Hymns & Songs

Help Us Accept Each Other

Each of us is unique. Our differences are marked by our race, culture, language, denomination and religion. These are manifested through our individual disposition, mindset and opinions on various contexts and issues surrounding our everyday lives.

How do we navigate our lives with so many people different from us? Be it at home, work, church, or anywhere, diversity is just before us.

At least once a week, we gather as a Christian community to express our faith and celebrate God’s goodness. Is worship a time or place when we can reconcile our differences?

Diversity is an issue of worship. When we want to encounter God, that also means we want to encounter the people who are so different from us, all of whom God has made in His image—not just those we meet on Sunday, but also the rest of the week.

We need songs to inform us about Jesus’ character and goodness; to form, shape and help us navigate through the week’s journey.

The hymn “Help us Accept Each Other” is an example of a powerful hymn that teaches us to have grace and generosity with people who are different from us, or people whose opinions we might not agree with. Dr Michael Hawn, a renowned American church musician, theologian and lecturer, describes the hymn as one of the most powerful hymns on reconciliation and forgiveness composed in the last half of the 20th century.1

The hymn points us to Ephesians 4:25–5:2; summarised by N. T. Wright in his lecture on the Epistle to the Ephesians: “so you should be imitators of God, conduct yourselves in love just as the Messiah loves us, and gave himself for us, as a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice to God.”2

HELP US ACCEPT EACH OTHER (UMH 560)

Help us accept each other as Christ accepted us; teach us as sister, brother, each person to embrace. Be present, Lord, among us and bring us to believe: we are ourselves accepted and meant to love and live.

Teach us, O Lord, your lessons, as in our daily life we struggle to be human and search for hope and faith. Teach us to care for people, for all—not just for some, to love them as we find them or as they may become.

Let your acceptance change us so that we may be moved in living situations to do the truth in love; to practice your acceptance until we know by heart the table of forgiveness and laughter’s healing art.

Lord, for today’s encounters with all who are in need, who hunger for acceptance, for justice and for bread, we need new eyes for seeing, new hands for holding on: renew us with your Spirit; Lord, free us, make us one!

Text: Fred Kaan, 1974 (Jn 15:12)

Here are two contemporary settings of the hymn that might be simpler to sing than the one in the hymnal. https://youtu.be/49zFSbxS37Y https://youtu.be/ANPim80beOA

If you prefer the hymn setting but sung in a contemporary style, here is one from Ang Mo Kio Methodist Church. https://youtu.be/vp3WklXSAJ4

1 C. Michael Hawn, “History of Hymns: Help Us Accept Each Other,” Discipleship Ministries, The United Methodist Church, June 2013, https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/ history-of-hymns-help-us-accept-each-other. 2 N. T. Wright, “Paul and His Letter to the Ephesians,” https://www.udemy.com/course/ paul-and-his-letter-to-the-ephesians/learn/lecture/9054450#overview