Renew thy church, her ministries restore

Renew thy church, her ministries restore. Kenneth L. Cober* (1902-1993). Written in 1960 as a contribution to the evangelical campaign of the American Baptist. Church, the ‘Baptist Jubilee Advance’. One theme of this campaign was ‘The Renewal of the Church: Imperative to Evangelism’. The hymn was first sung at the American Baptist Convention in May 1960. It appeared in the Trinity Hymnal (1961), and subsequently in many books such as The Worshiping Church (1990) and the Chalice Hymnal (1995). In four verses, it makes good use of scriptural expressions (‘Make her again as salt throughout the land’, verse 1 line 2). The first line is altered in some books to ‘the church’ or ‘your church’...