Keith and Kristyn Getty's Global Sunday Singalong for the Persecuted Church

This Sunday, more than 4,100 churches in 81 countries will sing new version of OMF hymn that first drew missionaries to China.  Nearly 90 years ago, under the leadership of Frank Houghton, the hymn "Facing a Task Unfinished" was written. The hymn compelled hundreds to leave their homes to bring the Gospel to China.  This Sunday, Keith and Kristyn Getty are adding a new twist the old hymn and they are encouraging churches to sing it in memory of what God did years ago. 

"The hymn lacked two or three things it needed for popular appeal in today's churches," Keith told The Gospel Coalition (TGC). (Lyrics are below. Audio can be found here.)

"My wife and I always comment that when we sing the hymn, it clears our minds of things that are, by comparison, irrelevant," Keith told TGC. By reintroducing the song, the Gettys and OMF hope that "Christians around the world will get more excited about both music and mission, but also about living the mission of God on our own doorsteps and in our own kitchens, as well as around the world."

Houghton knew that songs have the ability to unite and move people, Getty said. "In response to great turmoil in China, [he] turned to writing hymns to encourage those who were witnessing martyrdom around them. 'Facing a Task Unfinished' provided inspiration to a generation of missionaries when it was first written, and it urges us on still, even as we also live amid persecution and martyrdom, both at home and around the world today."

Here are the updated lyrics to "Facing a Task Unfinished":

Facing a task unfinished
That drives us to our knees
A need that, undiminished
Rebukes our slothful ease
We, who rejoice to know Thee
Renew before Thy throne
The solemn pledge we owe Thee
To go and make Thee known

Where other lords beside Thee
Hold their unhindered sway
Where forces that defied Thee
Defy Thee still today
With none to heed their crying
For life, and love, and light
Unnumbered souls are dying
And pass into the night

We go to all the world
With kingdom hope unfurled
No other name has power to save
But Jesus Christ The Lord

We bear the torch that flaming
Fell from the hands of those
Who gave their lives proclaiming
That Jesus died and rose
Ours is the same commission
The same glad message ours
Fired by the same ambition
To Thee we yield our powers

We go to all the world
With kingdom hope unfurled
No other name has power to save
But Jesus Christ The Lord

O Father who sustained them
O Spirit who inspired
Saviour, whose love constrained them
To toil with zeal untired
From cowardice defend us
From lethargy awake!
Forth on Thine errands send us
To labour for Thy sake

We go to all the world
With kingdom hope unfurled
No other name has power to save
But Jesus Christ The Lord

We go to all the world
His kingdom hope unfurled
No other name has power to save
But Jesus Christ The Lord

 

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