God of life,

thank you for each person you have placed in this congregation

and for the gifts you have given them.

We pray that everyone here—

rich and poor, men and women, young and old—

will find effective ways to use their gifts for the common good.

May our worship today encourage and challenge

all who come to know and use the gifts

you have them given for your purposes in this world.

Through Christ we pray. Amen.

 

You have made our vocation clear, O Lord. You call us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with you. We confess to you that our vocational record is at best spotty. We have become indifferent to corruption. We fritter away valuable time on questionable amusements. We gamble with money that could have blessed the poor. Cleanse, forgive, and redirect us, O God. Make us want to do what’s right and then empower us to do it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Loving and faithful God,

we bless you for calling us to be a holy people,

living for you in service to each other for the sake of your world.

We pray that our congregation will experience

a rich and free sharing of the gifts you have generously given us.

Knowing that we are called to be saints,

we humbly ask that you will work powerfully through us

to accomplish your purposes in the world.

We pray for the courage, the patience, and the generosity of spirit

that comes from imitating the love you have shown us in Christ.

We long for your Spirit’s power to make us more Christlike

in our thoughts, words, and deeds.

Help us to think of others and their needs even now as we pray for

creation, in its groaning . . .

the world, in its suffering . . .

our nation and city, in their need of healing . . .

We pray in the name of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever. Amen.

This text was written in 1981 combining two separate requests to Fred Pratt Green. Russell Schultz Widmar, then at the United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas, had requested a hymn text on vocation, and Eric Routley had asked if Fred could provide a new texty to sing to the tune REPTON. The tune REPTON was composed in 1888 for “Long Since in Egypt’s Plenteous Land” in Hubert Parry’s oratorio Judith and became associated with the hymn “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.” But Erik Routley thought the match of text and tune was not strong, since the final line for each stanza needed to be repeated to fill out the melody. Hence, his request to his friend Fred Pratt Green for a new text. The result was this hymn that was first published in Rejoice in the Lord (1985), for which Erik Routley served as editor. 

Already in the 1970s Erik Routley considered Fred Pratt Green (b. Roby, Liverpool, Lancashire, England, 1903-2000) to be the most important British hymn writer since Charles Wesley, and most commentators regard Green as the leader of the British "hymn explosion." Green was educated at Didsbury Theological College, Manchester, England, and in 1928 began forty years of ministry in the Methodist Church, serving churches mainly in the Yorkshire and London areas. A playwright and poet, he published his works in numerous periodicals, His poetry was also published collectively in three volumes, including The Skating Parson (1963) and The Old Couple (1976). Though he had written a few hymns earlier, Green started writing prolifically after 1966, when he joined a committee to prepare the Methodist hymnal supplement Hymns and Songs (1969) and was asked to submit hymn texts for subjects that were not well represented. His hymn texts, numbering over three hundred, have appeared in most recent hymnals and supplements and have been collected in 26 Hymns (1971), The Hymns and Ballads of Fred Pratt Green (1982), and Later Hymns and Ballads (1989). In 1982 Green was honored as a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.

Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (b. Bournemouth, England, 1848; d. Rustington, Sussex, England, 1918) was a major force in the revival of music in England in the late nineteenth century. He received an excellent musical education at Eton College and Exeter College, Oxford. Because his father did not want him to assume a musical career, he worked for Lloyd's Register of Shipping for three years. But ultimately his interest in music prevailed: he taught music at the Royal College of Music from 1883 to 1918 and at Oxford University from 1900 to 1918. Parry composed chamber music, piano and choral pieces, and English songs and symphonies. A cofounder of the Oxford University Music Club, he contributed articles to Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians and published The Art of Music (1893), Style in Musical Art (1911), and a biography of J. S. Bach (1909). A number of his hymn tunes were published in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1904).