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Andrew Pratt (b.1948)

Andrew PrattBorn in Paignton, Devon, Andrew Pratt studied Zoology (BSc London) and read for an MSc in Marine Biology at the University College of North Wales in Bangor before obtaining a PGCE from St Luke’s College, Exeter. He taught in Essex, Wrexham, and Liverpool before a call to the ministry drew him to theological training at the Queen’s (Ecumenical) College in Birmingham, where he also began to write hymns.

He ministered in Northwich, Nantwich, Leigh and Hindley, and Orrell and Lamberhead Green (near Wigan). His first published texts appeared in Hymns of the City and, with encouragement from Bernard Braley, in Hymns and Congregational Songs. He was a member of the groups that edited Story Song, Big Blue Planet and Sound Bytes, and from 2004 he was a member of the Music Resource Group appointed to compile Singing the Faith. His writings have appeared regularly in Worship Live, and his hymns, reviews and articles have been published in The Hymn and The Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, of which has been the Editor since 2004. He was a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio Merseyside.

In 1997 he gained a MA (Dunelm) for his research into Frederick Faber’s Hymns on the Four Last Things. For a PhD from Liverpool Hope University he researched the origins of the Methodist Hymn Book of 1933, his thesis being subsequently published as O for a Thousand Tongues by the Methodist Publishing House.

In 2004 he was appointed as a tutor and then Acting Principal at Hartley Victoria College (part of the Partnership for Theological Education in Manchester) until its closure in 2015, subsequently continuing as an Honorary Research Fellow with the Partnershp.

In addition to a number of worship resources, Andrew Pratt has had four collections of hymns published by Stainer & Bell: Blinded by the Dazzle, Whatever Name or Creed, Reclaiming Praise and More than Words. HymnQuest includes over 1400 of his hymn texts. There are also two books on ministery: Net Gains (Methodist Publishing House) and Study Skills for Ministry (SCM). Over a period of three years, with Marjorie Dobson, he wrote material for the Revised Common Lectionary, which was published on www.worshipcloud.com and also co-wrote with Marjorie Dobson Poppies and Snowdrops and Nothing too Religious (both Inspire imprint, Methodist Publishing House). He has written a series of reflections on selected hymns of Charles Wesley, Inextinguishable Blaze, and in 2017 he jointly edited with Jan Berry Stainer & Bell’s new collection Hymns of Hope and Healing.

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