Give Thanks for Music-Making Art 1. Give thanks for music-making art, and praise the Spirit's choice of members called and set apart with instrument and voice. With work and wisdom, skills hard-won, life-giving and life-long, they celebrate what God has done, and lead the people's song. 2. Through years of training they accrue the skills of mind and hand, which hours of practice must renew, enliven, and expand. With Spirit-grace they tune our hopes; to Christ their hearts belong; for love of God must guide the arts that lead the people's song. 3. With music, moving on through time in sequences of sound, we show and tell God's story-line of how the lost are found: the old, unfolding covenant of justice righting wrong, resounds through word and sacrament, and leads the people's song. 4. Then let us reach for excellence to sing and symphonize for God, our utmost audience, with joy our highest prize. When kindly skill our spirit lifts and makes the humble strong, give thanks, and praise the graceful gifts that lead the people's song. 5. God, give us music to express and richly interweave our yearning with our thankfulness, and sing what we believe, till, glorious in the realms of grace, with new creation's throng, our Savior meets us face to face and leads the people's song. Brian Wren words © 1993 Hope Publishing Company Poetic Meter: 8.6.8.6.D. (Common Meter Double)