All poems copyrighted © Noel K. Anderson

I.  Call to Worship

Let everything that breathes praise The Lord

All lungs that fill with air for praise prepare

May God’s holy name be here adored and

Heard in Heaven as though we were there.

Let all the people gather to praise Him

We shall be made free–our souls restored

Come with us! Join our song–

Let us go into the house of The Lord!

The price of admission is simple and clear to all:

It is free for all who leave this world behind

Leave pride and arrogance outside the door

And enter you poor, you lame, and you blind.

“Come!” says the Spirit, it is now time to praise

The Name above all names, the Ancient of Days.

II.  Praise

Lord Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth

Hear our songs of Your most merited praise

You alone are God, great and true–

Truer than any human tongue may phrase.

All that exists owes praise to Your holy name

You alone are the source of life, of light and love

All that is owes its being to You

Lord of Creation and all the heavens above.

Your love for us is beyond all earthly compare

You give, though You deserve to take all things

And give to thos we whose lives deserve but Hell

For lovelessness and idolatrous worshippings.

Your perfect love calls forth our praise

Lord hear the song we here raise. 

III.  Confession

My God, my God, why hast I forsaken Thee?

I am oddly mixed and bundled together

From pieces of pieces and strange ideations

Here flesh alone fails me ever.

And purities like pieties remain above

What can be reached by faith or love.

Confess I here the sins of heart and soul

For which my flesh in weakness cannot control.

The things I love that You in holiness hate

I offer You–the harvest of my heart

And pray Your Mercy’s willingness to abate,

cleanse my life in every rotting part.

Unless Your Grace eclipses Sin’s domain

I have no hope and in my sins remain.

IV.  Repentance I

The fog that fills our hearts in praising Your name

Fills our hearts and heads like the finest wine

Of rarest vintage, whose spirit we taste

In visions of truth, beauty, and glory sublime.

And great it is when we praise Your glory

Remembering Your nearness in each day’s events

And Your goodness, O Lord, even slightly revealed

Overwhelms our souls in every sense

For seeing You even in a passing glimpse

Is light more blinding than our sinful eyes can take

And when we look again at who we are

How tiny our goodness–how infernal our every mistake!

From raised-up joy we fall to our knees again

And in brokenness confess our every sin.

V.  Repentance II

The stinking gates of Hell open wide

And sin’s gravity pulls us down its maw

We see this is the bed we’ve daily made

And to lie there forever is justice by God’s law.

Have mercy, Lord, for I am fit for Hell

And deserve no better, if truth be told

The paths I’ve followed all lead away from You

From truth, the light, the live–toward fatal cold.

And worst of all, I tell myself I’m Yours

An upright follower, before You on bended knees

But disciples as fickle and inconsistent as me

Make little more as friends than enemies.

Lord: for the sin that ravages my soul

Have mercy and by forgiveness make me whole. 

VI.  Assurance of Pardon

The thought of You suffering for my sins

Unbuckles the knees of my pride and I am bowed,

Unmade of selfish pursuits, unable to thrive

In any thing through which His pain is endowed.

Relief from sin’s stains eludes this soul

I take more of the blame for the blood that is spilt

And in each meditation of His healing stripes

His pains in atonement compound all my guilt.

The plan of the gospel from before the beginning of time

Seems a solution far to wonderful to be–

That his passion and death mean to unlock my shame

Achieving the torment that I may be fully free.

The sins I still carry and wear like a pall

I must now abandon: guilt, shame, and all. 

VII.  Praise and Thanksgiving

The things that held me down and shackled my heart–

My darkest sins and decaying, fleshly ways–

Corrupted this body till death held each part

No hope or help could be found my estate to raise.

But Christ is worthy; He is the champion over sin!

The slough of death I vomit out in pain

He filters clean and pure from without to within,

His blood like bleach removing every stain.

And I am scot free

Forgiven far beyond what I deserve.

Who could have known that Grace would count for me,

A devil’s child, well beyond the curve?

Good news it is beyond all the senses

To speak of all sins in only past tenses.

VIII.  Prayer for Illumination

The gospel truth remains obscured behind

The noise and clatter of money-changers’ sales.

Amid the ringing of golden coins we find

Our pitiful souls found wanting on the scales.

Overthrow us, Lord, that Your Word may prove

The needed power to trump the comforts of the years

And by Your Holy Spirit’s work remove

Our heads from sand and our fingers from our ears.

Open our eyes, our minds, our hearts, and our hands

That Your Word may permeate all to the core

Refill these vessels as perseverance demands

That they may contain by a drop of Grace or more. 

Lest vanity claim our souls in this world’s night

Illumine our hearts by Your Word’s eternal light. 

IX.  Preparation

There seem to be too few ways

To say things that most need to be said.

No lengthy appeal or carefully-constructed phrase

Can replace the well-worn cliche’s retread.

“We thank You,” We praise You,” “We love You”–so easy

To say and dreadfully easy not to mean–

Through constant refrain we prove eager to please

Thee and Thee alone, but in vain. 

Our lips may move, our voices sound in song

But our hearts are far away from their truth.

Thus stained, our best fruits belong

In realms of the unholy, unworthy, and most uncouth.

Unless, O Lord, You raise our hearts to Thee

Our best good works remain but vanity.

X.  The Word

The voice of The Lord may be heard through a song,

Through a melody played by the wind through tall trees

Or seen as a vision of leaves floating along

The surface of a river emptying into silent seas.

Even through the corpse of a dog fallen dead,

Just as through the brilliant stars that glisten

In darkened skies, it has been well-said,

That God can speak and we do well to listen.

But all the things through which The Lord could speak

Pale in compare to His Word in Jesus made clear

The Bible reveals it: there alone we seek

With open hearts and ears prepared to hear.

Through the works of the Spirit, replete in the written Word

We hear His voice, and through Grace, are heard. 

XI.  The Sacrament

The call goes out for all the lost to be found

An invitation is sent to all in want

To gather together and join hands around

A welcoming table and a baptismal font.

The Host-who-invites meets us amidst our praise

We lift up our hearts–every one of us a priest–

And call Him “Almighty,” His holy name we raise

And prepare in humility to partake in the holy feast.

The Spirit divides the bread from earthly bread,

The wine is poured into the single cup we share

We eat and drink salvation and holy dread

As our souls unite and submerge in communion of prayer.

Though reborn we feel once from the table we’ve stepped

Only by Grace is our obedience kept.

XII.  Transformation

The body burns my sin-stained heart

A life beyond my own fills my soul

A fiery blood courses through every part

Dissolving my delusions of self-control.

How dared I to think of my life as my own?

I give it over to God in a thousand ways

The heart of living flesh, once made of stone

Now beats a different rhythm in His praise.

I am not mine but I am me

I gave myself away but I am found.

The Spirit lifts my head and here I see

A throng of glowing faces all around. 

The Spirit melds our hearts. Here we know

We, like blood, within His body flow. 

XIII. Mission

So blessed are we by Grace that we are full.

Our easy receiving shall shape the way we give

Renouncing claims to self and selfish rule,

Inspired to live our lives as Christ would like,

We step reborn into our Lord’s domain

As servants sent to mend the wounded lambs

In faith we walk, determined to remain

Securely led by the peace of wounded hands.

And as we walk the miracle is seen

That emptied hives can give more than the full

What dreams we held for what we might have been

Dissolve within our calling’s precious pull.

The binding yoke is light when shared by One

Who rescues all once plowing days are done. 

XIV.  Benediction

To say “God be with you” is out of bounds

For God is truly with you whether I say it or don’t

And “May the Lord bless and keep you” sounds

As though He might not or often won’t. 

Were I to offer blessings of my own

Suspicions of egomania would rightly follow,

Compared with the blessings of God’s holy Word

My own fall short and ring hollow.

Perhaps it is best just to offer a humble note

A mere reminder as we reenter the world

The words of men, through whom God wrote 

His will, His love and mercies unfurled.

We are blessed! He is with us–all who have heard–

All whose ears are open to hearing His Word.