While researching the prayer in a Greek text bible I found that the instructions for it say to SAY it in private , not in chants, as we go when we gather hands. While I personally love the prayer, I do understand that we have many pagan beliefs that wish to recover. A men's stag or any other stag meeting is not really an A.A. meeting per se and is usually filled with beginners and old intellectuals that have no need for applied traditions. Leave them to their folly and let the individual chairing the meeting decide.
Why don't we say the second part of the "Serenity Prayer"?
"To take this world as it is,
not as I would have it.
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy in the next"
I like to open meetings with this shortened one I found at our central office:
God, We come as friends to search our hearts.
We ask that you guide us closer and grant us new ways of living.