An Estimated 1.1 Million People In 100 Countries Joined Together In Song Last Weekend In Massive Call For Global Evangelism
Powerful 1930’s Hymn, Facing a Task Unfinished, Modernized By Acclaimed Hymn Writers Keith & Kristyn Getty, Served As Centerpiece Of Historic Effort
NASHVILLE, TN (February 24, 2016) – On Sunday, February 21, 2016, an estimated 1.1 million people in 100 countries joined together to sing “Facing a Task Unfinished,” a 90-year-old hymn that has been updated by internationally acclaimed hymn writers Keith & Kristyn Getty.
Over 5,400 churches on 6 major continents – in countries including Bahrain and Australia to Bangladesh and China, and in dozens of major cities including Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, London Singapore and Los Angeles – participated in the day of song in one of the largest modern-day calls for world-wide evangelism.
This global movement of churches was organized by OMF International, an interdenominational Protestant missions agency originally founded by Hudson Taylor as the China Inland Mission in 1865, along with Keith & Kristyn Getty.
In the 1920s, China Inland Mission worker Frank Houghton originally wrote the hymn, “Facing a Task Unfinished,” as a call for 200 missionaries to go into the heart of China. Despite great peril, by 1931 over 200 set sail for China to plant the seeds of the Gospel, resulting in what mission experts believe to be the greatest growth of Christianity in the history of the world – an estimated growth of at least 80 million and as many as 130 million people.
OMF International recently celebrated its 150th anniversary and invited Keith and Kristyn Getty to re-visit Houghton’s much loved and still timely hymn. The Gettys added a new chorus to help serve a new generation of congregational singing and to reflect the need for global evangelism in the world today.
“It has been an extraordinary honor to be part of reintroducing ‘Facing a Task Unfinished’ to a new generation and to partner with OMF International,” says Keith Getty on the experience. He hopes the effect is long-term, adding, “The global singing of the song this last weekend is not an end in itself. We pray it is a fresh catalyst, another beginning point, for renewed singing and urgent conversation and action in churches all over the world toward global missions.”
“Facing a Task Unfinished” will be the title track of Keith & Kristyn’s upcoming album (June 2016) and international tours. All composing and publishing royalties from the song will be donated to OMF International in support of their continued work in perpetuity.
For more information on the Gettys, please visit www.gettymusic.com
About the Gettys:
The Gettys are world-renowned contemporary hymn writers whose songs are sung each year by more than one hundred million people. Their most popular hymn, “In Christ Alone,” (co-written by Keith Getty with Stuart Townend) is the #1 most popular hymn sung in the UK for the past nine years, was voted the 2nd most-favored hymn in the UK in a 2013 BBC nationwide poll, and sits among the top 15 most popular hymns in the U.S. To date, the Gettys have written eight of the most popular hymns sung in the U.S., and 23 in the United Kingdom, according to Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI), the group that licenses and charts church music (the religious equivalent of ASCAP and Billboard). Through their spring and fall tours and their annual Joy–An Irish Christmas tours, The Gettys have performed before sold-out houses throughout the U.S. and abroad, and at notable venues as London’s Royal Albert Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. The duo met in Belfast, Northern Ireland when they began songwriting together. They were married in 2004, and two years later, they recorded their first project as a couple. To date, the Gettys have released 6 full-length albums and 2 limited edition EPs. They currently reside in Nashville along with their three young daughters.
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Lisa Mazzella
Roslan & Campion Public Relations
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lisa@rc-pr.com
