This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
Listen to the word
Listen to the word
Listen! Listen to the word of the Lord!
Living, active as a sharp two-edged sword!
Discerning the thoughts and intentions of the soul
Piercing and cutting, binding, making whole,
Listen to the word today:
Don't ignore what God will say.
Come, Jesus, the one who sustains all things
by your powerful word.
Come, fill us, transform us, O King of kings
as your message is heard.
Listen! Listen ...
Come, Jesus, Apostle and great High Priest
whom the Lord set apart.
Come, fill us, encourage and bring release
from our hardness of heart.
Listen! Listen ...
Come, Jesus, though tempted in every way,
yet you were without sin.
Come, fill us, restore us by grace today,
put your Spirit within.
Listen! Listen ...
Words and music copyright © John Hartley 2008. All rights reserved.
Based on Hebrews 4:12, 1:3, 3:1&8f and 4:15-16.
Story behind the song
While at the General Synod meeting of July 2008 I attended Sunday worship at St Michael le Belfry, York, and observed a new development in their 11am service: the service included a coffee break about 20 minutes in, and the coffee break finished with a "gathering song" called "Listen now for the Gospel" (originally from Zimbabwe and translated by John Bell of the Iona community). I thought it was an innovation worth trying at Eccleshill, and this song is inspired by what I heard.
I'm grateful to friends from CSO for their critiques, in one of which it was pointed out that gathering people can take some while and it would be useful to have some verses up one's sleeve even if one didn't use them. So I decided I should add some verses - they are also based on phrases from the letter to the Hebrews. And I'm grateful in particular to August Mosco for a suggestion about how to bring the end of verse 1 into the present tense.
John Hartley.
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.