As we come before you to pray

In the years immediately preceding the launch of Praise! several texts by Malcolm MacGregor were published in the monthly Evangelicals Now, usually with tunes by Ian Parker, a member of the Accrington Grace Baptist Church pastored by the author. As with 879, the tune to this one came first. The composer wrote the music in 1989 while attending a weekend for his own church and two others. He explains that he ‘attended a Carey Family Conference a couple of years later and was surprised to find people singing it there. I hadn’t taught it to the church at Accrington at that stage. It became of the favourites through the 1990s.’ This is the first of two such joint compositions chosen for the present book, with one further text to different music: see 640 and 879. It links a reference to John 3:16 (in the refrain) to a desire to be more wholehearted in our corporate prayers of penitence (‘we … our … us … your church’), and appears here in a hymnal for the first time. Ian Parker’s tune AS WE COME BEFORE YOU inevitably belongs with the words. Margaret Ellis provides the arrangement first published here.

Birmingham Coll of Art and Design, where he was converted 1971. After working as an Art teacher in special hospitals for handicapped and mentally ill patients in Devon and C Durham, from 1977 to 1993 he was pastor of the Grace Baptist Ch at Accrington, Lancs. Then from 1993 he ministered at Cauldwell Hall Rd Baptist Ch, Ipswich, Suffolk; he is married to Jean and they have 4 adult children. He continues to paint and produce pottery at the local college, and sub-edit and contribute to the monthly Grace Magazine. Several of his hymn/song texts have appeared in Evangelicals Now, often set to tunes by Ian Parker. Nos.601, 640, 879.