Category Archives: Reflection

The Church and New Technology — The Thrill and the Threat

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Today I had an interesting synergy of several items that got me thinking and reading about technology and the church.  In my web surfing today over lunch I read or found:

All of this got me going on my comments on the Church in a Web 2.0 world.

Bruce and Shawn have some great points about what churches are (should be?) doing in the new technological environment and how it fits with our past concepts.  I’ve got a few extensions:

First, as Reformed churches, we are a people of community.  Our religious life and government are completely about community.  Web 2.0 is also about community, but about a community that is not necessarily all in the same geographical place but in the same virtual place.  But since the gathering is virtual, does this still reflect the new covenant community that we are called to be?  Maybe, maybe not.  I’ll save that for another time, but note now that the question is there.

Second, in my coverage of Presbyterianism globally on this blog, I think I can say that many Presbyterian branches have nice web sites, the new EPC site being an example, but the best Web 2.0 interactive site I can think of is the Free Church of Scotland Online Forum.  The PC(USA) now has some limited blogging, such as Linda Valentine‘s which does get interaction in the comments.  But at what level should we expect the online community to be built or gathered?  If it is indeed “viral” (spread by non-standard communication) we would expect to see the communities organized around affinity groups or distributed across several nodes (blogs?).  Don’t expect things to be the way they used to be.  But this is fully compatible with ministry being carried out at the most practical level closest to the congregation and with being a missional church.

Finally, a brief comment on bringing in a younger audience.  While I fully acknowledge that Web 2.0 will get the attention of a younger generation, and it might get them in the door of a church, will it actually have an impact on the age of those involved in Presbyterian government?  I would note that Bruce and Shawn are both ministers.  They do church as a profession.  For elders, it is a vocation, and we usually have to have jobs to pay the bills.  I was fortunate that I have a wonderful family that is supportive of this crazy Presbyterian government stuff, and I have been blessed by an employer and supervisor who have provided me with the flexibility and generous vacation days to actually follow this calling.  It is the unfortunate situation that many younger Presbyterians, while they might serve on their church sessions, and follow all this Web 2.0 stuff, are too busy with a young family and young career to have the time necessary to serve on a Presbytery committee, to say nothing of taking over a week’s vacation to be a commissioner to GA.  Yes, elders of any age must make a choice about being active in the government of the church, but once we are older, we have accumulated the necessary vacation, and our career is more stable, then we have a greater comfort level being active, especially being GA commissioners.

For the last 15 years I have frequently been the youngest elder in the room at governing body meetings and committees.  I have taken it as a part of my calling to encourage younger elders to become active in church government above the session.  And to encourage governing bodies to modify the way they do things so that younger elders are able to participate around their jobs.  A couple of presbytery committees have moved their meetings later for me and others, much to the dismay of some respected ministers who wanted to get it out of the way early in the day.  But if you want younger elders, you must compromise for them.  You can expect them to compromise some as well if you make the effort to show you are serious.

Anyway, my contribution to the discussion for now.  I think this one has legs and will continue for a long time to come.  As I look at this post I think I raised more questions than I answered.  And about all this new technology…  Way back in 1997, as an elder commissioner to the 209th General Assembly, I believe that I was the first GA commissioner to post my comments and pictures daily to a web site for my presbytery to read.  I have it archived and I’ll find a place to repost it some day.  Ya, I was always this geeky.

Committed Christians “Dissatisfied” with the Church

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As my family was visiting with our extended family over Christmas and New Years the topic in one conversation came around to the Willow Creek Community Church and the Willow Creek leadership’s discovery that their programs were not developing their members spiritually, at least according to the measurements in a study they had released over the summer.  When I indicated that I had not yet heard about this I was roundly greeted by a “where have you been?” from nearly everyone else in the room.  While this was a big topic in Evangelical circles it was not major news in Reformed and Presbyterian circles.  (And if any of the blogs I regularly read had picked this up and I somehow missed it I apologize.)  It turns out that a quick Google search showed that it was still big news and even today as I write this there are blogs still commenting on it.  For example you can check out the blog 9Marks which has been writing about it in January, or a recent article in the National Catholic Reporter Online.  I only want to concentrate on one specific aspect, so if you, like me, missed the initial push on this and you are interested in more info there is a lot out there.

Having missed the boat on this major religious news story I decided to go straight to the source and added the book that come out of the study, REVEAL: Where are you?, by Greg L. Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, to my holiday reading list.  Short book, lots of graphics, pretty quick read.

So to make a short book even shorter, the team at Willow Creek surveyed members of their congregations and six other congregations across the country and found that “Involvement in church activities does not predict or drive long-term spiritual growth.”  (There is a Denver Post article about how Richard Foster figured this out 30 years ago.)

OK, now some details…

The study’s working definition of spiritual growth was “An increasing love for God and for other people.” It may not be everything that a Reformed theologian would want, but I have to give them credit for grounding it in scripture and the Two Great Commandments: “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” and “Love your neighbor are yourself” from Matthew 22:37-39.  In this study the authors grouped the respondents into one of four different groups based upon their increasing level of spiritual development:

Exploring Christianity: Believe in God, not sure about Christ.  Faith not important part of daily life
Growing in Christ: Believe in Jesus, working on what it means to get to know him
Close to Christ: Feel really close to Christ, depend on Him daily for guidance
Christ-centered: God is all I need, Everything I do is a reflection of Christ

To give a very brief summary of the results:  Church program is only really important to spiritual growth in the first two groups and the church needs to train people to be “self-feeders” to develop at the two higher stages.

I’ll leave the basic findings at that but there is plenty more in the blogosphere about the study.  A particularly notable series of posts is by Prof. Bradley Wright, a faculty member in the Sociology Department at the University of Connecticut who studies sociology of Christianity.  He approaches the REVEAL study from a professional academic viewpoint and many of the measurement problems that jumped out to me as a research scientist he is able to describe and dissect more meaningfully.  You can start at the beginning with his first post or just jump to number 11 for the summary.  One of the things that he and I agree on is that in many cases the study over-interprets the results.

From a theological viewpoint, the book is not written from a Reformed perspective.  One of the things that jumped out at me was the usage of the word “church.”  While I did not see it explicitly defined in the book, in my reading it seemed to carry the implicit meaning of the institution not the community.  For example, one of their observations is “The research strongly suggests that the church declines in influence as people grow spiritually.”  While this and most references to “church” could be interpreted as the community, lacking a specific declaration it seemed to me that the institution was a more likely reading than the community.

A more direct example of theological viewpoint is shown in another of their observations:  “The human spirit is wired by God to search for him, just like birds are wired to fly south for the winter.”  Not withstanding Augustine’s “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you,” Reformed theology agrees that before the fall the human heart was wired to seek God, but in the fall that wiring got short-circuited so that now God must search for us.

Now, with that build-up, I want to move on to what I found the most interesting within this study.  The study found two more groups of people contained within the four classes that are outlined above.  First within the middle two groups they found that 16% of all respondents were “stalled.”  These are Christians who have some basic level of belief but are not really active or spiritually developing.  They found that this could be due to a number of reasons ranging from addictions, to personal issues, to not prioritizing their spiritual life.

The second group they found was the “dissatisfied” segment.  These were Christians at the highest level, actively involved in the church and in serving others, who found worship services were not fulfilling, who wanted more in-depth Bible teaching, and among them 63% were considering leaving the church.  This dissatisfied group comprised about 10% of the respondents.  In other words, some of the heaviest consumers have some of the least brand loyalty.  The study found that this group felt the church was not keeping them on track or helping them find spiritual mentors.  This group wanted to be challenged and helped to develop further and to be held accountable.

The REVEAL study draws the conclusion that this group, and the stalled as well, has not been taught that they have a large responsibility for their own spiritual growth at this level.  The church needs to be a better “parent” in preparing members to develop on their own.

I think that is part of it, but this finding struck me because it quantifies something that I have observed in my time in leadership in the Presbyterian church and which (confession time) my wife and I sometimes feel.  But, from my experience I would add other, more complex, factors into the reasons that this dissatisfaction occurs.  I do not dispute that there are cases where the church is not good at helping Christians learn to “feed themselves.”  But I have seen at least three other factors are in play here.

First, most churches are smaller and have limited time and resources.  Preaching and teaching need to be targeted at the “median believer”, if you will, and the church member that is more spiritually mature misses out.  But I would not say that the believer must feed him or herself alone.  They and the church must make a point of gathering these mature Christians together so that they can challenge ea
ch other in community.  OK, I guess that is in line with the REVEAL study except that the growth can be in community.

The second factor I have seen is burn out and distraction.  I have seen several leaders, very active in the church, frequently heading up a major task force, committee, or Pastor Nominating Committee, finish up their work and quickly disappear from the church.  In talking with a few of them I have found that they wanted to switch churches and find a place where they could be anonymous.  They just wanted to get the administratia behind them and focus on their spiritual lives, and they did not feel they could do that by remaining in the same place.  It was not the church’s teaching or lack there of, it was the distraction they felt at the church.  They wanted to wipe the slate clean and start over.  It was not that they were necessarily looking for a “better” church, they were interested in a “different” church.  I will say that several times in our lives my wife and I have felt this and been “two-church” people:  One where we worked, and one where we could attend without business on our minds and feel a stronger sense of worship.  Is it possible for churches to structure themselves so that members can feel free to “release” their servant side and concentrate on their worship and learning side for a while?

Finally, I have known a limited number of church leaders who have become dissatisfied by the politics within the leadership of the particular church and have considered moving on to find a church without the problems and politics.  In severe cases this spills over to the congregation as a whole and members use the opportunity to move on to other churches.  But here I am talking about mild disagreements within the Session that persist and so a leader feels frustrated and considers moving on to another church where things might be better.  I have reminded a few of these people that we are a fallen race and every church has its problems.  Some church’s challenges are larger than others, but as the former chair of the presbytery’s Committee on Ministry I can assure you that no church, at least in our presbytery, was immune from an occasional leadership problem.  Maybe your presbytery doesn’t have these problems.

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to the spiritually mature dissatisfied church member.  I do agree that mature Christians in general, and the elders of the church in particular, must take some responsibility for their own continuing spiritual development.  Furthermore, as the shepherds of the flock, they are responsible for the spiritual development of all the members of the congregation.  This responsibility is not just to make sure that worship is meaningful and that education opportunities are available, but to individually mentor other members of the congregation and keep them accountable for their development.

I Might Need to Declare a Departure

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It is time for my annual introspection and reflection on my law-keeping and whether my actions cause others to sin.  No, I’m not preparing for Ash Wednesday and Lent, although that would be a good guess since that is important to me as well.  I’m considering my regular reflection on the Westminster Confession of Faith, Section 21-8:

8. This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs before-hand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up, the whole time, in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.

No, somehow this passage comes to mind every year about this time as I consider the spectacle of “Superbowl Sunday.” In the past I have rationalized it:  I’m sort of resting, we are not under the law any more, I did go to worship in the morning and to the evening service afterward, it is really only one Sunday a year that I watch American Football, and I watch it with others from my Bible study group.  But in the end, I have still vowed to “sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will be instructed and led by those confessions as I lead the people of God.”  So, I should not be distracted from God on the Sabbath by some silly football game.

Well now, thanks to the PUP report, I can declare a departure from the Westminster Confession.  I can refer to Paul’s words “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:1-2) so that, at least for this one Sabbath day, we don’t have to worry about our “recreations.”

Well, satire aside, I still remain conflicted over this particular day.  I know that some churches use this as an outreach event.  And I know that I am probably one of the few, if only, elder in my church that would worry about this.  And other Sunday afternoons I get work done around the house so that could be a violation too. But it is impossible to deny that this section in the Westminster Standards derives from one of the “big ten,” “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.” 

But the bottom line with any of this is Jesus’s words that “The Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)  The Law and the Confessions are there to guide us for we are indeed free from the legalism of them.   They guide us towards a deeper relationship with God.  And as we do approach Lent, I am reminded that there is a bunch of other stuff in my life that does more to separate me from God than sitting down with friends one Sunday afternoon a year and watching a media circus that might have a football game attached.

What is “Contemporary” Worship Music?

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What is “Contemporary” worship music?  As I participated in worship yesterday morning that was a question running through my mind.  As I talked with my wife and daughter following the service it turns out that was the question running through their thoughts as well.

What helped focus our minds on this topic was our annual ritual of celebrating Christmas with the extended family.  This year the tally for the Fourth Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve, December 23 and 24, was five worship services at three churches in two days.  Throw in yesterday’s service and we have had a well rounded week of worship variety.

At one of those churches worship was “high church” or at least “high church music.”  This was not by anyone’s measure contemporary and the church justifiably prides itself on its sophisticated worship music.  As I joked with my family on the way home, “At least this year the words were all in English.”  No Latin or Medieval French this year.  But this church is no stranger to “contemporary worship,” having started a contemporary service over 30 years ago but again with “sophisticated” music appropriate to the church’s tradition.  They used material like Avery and Marsh and some of the contemporary music now found in the current Presbyterian Hymnal.  If you excuse the oxymoron, it is what I have come to think of as “traditional contemporary.”  Maybe “institutional contemporary” is more accurate.

On the other end was my daughter’s “seeker sensitive” church.  Instrumentation was “modern rock band” and selection was mostly from current Christian artists, although there was a high-energy version of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” with the recognizable melody.

In between was the “Contemporary” service at a main-line (non-Presbyterian) church.  This service uses the traditional praise band, bank of vocalists, and words projected on the overhead screens.  In terms of the overall tone of worship, the usual elements of worship are present and the sermon is delivered in a traditional manner, no drama or video clips.  But what struck me about the service music, especially from Sunday December 24, was that the list and order of songs was probably the same as it was last year.  In fact, it was probably about the same as when we were there ten years ago.  In worship yesterday the songs were more varied with some that I sang twenty years ago and some are of recent vintage, according to my daughter.  It is services like these, with old and well worn music and a low key praise band, that strike me as being “just contemporary enough” that traditionalists are not too uncomfortable but the congregation can point to it as “contemporary.”

So there are three worship styles, all self-identified as contemporary, but all VERY different in their style and approach.  As my family was discussing, “contemporary” is not a clear term but can mean many different things.

In thinking about it, contemporary now seems to be not so much about what it is, but about what it is not.  “Contemporary” is not traditional.  “Traditional” is music in fixed metre and verses, played on an organ, piano or maybe traditional instruments, sung by a congregation standing in the pews using denominational hymnals.  That is what contemporary is not.

Now I suspect that there is an accepted vocabulary out there to describe these different flavors of contemporary.  But the ultimate question that I have been pondering for a while is when does a “contemporary” liturgy and style become so well established, like the main-line service that has seemed the same for the last ten years, that it is no longer truly contemporary?

The Christmas Story: Reading it with New Eyes

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In my Christmas reflection/greeting yesterday I chose a slightly different but, to my understanding of the Greek text, reasonable reading of the passage.  Specifically, in John 1:14 where we usually say that the Word “dwelt” among us, an alternate translation is that it “tabernacled” or literally “pitched its tent” among us.

If you want an even more counter-cultural example, I recommend an article from the Christianity Today web site titled “ No room at the what?”  This is a great, and challenging, discussion of how we view the “no room at the inn” phrase and what the Greek text and the cultural setting may actually be.

Is this applicable to how we view Presbyterian polity?  Absolutely.  If you have every worked with a congregation of a different cultural background, you know they will read, interpret and apply polity with certain cultural understandings and expectations which could differ and conflict with your established understandings.  Presbyteries have sometimes needed extensive discussions to come to a mutual understanding about the views of polity and each others cultural understandings.  The need for flexibility to accommodate different cultural approaches, for better or for worse, is one element in the rewrite of the PC(USA) Form of Government.

The question in any of our polity becomes “What is fundamental to our theology and what can be flexible to accommodate cultural traditions and backgrounds?”

A good Feast of Saint Stephen to you and a happy Boxing Day.

Happy Celebration of the Incarnation

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In the beginning was the Word,
    and the Word was with God,
    and the Word was God…

…The Word became flesh
    and pitched his tent among us.
(From John 1)

This is the mystery, and the magnificence, of Christmas!  God, in the person of the Son, came to earth and dwelt among human kind, fully human  and fully God.  This reality, the Incarnation, was the theme of one of the services we attended last night.  And while one of the sermon illustrations was one of the good, but over used and simplistic, explanations of the reason for the incarnation, I can not criticize it because any human explanation of this divine mystery is going to be simplistic and flawed.

So on this Christmas day, thank God for the gift he has given us and celebrate it with family and friends.

Merry Christmas.

(And for tomorrow, Happy Boxing Day or Feast of Saint Stephen if you are so inclined.)

Discernment of the Call to Ordained Office

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A question that has been in and out of my thinking for many years, and is back in it at the moment, has been the discernment process for calling individuals to ordained office.  One particular manifestation of this has been the church nominating committee having a certain number of positions to fill on the session or board of deacons.  Do they just keep going until they fill all the slots, or do they stop and leave positions vacant if they can find no more willing individuals who they have discerned to have the proper God-given gifts and talents for that office?  In many Presbyterian churches I am aware that there is some pressure to fill the slots because each elder or deacon has a particular program area of responsibility:  we need an “outreach elder” or there is no one for the “food pantry” deacon yet.  I was very happy when my own church dispensed with the elders being assigned to oversee a particular ministry and simply made them the governing body with responsibility for “shepherding the flock.”

I’m writing on this now because I am having a very “hurry up and wait” day at work.  You may know the type:  there are an endless series of short jobs for the computer to do.  Short enough that you really can’t leave and do something else but long enough waiting that you have some time that you need to fill.  Well, I filled part of it with some web surfing in directions I had not ventured before and came across an interesting blog called “ Building Old School Churches.”  Even if you are nowhere near being an Old School Presbyterian church there is some interesting material there.  What caught my attention today was a post by Andrew Webb titled “ On Whether to Vote to Ordain.”  In the post he talks about an experience he had early in his career at a presbytery meeting when a candidate was examined to be a pastor, the discomfort he felt with that candidate, and the guidelines he formulated from talking with experienced ruling and teaching elders about it.  His guidelines, with his emphases, are:

1) Remember
that Presbyteries aren’t rubber stamp operations, we are gate-keepers,
and we’ll be called to account by God for every man we let into the
sheepfold. So ask yourself, “is that man a true shepherd or something
else?” No church absolutely has to get someone if that someone was
never really meant to be a pastor. Calling the wrong man will do them more harm than calling no one at all!
2) Anyone can graduate from seminary, my wife could graduate from seminary but she isn’t qualified or called to be a pastor. Not everyone who graduates is called.

3) If you are
in doubt, ask yourself, “would I be able to stomach this man being the
shepherd of my own family?” If the answer is no, don’t vote for him. Christ’s other lambs don’t deserve less than your own family!
4) Go home
and read Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 [vs. 17-36]
and treat those words as Christ’s advice to you.

I would add that we are a called covenant community and it is the responsibility of the community to be gathering around candidates, helping them discern their call and their gifts and talents throughout the candidate process, not just at the examination.  And furthermore, once God has spoken through the vote of the community to affirm the call, it is our responsibility as members of the community to support, nurture, and guide that person as they live into that call, even if we voted in the minority.

I know that within my presbytery the candidates committee has done a good job mentoring and discerning calls with candidates and I have been satisfied with all that have come to presbytery, the ministry committee, or a search committee of which I have been part.

Do we do as good a job with ruling elders when we ask members of our churches to serve on session?  What could we do better before and after the elders are elected and ordained to develop their gifts for the ministry?  Are our sessions bodies that are seeking to be guided by the Holy Spirit and discerning where God is leading the church, or a group that gets together to “get the business done” once a month?  As an example, on presbytery committees that I have chaired I always insisted, no matter how late the meeting was running, that we did not just “close in prayer” but that we closed in prayer for each other and our churches and church members with a sharing of joys and concerns.  In many cases I suspected that several people wanted to get out of there and get home, but as a community, holding each other in prayer is one of the most important and powerful things we can do.

So as members of the covenant community we have responsibility for who is ordained as a minister/teaching elder, ruling elder, or deacon and we should not just leave it to the nominating committee or candidates committee to do the work for us.  Their work is important and most do it well.  But in the end the call of God through the voice of the people comes from the larger community.

For All the Saints — All Saints Day 2007

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For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The Feast of All Saints, or All Saints Day, the day I remember all those faithful servants that in the past year have left the Church Militant to join the Church  Triumphant.

As in any year, there are several I know who lived faithful lives as servants of God, and have gone to be with the Lord.  Among these are Jean, who was an incredible witness in her life and words, to whom the Lord gave seven extra years but took home this year.  And Mae, who believed in the power of prayer so strongly that she made great efforts to get her requests onto our church prayer chain knowing that other faithful saints would respond in prayer for her.  It was a witness in faith in God, and faith in other people’s faith and ministry.  For Henry, who lived a quiet but faithful life.  For a former synod executive and his wife who made significant contributions to the church in several forms of service.  For Cory, an alumnus of my son’s Christian high school who gave his life serving in the Middle East.

This year also held a horrific traffic accident that claimed several members of a youth group and a leader on their way back from a mission trip up north.

For all these and more, I know that God will say “Well done, good and faithful servant” and that one day we shall all be reunited.  May God find us as faithful.

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
And singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Reformation Day – 2007

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36. Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of pardon.

Tradition has it that on this day in 1517 the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther nailed to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, an invitation to debate this and 94 other theses.  While not the actual beginning of the Protestant Reformation, it was an act of speaking truth to power that in time shook the western church to its foundations and ultimately resulted in the Lutheran church, and numerous other branches, splitting from it.  A century early, Jan Hus was teaching against indulgences, so that controversy was not new to Luther. But Luther, and many of the reformers that shortly followed, found strong political, if not popular, support that saved them from and their message from an untimely end in flames as Hus found.

94. Christians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hell;

95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven rather through many tribulations, than through the assurance of peace.

Singing All the Verses

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The closing hymn in worship this morning was “God of Grace and God of Glory“, the words written by Harry Emerson Fosdick, a Baptist minister who served a Presbyterian congregation for a while.  This is one of my favorite hymns and Fosdick’s words speak powerfully to me, about crowning the Church’s story, facing evil, and about being “Rich in things and poor in soul.” (O how I love “things.”)

It always intrigues me how hymns that come out of certain traditions become classics transcending the different publishing streams.  This hymn, written by one of the great progressive ministers of the 20th century who preached against fundamentalism, is found in many hymnals published by evangelical publishing houses.  In a like manner, Augustus Toplady‘s famous hymn “Rock of Ages” appears in Methodist hymnals despite Toplady’s very strong theological disagreements with John Wesley and the contention that the hymn was penned as a rebuke to Wesleyan theology.

But another aspect of “God of Grace and God of Glory” that has gotten me thinking is to see which verses a given hymnal includes.  Modern hymnals seem to prefer printing only four verses of any hymn so they make an editorial decision to cut one of the verses of this song.  (To the credit of the current Presbyterian Hymnal they include all five verses but their changes to make the hymn gender neutral, while well intentioned and subtle, do change the meaning of verse four slightly and are awkward with the meter.)  The hymnals generally all use the first three verses. (God of grace and God of glory…, Lo! the hosts of evil round us…, Cure thy children’s warring madness…)  The 1970 Presbyterian hymnal The Worshipbook skips the fourth verse but has the fifth:

Save us from weak resignation
To the evils we deplore;
Let the search for thy salvation
Be our glory evermore.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Serving God whom we adore,
Serving God whom we adore.

The elimination of the fourth verse removes the problem of making it gender neutral and the fifth verse may be favored here for it’s slightly more socially conscious words.

On the other hand, today our congregation used the version of the hymn from Word Music’s Hymnal for Worship and Celebration.  (They have made editorial changes to numerous hymns that I have problems with, but that is another post.) In that hymnal the song concludes with the fourth verse:

Set our feet on lofty places,
Gird our lives that they may be
Armored with all Christ-like graces
In the fight to set men free.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage
That we fail not man nor Thee,
That we fail not man nor Thee.

While this too has a slightly social righteous edge, to me it clearly reflects a more triumphant evangelical tone and I can see why a publishing house like Word would prefer it to the fifth verse.  But ending with “That we fail not man nor thee” is just not a particularly satisfying ending to me.

To me the hymn is a complete package and I am disappointed when one of the verses is left out, whether it be “That we fail not man nor thee” or “Serving God whom we adore.”