Lord of the church, we pray for our renewing

Lord of the church, we pray for our renewing. Timothy Dudley-Smith* (1926- ). This text was written as one of its author’s self-imposed holiday assignments at Ruan Minor, Cornwall, in August 1976. But it drew on the National Evangelical Anglican Congress (NEAC1) held at Keele, Staffordshire, nine years earlier, the watchword of which was ‘Christ over all’ — a phrase setting the scene in the hymn’s second line and summing it up in the final one. As well as the four words which open all three stanzas, the recurring phrase which introduces the second half of each (line 5) is ‘We turn to Christ’. This, says Dudley-Smith, reflected the words of commitment in some of the Church of England’s...