Father, Help Your People

Father, help your people

Author: Fred Kaan (1966)
Tune: WHITWORTH
Published in 2 hymnals

Audio files: MIDI

Full Text

1 Father, help your people in this world to build
something of your kingdom and to do your will.
Lead us to discover partnership in love;
bless our ways of sharing, and our pride remove.

2 Lord of desk and altar, bind our lives in one,
that in work and worship love may set the tone.
Give us grace to listen, clarity of speech;
make us truly thankful for the gifts of each.

3 Holy is the setting of each room and yard,
lecture hall and kitchen, office, shop, and ward.
Holy is the rhythm of our working hours;
hallow then our purpose, energy, and powers.

4 Strengthen, Lord, for service, hand and heart and brain;
help us good relations daily to maintain.
Let the living presence of the Servant-Christ
heighten our devotion, make our lives a feast.

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Author: Fred Kaan

Fred Kaan was known and honoured throughout the English speaking world as a hymn writer. He was in the tradition of reformed ministers such as Philip Doddridge who wrote hymns to follow and sum up the sermons they preached. Having started to write hymns early in his ministry, his output grew steadily during his career. The post-war years witnessed an explosion of hymn writing that can loosely be categorised into two groups. There were those writers who worked in a traditional style, seeking to add their 20th-century contribution to the corpus of hymns used down the years by churches of all traditions. And there were those who introduced a new style of "worship song" designed to appeal to today's congregations. Kaan was impatient with… Go to person page >

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Text Information

First Line: Father, help your people
Title: Father, Help Your People
Author: Fred Kaan (1966)
Meter: 6.5.6.5 D
Language: English
Copyright: Text © 1972, Hope Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Used by permission
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Notes

In the mid-1960s Fred Kaan (PHH 277) began writing hymn texts "to fill gaps" in traditional hymnody. He wrote this text in 1966 while he was pastor of the Pilgrim Church in Plymouth, England. It was published in his collection Pilgrim Praise (1968).

This "kingdom hymn" illustrates that Kaan was well versed in the Reformed understanding of the kingdom of God. "Father, Help Your People" is a prayer for the coming of God's kingdom wherever we are–in church, home, or marketplace–and with whatever gifts we have–in worship, work, or play. We are urged here to be Christ's servants in the world and thus to experience living as a feast, a foretaste of the great celebrations in the new heaven and earth.

Liturgical Use:
A "kingdom hymn" for many occasions of worship; fitting for special times of prayer for the nation, industry, science, and the arts; observances of schooling, graduations, business, and domestic life, and Labor Day.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

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Tune

WHITWORTH

Walter MacNutt (PHH 174) composed WHITWORTH in the mid-1960s when he was organist and choirmaster at St. Thomas Anglican Church in Toronto, Canada. Intended for an Epiphany processional, the tune was written for "Lo, the Pilgrim Magi." WHITWORTH was first published in the pamphlet Five Hymn Tunes (1…

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Timeline

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Instances

Instances (2)TextImageAudioScore
Psalter Hymnal (Gray) #607TextImageAudio
Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal #353
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