Creator God

You who planted a Garden and caused it to flourish

Who brought us to life to see this world

To love it, and to love you

Who Father-like invited us

To come and join in with what you were doing

We praise you, the God of new life

We praise you, the God who knows how to grow things

A garden, a world

A Kingdom, a Church

We hear you call us alongside you again

To see what you’re causing to blossom

We smiled at Spring

Turning a corner; hopeful shoots of something new

Life returning

Patiently enjoying that season’s unfurling beauty

But we rejoice in the Summer

We praise you for exchanging grey for exploding colour

Surrounding your people with new life in full bloom

Growing, pulsating, dripping with fruit

Life in all its fullness

Let the parched land be filled with pools of refreshing

Let the scorched Church bubble with Spirit-springs

Open blind eyes, open deaf ears

Open silent tongues, open stiff legs

Open up stony hearts and closed minds

Open out a highway in this nation

For you to walk the land and be announced to all

‘See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

And streams in the wasteland.’

God, give to our churches and our communities

So much growth that we don’t know what to do with it

And then, Lord -

Teach us what to do with it!

Amen