These are the words to the song "When the Church of Jesus". from the United Methodist Hymnal, page 592
Words by Fred Pratt Green, 1968 and music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1925
When the church of Jesus shuts its outer door, lest the roar of traffic drown the voice of prayer,
May our prayers, Lord, make us ten times more aware that the world we banish is our Christian care.
If our hearts are lifted where devotion soars high above this hungry, suffering world of ours,
Lest our hymns should drug us to forget its needs, forge our Christian worship into Christian deeds.
Lest the gifts we offer, money, talents, time, serve to salve our conscience, to our secret shame,
Lord, reprove, inspire us by the way you give, teach us, dying Savior, how true Christians live.
