that calls uniting;
a gift from God that is so great,
two joining, with rejoicing.
Deep love, together bind these two;
their paths be shared, one journey!
Beginnings new, come breaking through,
and fade the doubts that may be.
With loving hearts, they give to share,
uniting hopes and visions;
commitment here they now declare
with joyous celebrations.
O God of love, give rich blessing
upon love that embraces
and may your presence in loving
be cherished in all places.
© Gary Hopkins 2005
Metre: 87 87
Suggested tune: St Columba
Everyday Faith, Doubt and Discernment
As I stumble through my life, God,
there are times when I despair,
long to know your presence near me,
find an answer to my prayer.
Still, I speak and hope you hear me,
hear the words I try to say,
wondering if you care about me
and what happens day to day?
Round each corner of my life, God,
I can question where you are,
think you’re missing, never listening,
only watching from afar.
As I gaze into the darkness,
pondering what my life’s about,
I remember all we’ve been through
and I wonder why I doubt.
Then I know you’ve never left me,
always been there from the start,
and I’m sorry for my doubts, God,
we will never be apart.
Help me lean on all you’ve promised,
know that on you I depend:
as you’ve kept me, so you’ll keep me
from this day until the end.
© Gary Hopkins 2012
Metre: 87 87D
Suggested tune: Nettleton
Eternal source of humankind
be near us in life’s stress:
relieve the strain of troubled mind,
dispel our worries, let us find
your comfort and closeness.
When daily pressures take their toll
in endless busyness,
as social systems claim control
and drown the murmurs of our soul,
enfold us in stillness.
Come, Holy Spirit, help us heed
the presence of your dove:
subdue the noise of selfish greed,
of wealth creation and false need
with whispers of your love.
O guide us through life’s complex maze
with gentleness and peace:
to soothe the rush of hectic days,
come calming Spirit, clear the haze
and let us find release.
© Gary Hopkins 2013
Metre: 86 886 (6)
Suggested tune: Repton
The gift of freedom brings us choice
which often makes us torn:
should we fulfil our earthly wants
or live our lives reborn?
Each choice we make is like a drop
that falls into a lake
and ripples out beyond our sight
with power to make or break.
God, make us wise to our impact
in choices we control
and help us choose the way of Christ
that makes another whole.
Forgive us, God, when freedom brings
enslavement and abuse;
encourage us to sacrifice
and think each time we choose.
O God of love, expand our minds
to see beyond the shore
and look at how each drop affects
the world that you adore.
© Gary Hopkins 2012
Metre: 86 86
Suggested tune: Contemplation
Church, Unity and Mission
In this family, here together,
with the Godhead, One but Three,
may our friendship, warmth and loving
radiate for all to see.
Hearts that care and hold each other
in the Spirit, Father, Son.
Sisters, brothers, here united:
love embraces everyone.
Busy though in all our workings,
may we never fail to hear
cries of people needing friendship
and the wiping of a tear.
Guide us Spirit in our mission,
reaching outward, sharing grace:
hope to give the world around us,
touching lives with God’s embrace.
Though we offer rousing worship,
prayers of beauty, awesome song,
rendered useless is this offering
in ignoring those who long.
Feel God’s heartache, anguish, torment,
for the suffering, lonely, hurt,
then remember Christ’s compassion:
give to others, Jesus taught!
We the body of God’s people,
not yet finished, journeying,
need to love and serve our neighbour:
all the Church, Christ echoing.
Help us God to build your kingdom,
not our way, but from above,
looking upward, ever striving
till it’s done – one Church of love!
© Gary Hopkins 2005
Metre: 87 87 D
Suggested tune: Bethany
The Light of Christ now guides the way to go,
shines through our hearts, so all the world can know:
God loves and cares for all humanity
and yet we hide that light too easily!
This dwindling light must into action leap,
the Church must rise where it is deep asleep;
Christ calls us on to share the grace love’s given
and distribute the blessings of God’s heaven.
Not for a few did to the cross Christ go,
but for all people, God’s vast love to show;
then let us stand and shout that it is done,
all may now come and know life through the Son.
Outward we’re called, now stop the search within;
self-centredness has been the Church’s sin!
There is a world that cries in agony,
wake up, O Christians, look around and see.
Spirit renew our lives in serving all,
let every church hear God’s embracing call:
go through the world and preach the risen Son,
show those who long, what God, for all, has done!
© Gary Hopkins 2006
Metre: 10 10 10 10
Suggested tune: Woodlands
When community is broken
and division sows heartache
when our egos clash in anguish
with false pride we cannot shake.
Let us seek God’s restoration
to make new what we’ve betrayed
and in sorrow pray for healing
so our discord starts to fade.
We have looked to other places
ascribed blame for what’s amiss
but God calls us here to notice
all the problems we dismiss.
Let’s confess to one another
and acknowledge our own part
recognising what’s not good here
with humility of heart.
May we never forge a false peace
or a unity that’s fake
fabricating shallow image
for our reputation’s sake.
For Christ’s gospel is much richer
shunning all that is not true
weaving unity and justice
till God’s real peace breaks through.
For uniquely God has made us
and our views might disagree
but we’re called to love each other
as God’s holy family.
Help us, God, to be much better –
a community that thrives –
so the world may know we love you
in the way we live our lives.
© Gary Hopkins 2025
When our views are varied
and emotions strong,
when belief feels threatened,
claiming others wrong;
show us how to listen
and to not accuse,
open and respectful
to each other’s views.
If we let division
distract from Christ’s reign,
we neglect our calling
to aid those in pain:
Justice must speak louder
than our claims to right;
love must be our essence,
living in the light.
God, forgive your people
in our broken state;
we your church have fostered
prejudice and hate.
Let us embrace difference
in our unity;
for the church is richer
with diversity.
Through a dim-lit mirror,
partial truth we know
and as we discover,
grace and love must grow.
Let God’s truth shine brighter
into every place
till we know completely
and see face to face.
© Gary Hopkins 2012
Metre: 65 65 D
Suggested tune: Evelyns
Lament, Suffering and Comfort
When troubles are around us
and all we see is pain,
may love surround the hurting ones
and healing come again.
God’s care and love is stronger
than all the world’s distress,
so for the love that reaches out
we’ll praise God through darkness.
There’s hope that tries to linger
amidst this darkened world
and echo God’s eternal love
where helpless ones are held.
But when we see such anguish,
of torment and despair,
we find it hard to mean the words,
’We’ll praise God,’ in our prayer.
When suffering is questioned
no quick reply appears
and Jesus didn’t give answers
but shared life’s hurt and tears;
this love that keeps us going
in Christ will never end,
so for the hand that tries to help
we’ll praise God as our friend.
Give praise to God who holds us
and knows our every tear,
whose Spirit walks the path with us
to love and keep us near.
We cannot see the future
or know just what’s in store,
but for the closeness through heartache
we’ll praise God evermore.
In heaven we shall gather
and there’ll be no more pain;
for God will heal and tend the wounds
and peace with joy shall reign.
When all the harm of past years
has faded at that place,
in harmony and one accord
we’ll praise God face to face.
© Gary Hopkins 2011
Metre: 76 86 76 86
Justice, Peace and Prophetic Prayer
God, our anger at injustice
swells from deep within our core:
anger at decision makers
for oppression we deplore;
anger at the ones who lead us
for indifference to the poor;
anger at the lies, deception,
selfishness that we abhor.
Systems made to serve the privileged,
tightly gripped by those with power –
stripping others of life chances –
edicts from an ivory tower.
God our anger fires within us:
bring your justice, liberate;
come and shatter worldly systems;
take the least and make them great!
Channel grief and anger in us;
let us be your voice and hands.
Spirit, guide our justice-seeking,
take us where your love demands.
Christ destroys the powers and forces,
chains of bondage, unjust strife,
not by might and raging violence
but a sacrificial life.
How long, Maker, Word and Spirit,
till such evils are reversed?
How long till your reign’s accomplished
and the last become the first?
Hear us God, we pray for justice,
hear our cries for those oppressed,
hear our voices, never silenced,
till the least are truly blessed.
© Gary Hopkins 2020
Metre: 87 87 D
Suggested Tune: Nettleton
I dream this world will wake up and see the grief and pain –
lives broken by division, the barriers that remain –
to see that all our hatred brings misery and tears
and conflict with each other will never quench our fears.
For there must be another way to be this human race;
together we can find it and build a better place.
A place where lives are cherished and no one has it rough,
where no one is neglected and each one has enough.
This dream will be accomplished in give and not in take;
through sharing with each other a new world we can make.
A world of peace and justice, with love for everyone,
where hand in hand, united, we all can live as one.
© Gary Hopkins 2011
Tune: Thaxted (I vow to thee, my country – from Jupiter by Holst)
Passion and Resurrection
As Jesus walked to die,
he knew his time had come.
He sensed the pain, he saw
his hour was drawing near.
He could have stopped
and turned away,
without having
to taste such death.
But he then knew for sure,
there was no other way.
He had to give his life
for all who face judgement.
And on he went
for me and you,
that we might live
and never die.
As soldiers led him to
the place where he would die,
his eyes looked on the last
landscape, just moments left.
And there he stood,
naked and cold,
a cut and bruised
back from their whip.
They forced him on a cross,
nails drove into his wrists.
Lifted up high, struggling
to breathe, unbearable pain!
A crown of thorns
piercing his head,
a tear rolling
upon his cheek.
There did his body hang,
as though he was a thief.
His flesh torn out, his blood
dripping, the agony!
His greatest crime
is that he loves,
the world with all
his broken heart.
With his last few short breaths,
his heart could take no more,
he cried ‘My God, O why
have you forsaken me?’
He then collapsed,
the earth did quake,
and darkness fell
on all the land.
Jesus, you gave your life,
there is no greater love.
Help me to understand
and mourn your death for me.
You are my all,
my greatest friend,
and I am yours
eternally.
© Gary Hopkins 2004
Metre: 66 66 44 44
Suggested tune: Love unknown
When hopes are dashed and all seems lost
in emptiness and silent prayer,
the love of God delights to prove
the possible in sheer despair.
And when the world still crucifies
through selfish acts of hate and greed,
the resurrection light of Christ
seeks to renew in love and deed.
The hand of love that reaches out,
in tender care of human pain,
speaks of the cosmic love of God,
which no confinement could contain.
For when the love of God is glimpsed,
and whispers through each broken place,
an empty tomb is found again
and Jesus lives in time and space.
© Gary Hopkins 2010
Metre: 88 88 (Long Metre)
Suggested tune: O Waly Waly