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.
Proclaiming afresh
Proclaiming afresh
Perfection of means
and confusion of goals:
we dream many dreams
but our efforts leave holes.
Our palette of values
is muddied and grey.
Lord Jesus,
you do not want it this way.
Now nobody knows
anything any more.
The spiritual grows
from a quivering floor.
A helper of Santa's
remembered in Psalm?
Lord Jesus,
you can give strength to our arm.
It's tea-bags or juice,
and the tea is served hot,
but juice is of use
if kept out of the pot.
If we want the freshness
we need something new!
Lord Jesus,
we need fresh flavour from you.
To thirsty you give,
and old dogs learn new tricks.
Your new life we'll live
even out in the Styx.
And when we meet Doris
she'll test us and say:
"Lord Jesus,
Christians are nice, and I'll stay."
Words and tune copyright © John Hartley 2006.
Story behind the song
This song was written following Paul Bayes' talk to the Rochester Diocesan Conference 2006 at Bognor Regis, on the subject "Afresh" (the third of three by different speakers on "Proclaiming the faith afresh").
In the talk, Paul quoted Einstein: "Perfection of means and confusion of goals is the characteristic of our age". We have so-called experts, but nobody knows anything any more and many predictions are wildly inaccurate. We live in a context of trying to paint a picture of morality with a palette of values, only to discover that all the colours have gone grey. The spirituality of our age is often incomprehensible, and people can describe their loved-ones at funerals in non-Christian terms (for instance as "one of Santa's little helpers") - but at these funerals, Christian hymns such as the 23rd Psalm are still chosen because these same people still find meaning in them.
And so, said Paul, the church needs to rediscover the virtues of freshness. Tea and fruit juice are both refreshing, but they can't be mixed in the same cup; nor can tea be refreshed by simply continuing to pour water on the same used tea-bag. If we want to blend different flavours we need to do so in a way which deliberately creates a new thing (for instance, lemon tea). We need to find a way of speaking to the ordinary folk in our age (the conference had included a lady called "Doris"), and we need to find ways of giving them something genuine so that they can discover that the faith of Jesus, expressed through the lives of Christians today, can meet a need in their lives.
The song seeks to summarise some of what Paul said, and to turn it into prayer.
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.