Music Sheet for Our Father Who Art in Heaven Childrens Version

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Our Father, who art in sky

The Reverend Dr Leslie Griffiths reflects upon the way the global Christian family unit is united through the Lord's Prayer. From Wesley's Chapel in the City of London.

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In the beginning of an occasional series exploring the Lord's Prayer, the Revd Dr Leslie Griffiths reflects upon the way in which the global Christian family unit is united through this most familiar of all prayers, and how everyone enjoys the privilege of calling God 'Male parent.' The service comes alive from Wesley's Chapel in the heart of the City of London where over xx languages may be heard in its various international congregation.

With: St Martin'southward Voices
Music Manager: Andrew Earis
Organist: Elvis Pratt
Producer: Simon Vivian.

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Please note:

This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission, every bit it was prepared before the service was circulate. Information technology may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and small-scale spelling and other errors that were corrected before the radio broadcast.

It may contain gaps to exist filled in at the time then that prayers may reflect the needs of the globe, and changes may also be made at the concluding infinitesimal for timing reasons, or to reverberate current events.

Radio Four Continuity Anno
BBC Radio Four. It's 10 past viii and fourth dimension at present for Sunday Worship which comes live from Wesley'southward Chapel in the City of London. It's led past the Superintendent, the Rev'd Dr Leslie Griffiths, and is the first of an occasional serial of services reflecting on the Lord's Prayer.

MUSIC (SOLO: Robert Maginley)
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed exist thy name;
thy kingdom come on earth as in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

2. SPEECH (Leslie Griffiths):
Good morning wherever you are from the heart of London. "Our Father," the opening words of the near familiar prayer known to Christians in every part of the world, establishes the theme for this morning's service. More of that in a moment.

Here in London, our church stands like the hub of a bike whose spokes signal out into different worlds. To the due south of us lies the City of London, the Square Mile, with its banks and businesses and a history dating back to the Romans. To the east lie the thriving, throbbing, clublands of Shoreditch and Hoxton, flooded, especially at weekends, past hordes of young people upwards for a skillful time. North of us, the new kid on the block, is the high-tech globe of start-upwards companies, thousands of them, all centring on the Old Street Roundabout now fondly referred to as Silicon Roundabout. And west of us, but beyond the street, is the Bunhill Fields cemetery - a centuries-old burying ground for people who trod the road of dissent, people like John Bunyan, George Fox, William Blake and Isaac Watts. Yes, we're at the hub of all that. And we too have our own history to be proud of - we're the mother church of world Methodism; ours is a bijou Georgian edifice put upwards by John Wesley, the founding father of Methodism. He lived, died, and was cached here and his soul goes marching on.

At the beginning of the service nosotros heard the opening words of a Caribbean version of the "Our Father" sung by my colleague Robert Maginley, built-in and raised in Antigua. He'll be the cantor at present as we sing the whole prayer; this time we can all join in the responses.

iii. MUSIC (antiphonally – Robert Maginley and the congregation):
"Our Father." (tune: traditional Caribbean tune).

4. Oral communication (Leslie Griffiths):
Dear Lord, our father in sky, nosotros gather together in your name to sing your praise and to offer yous our worship. In this joyous season of Easter, we cheers for the practiced news you have imparted to us – the story of a love that, even when assailed by cruelty and mockery, even when carrying an immense brunt of suffering and pain, even when faced by the nighttime reality of expiry, remained unbroken, undiminished, untarnished, correct to the end. Yours, dear Lord, is a love that volition non permit us get and we pray for religion and hope in sufficient mensurate never to allow become of it. Accept our worship this morn as nosotros seek to express those mysteries which lie across words and whose significant breathes life into our deepest selves.
Nosotros offer this prayer in the name of the risen Lord Jesus who, with you and the Holy Spirit, is one God, now and forever.
ALL: Amen.

The Lord'south Prayer seems always to have been part of my life. Indeed, in my earliest days, it seemed to be role of our national life. All children were taught it in schoolhouse and recited it at school assemblies. Nosotros weren't church goers in our family and information technology's salutary to think that I learned the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples in a secular surroundings rather than a religious one. What'due south more, I learned information technology in Welsh also equally in English: "Ein tad, yr hwn wyt yn y nefoedd" here are words every bit familiar to me as "Our father who art in heaven." And so, much later in my life, while living in faraway Haiti, these words wormed their way into my innermost heed in French and, marvellously, in Créole besides. "Notre Père qui es au ciel", "Bon dieu, papa nou, ki nan sièl la,". All of this has served every bit a vivid reminder that the God we acknowledge in prayer is not the God of whatever item nationality. He is "our" God, everyone'due south God, whatsoever linguistic communication they speak, wherever they alive, whatever their cultural or indigenous identity.

This morning, we're joined here in Wesley's Chapel by St Martin's Voices, and they're now going to sing "Notre Père" – "Our Father" – a version of the Lord's Prayer in French to a setting past Maurice Duruflé. And so we'll hear a few verses from the 6th chapter of St Matthew's gospel, role of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus instructs his followers how to pray.

five.MUSIC (St Martin'south Voices):
(Notre Père by Maurice Duruflé)

6. Voice communication (Dr Joy Leitch): Matthew 6: v1 and 7-15
A reading from St Matthew'due south gospel, chapter 6, beginning to read at verse seven.

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to exist seen past them; for then yous have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Then, whenever you lot pray, practise not be similar the hypocrites: for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, in guild to be seen by others….Whenever you pray, go into your room and close the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward yous….Exercise not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do…they recall that they will exist heard because of their many words. Just pray like this:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your volition exist washed, on globe as it is in heaven. Requite usa this twenty-four hours our daily bread. And forgive us our sins as nosotros forgive those who sin against u.s.a.. Relieve us from the time of trial and deliver the states from evil.

This is the word of the Lord
ALL: Thank you be to God.

seven. MUSIC (Hymn with organ)
Christ from whom all blessings menstruation (Melody: Vienna)

8. SPEECH (Leslie Griffiths) Sermon: OUR Father
No other prayer that I know opens in a more than explosive manner. Merely those two words, "Our Begetter", ordinary everyday words, are charged with enough ability to change the world. And yet they so often get passed over, an unthinking familiarity convenance a craven antipathy. How often have I heard the worship leader invite his congregation to say the Lord's Prayer together by beginning information technology himself, "Our Male parent," he says earlier everyone else joins in with the words "who fine art in heaven"? And those 2 precious words are lost, they become the belongings of a single person instead being proclaimed by the people as a whole.

The word "our" is where information technology all begins. Not "my" merely "our." We're all in this together. Here at Wesley's Chapel we have members from dozens of countries in every continent of the world. That first word hits the bullseye every time – the God nosotros invoke is the God of everyone present, wherever they come from and whoever they are. In recent times we've wept with our American members at the senseless killing of people attention a prayer coming together in the Mother Emmanuel African Methodist Church in South Carolina; and with our Fijian members recovering from the devastating effects of hurricane Winston which struck their homeland; and nigh recently with our Pakistani members at news of the terrorist assault on civilians (specially Christians) in Lahore. For them and everyone else, our differences are subsumed in the word "our" – nosotros belong to each other and all of us, along with the host of heavenly witnesses, - both past and time to come - belong to the ane and merely God whom together we approach in prayer. Great strength comes from our togetherness.

But the next give-and-take "Father" takes things much further, makes claims that are even more radical. To assistance us picture this, my colleague Jennifer Potter is going to assist us to imagine a struggle that took place over a century agone.
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nine. Oral communication (Jennifer Potter):
1 day, in the summer of 1883, two Methodist ministers were in deep and hostage conversation as they walked together beyond Clapham Common. One was quite elderly and moved stiffly with the aid of a stick. He was Dr William Pope, a very fine scholar who'd written several influential books. The other was Scott Lidgett, a boyfriend in his twenties who was already showing signs of the not bad leader he seemed destined to become.

The two men took this walk often simply today there was definitely something special in the air. Dr Pope could inappreciably contain himself. "I've done it at last," he alleged with obvious delight. Scott Lidgett knew that the old man had spent the morning at a coming together of the Canon Commission and couldn't begin to imagine how annihilation that happened there could have filled Dr Pope with such deep feeling. He waited for further enlightenment from the quondam man and didn't have to wait long. "I've been unhappy with our catechism since it was written," he explained. (The catechism is the document which, in question and answer form, tries to offering a simple summary of the Christian faith for those joining the church.) "It's the very start question that I've hated since day ane," he alleged. "'What is God?' that's what nosotros enquire; and the answer to that question is even worse: 'An eternal and infinite spirit.' Simply we've changed information technology now. At last. The first question is no longer 'What is God?' but 'Who is God?' with the unproblematic answer 'Our Father.' He ended this little speech with a smack of the lips, clearly over the moon with his success.
The immature Scott Lidgett never forgot this conversation and spent the residual of his long life writing about the fatherhood of God and the alliance of human being.

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10: SPEECH (Leslie Griffiths) Sermon connected:
The word "father" is not without its difficulties in these gender-inclusive days. We've had to acquire some difficult lessons about our patriarchal church and the dominance of men within its power structures. And quite properly nosotros're learning how to create systems and use language in a way that gives full respect to the office of women in the church building. So the word "begetter" raises questions that demand to be addressed. Mayhap we can concur to continue to use this word on the unproblematic grounds that Jesus used information technology to describe his own relationship with God. And perhaps too we can rework some of our stereotypical thinking nigh fatherhood. Fathers are non always stern disciplinarians, lofty and unemotional members of the family. They are certainly capable of tenderness, affection, loving and laughing relationships with their families. We need to piece of work to recover the richer aspects of fatherhood while we all, men and women alike, continue to commit ourselves to the struggle for a fairer world for women in and beyond the church.

The description of God as father carries 1 enormous consequence. If God is truly our father, then that makes all of us who say these words brothers and sisters to each other. What could be more than radical than that? And hither at Wesley's Chapel, where people from 55 different nations worship and where two dozen languages other than English language are spoken as female parent tongue, nosotros are faced starkly with the fact, every time nosotros say the Lord's Prayer, that are members of 1 single humanity every time we say the Lord's Prayer. Just saying "Our Begetter" presents us with a reality we cannot avoid. Beyond everything that differentiates united states from 1 another, race and ethnicity, colour and class, language and pedagogy, lies the over-riding fact that unites united states of america every bit members of the human race, sons and daughters of our heavenly begetter. Just imagine what a different world we'd have if we could all live out our lives on that basis.

xi: MUSIC (St Martin'due south Voices):
Father nosotros love you (Donna Atkins)

12. SPEECH (Two voices: Katherine Baxter and Alex Sarsah):

[A couple of bidding prayers here that will reflect matters being reported in the news of the mean solar day.]

ALL: Our Male parent in heaven,
VOICE: remind us constantly that you are parent
to all your children, whoever and
wherever they are or come from;
ALL: hallowed exist your name.

ALL: Your kingdom come,
VOICE: establishing peace and justice,
hope and life for all peoples.
ALL: Your will exist done on earth equally it is in sky.

ALL: Give united states of america today our daily staff of life,
Vox: Disturb u.s.a. into an awareness of the needs of others.

ALL: Forgive our sins,
Vocalisation: our pride and also our prejudice,
ALL: equally nosotros forgive those who sin against us.

ALL: Lead us non into temptation,
VOICE: especially continue our hearts and minds
open to come across the good in others.
ALL: Deliver us from evil.

ALL:  For the kingdom
VOICE: just and truthful,
ALL:  the power
Phonation: gentle and fair,
ALL:  and the glory
VOICE: shot through with the colours of love,
ALL:  are yours, for ever and ever. Amen.

13. MUSIC (St Martin's Voices):
Old Time Faith (Spiritual, arranged by Moses Hogan)

xiv. Spoken language (Leslie Griffiths)
Jesus invited his followers to address God in exactly the same way as he did himself – with a familiarity and intimacy that are listen-blowing. The close walk with God which this implies allows the states to arroyo the remainder of Jesus'south prayer humbly and with conviction. Every bit we continue to explore the Lord's Prayer in this occasional series of Sun Worships that lie ahead, we tin can think about our daily staff of life, the nature of forgiveness, and facing our times of trial, in the knowledge that the God who has the kingdom, the power and the celebrity, is not a distant tyrant but a male parent we can trust, who loves us and will ever love usa, a bully redeemer to sing whose praises we'd need a thousand tongues.

xv MUSIC (Hymn with Organ):
O for a thou tongues to sing (Tune: Lydia)

xvi. Speech (Leslie Griffiths)
May we know the peace of God which passes all agreement,
the honey of God which knows no premises,
and the abiding presence of God in the deepest function of our being;
and may the blessing of God, - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, - be ours now and e'er.
ALL: Amen.

17. ORGAN: Voluntary: Elvis Pratt