The Church of Christ in Every Age, ELW 729
1 The church of Christ, in ev'ry age beset by change, but Spirited, must claim and test its heritage and keep on rising from the dead.
2 Across the world, across the street, the victims of injustice cry for shelter and for bread to eat, and never live before they die.
3 Then let the servant church arise, a caring church that longs to be a partner in Christ's sacrifice, and clothed in Christ's humanity.
4 For he alone, whose blood was shed, can cure the fever in our blood, and teach us how to share our bread and feed the starving multitude.
5 We have no mission but to serve in full obedience to our Lord; to care or all, without reserve, and spread his liberating word.
Devotion
Frederick Pratt Green, the author of the text to this tune, began writing poetry when he was forty years old, but he did not begin writing hymns until he was sixty. When he was commissioned to write a hymn in celebration of the centenary of the bells of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Pratt Green wrote, “Coming to hymn-writing after experience as a poet, I have learned to distinguish between these two activities. One writes poetry to please oneself; one writes hymns as a servant of Christ and his Church. Only one thing matters: that the hymn shall be right for use in worship.” Oh, if only all of the hymns which we find in our worship experience could be that well-thought out. Of course it should be of such nature! I exhort you to very carefully scrutinize the text of this tune and find its focus in the first two lines of the fifth verse, “We have no mission but to serve in full obedience to our Lord.”
Prayer
You have called us as a community of the faithful to take with deft seriousness the task “to care for all, without reserve, and spread his liberating Word.” Let us, with fervor, accept the task. Amen.