History of Hymns: 'We Are the Church'

Presbyterians ministers Richard Kinsey Avery (1934-2020) and Donald Stuart Marsh (1923-2010) collaborated on more than 150 songs. The Avery and Marsh duo performed together beginning in the late 1960s through the 1990s, breathing new life into classical worship structures and hymns and introducing the then-emerging forms of worship and more modern songs in conferences and national assemblies. They were favorites for thirty summers at Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian assembly at Abiquiu, New Mexico (Wallace, Marsh, n.p.). Both died in New Mexico ten years apart.

All generations have embraced this childlike song as a clear description of the nature of the Christian church. A close examination of the text reveals that this hymn is not childish in its implications. Indeed, the authors offer a clear ecclesiology lesson that articulates the nature of the church. First published in the composers’ Songs for an Easter People (1972), the music reflects the growing use of informal folk styles influenced by the Viet Nam era protest song and the folk masses of the post-Vatican II (1962-1965) era. The text clearly expresses a no-nonsense message that breaks with the refined poetry of classic hymnody in favor of simple language and a candid, even blunt, message.

Beginning with a series of emphatic assertions in the refrain, the authors establish that the church is the people, both locally gathered and worldwide in its scope. Stanza 1 further clarifies the nature of the church by specifying what the church is not: it is not a “building,” a “steeple,” or a “resting place.” “The church is a people.” Stanza 2 focuses on diversity in the church—“many kinds of people” with “many kinds of faces” and “all colors and ages. . ..” The final clause captures an essential dimension of the church—“all times and places.” A similar phrase repeatedly found in the Presbyterian (USA) Book of Common Worship (1993) is “all the faithful of every time and place.” It appears prominently in the Preface to the Sanctus (Holy, holy, holy . . . ) in the Great Thanksgiving, the eucharistic prayer:

Therefore we praise you,
joining our voices with choirs of angels,
with prophets, apostles, and martyrs,
and with all the faithful of every time and place,
who forever sing to the glory of your name:
Holy, holy, holy . . . (Book of Common Worship, 1993, p. 70).

There is a cosmic presence of the faithful both in heaven and on earth. Those living and those departed who form the “great cloud of witnesses” are foundational to the nature of the church. This short phrase at the end of the second stanza captures this precept.

Stanza 3 presents the church as an active entity: “marching,” “bravely burning,” “riding,” “hiding,” and “learning.” While contexts of these participial references are not entirely clear, the church “marching” probably refers to Civil Rights struggles in the United States. Regardless of how one interprets this stanza, the church is not confined to a building but is active in the world. Stanza 4 describes the range of expressions—the sounds that emanate from the people who gather in the church: “singing,” “praying,” “laughing,” and “crying.”

The final stanza references Pentecost as described in Acts 2:1-4:

The result is that those assembled “told the Good News through the world. . .,” an evangelistic mandate.

California native Richard Avery received degrees from the University of the Redlands (B.A. 1956) and Union Theological Seminary, New York (M.Div. 1960). He was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), noted for his forty-year pastorate at First Presbyterian Church, Port Jervis, New York, near New York City. For three decades, he shared this ministry with his companion and life partner, Donald Marsh, who served as the congregation’s choirmaster and director of arts (Wallace, Avery, n.p.). His obituary notes: