Facing a task unfinished

with
AURELIA
FACING A TASK 

I. Text: Origins

Frank Houghton (1894–1972), who had been ordained as a priest into the Church of England in 1918, served as a missionary to China for eight years (1920–1928) before returning to England to be Editorial Secretary of the China Inland Mission. During that time, he was editor of the mission’s journal, China’s Millions. In 1929, the mission launched a call for 200 more missionaries to serve in China. Houghton’s hymn “Facing a task unfinished” was written to bolster that call. It was first printed in the January 1931 issue of China’s Millions, given in four stanzas of eight lines, titled “The Unfinished Task: A Hymn of the Forward Movement” and headed with Matthew 24:14, with a recommendation for the tune EWING.

The hymn went largely unnoticed, at least in the broader world of English hymnody, until it was included in Christian Praise (London: Tyndale Press, 1957), where it was paired with AURELIA. The text was unchanged from 1931, and the editors included the same Scripture reference of Matthew 24:14. Houghton served on the committee for the Anglican Hymn Book (London: Church Book Room Press, 1965), and this hymn was included there, again unchanged, prefaced by Matthew 24:14, and dated 1931. In this instance, it had been paired with LLANGLOFFAN, a Welsh folk tune from The Welsh Harper, vol. 2 (1848). The hymn was published again posthumously in Frank Houghton’s Faith Triumphant: An Anthology of Verse (London: OMF, 1973), with additional information:

In 1929, the General Director issued a Call to Advance, and an appeal was launched for two hundred missionaries within two years. Frank’s prayer verse “Lord, by the call of China’s need” was adopted and widely sung in public meetings and Mission circles until the last of the two hundred had sailed. So, too, the chorus “He Must Reign.”

But in China, daunting disturbances continued. Famine and brigandage took their toll. . . . The Mission’s leaders spoke in clear and inspiring terms, to express the steadfastness of the members, but Frank Houghton’s verse summed up everything in the disarmingly simple phrases which covered all that needed to be said.

In 1931, he wrote on the title “Warrant for Advancing,” basing his thoughts on the words in Luke 4:43, “I must,” and for the annual meeting he composed the hymn which has become part of the church’s treasure, “Facing a task unfinished.” He possessed the right balance of histrionic and pietistic genius to stir the emotions with the hearts of Christians, so that their true, deep feelings of devotion to Christ and desire to glorify Him were liberated in satisfying expression, in verse and sometimes tunes which Frank created.[1]

Aside from its appearance in the Moravian Book of Worship (1995), where the text was updated to eliminate “thee” and “thy,” it continues to be printed and sung in its original form.

II. Development

In 2015, Overseas Mission Fellowship contacted Keith & Kristyn Getty about updating or refreshing the song. Using the tune AURELIA as a basis, the Gettys, along with Ed Cash and Fionán de Barra, added a new chorus beginning “We go to all the world / with kingdom hope unfurled.” In early 2016, the Gettys launched a campaign to have congregations and groups around the world sing this song in what was billed as a global hymn sing on 21 February 2016. Proceeds from the sale of the song would go to OMF. Said Keith:

I grew up singing this hymn as a young guy at university, and I think it’s no coincidence that the times in my life I was most excited about sharing my faith, most committed to missions, I was singing hymns like this, because what we sing affects how we think, speak, pray, and ultimately the choices that we make. . . . We are so excited about sharing this song, ‘Facing a task unfinished,’ to put in the hearts and voices and minds of churches around the world the excitement of the Great Commission, to give confidence in the gospel, and urgency in the increasingly secular age that both China and we now live in, but also to raise awareness of OMF.[2]

The hymn was subsequently recorded for their album Facing a Task Unfinished, released 17 June 2016 on CD, DVD, and digital platforms, with a corresponding songbook called The Mission Hymnal: Facing a Task Unfinished. The album was recorded live with an audience at Ocean Way Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, a former church building (Church of the Advent, Episcopal).

The Gettys also recorded it on Getty Kids Hymnal: For the Cause (16 June 2017), which has a corresponding songbook. A live recording made during the The Shepherds’ Conference at The Master’s Seminary, Los Angeles, California, was released on the album Hymns of Grace: Live at The Shepherds’ Conference (16 Aug. 2019). A live recording made during their 2019 Sing! conference in Nashville was released the following year on the EP The Life of Christ Quintology: Great Commission (26 June 2020).

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
12 July 2024
rev. 10 Sept. 2024

Footnotes:

1. Faith Triumphant: An Anthology of Verse by Frank Houghton (London: OMF Books, 1973), p. 24.

2. Keith & Kristyn Getty, “Facing a Task Unfinished (Story Behind the Song),” YouTube (2 Feb. 2016): https://youtu.be/rsKOSAOhNPk?si=HTIpCdm3Wocubu35

Related Resources:

Christopher Idle, “Facing a task unfinished,” Exploring Praise, vol. 1 (Darlington: Praise Trust, 2006), p. 419.

Christopher Idle, “Frank Houghton,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology: CDH

“Facing a task unfinished,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/facing_a_task_unfinished