LCMS Approves 100 “Worship / Praise” Songs

In 2006, the LCMS through the Commission on Worship published its new hymnal Lutheran Service Book. Now it looks they have moved on to a new project - reviewing “worship and praise songs” for use in LCMS churches. According to a Reporter (official LCMS newspaper) article, 100 “worship and praise songs” have successfully made their way through the Synod’s doctrinal review process (13 of them appear in LSB or earlier publications). And more are on the way. In the future these songs will be sorted based on the church year.

And what are these 100 songs? The list has yet to be released — it isn’t on the Commission of Worship’s website. Evidently, they used CCLI data from LCMS churches to determine frequently used songs. I am interested to see what songs made the cut of the Synodical reviewers — what do these songs proclaim?

What bothers me about many “praise and worship” songs is what they often don’t say rather than what they do say. In particular, I recently reviewed a list of these types of songs to be used in a worship setting — out of the list of a dozen or so songs, Christ was mentioned once or twice directly, and a couple more times as indirect assumptions. Many tread lightly on sin and focus on the theology of glory rather than the theology of the cross. In comparison, I can randomly page through LSB and Christ and what He has done and continues to do for us is seen page after page. I assume there are some “praise and worship” songs that also do this, but these are not the norm from what I’ve seen.

Hymn Playing for Organists

As I was preparing and practicing the hymns for today, I came across the following quote from Luther Reed in a book of Creative Hymn Accompaniments by Gerhard Krapf:

A poor organist will make of hymn playing a commonplace thing.  A good organist will challenge the intelligent interest of the congregation and charge its hymn singing with thought and feeling.

I know I sometimes rush through the practicing of the hymns and liturgy so I can get to practicing the preludes and postludes (that’s the most important thing, right?).  But those of us who are organists should remember that our most important function is leading the congregations song — and we can only do that effectively through practice.  That means we occasionally search out alternate hymn accompaniments and introductions/intonations.  Perhaps that means spending some time to “prepare” an improvised introduction or playing around with pedal points and registrations.  Sometimes that means spending extra time on the hymns rather than the prelude or postlude.

See a previous blog post entitled Invitation to Sing for more reflections.

Let God’s people sing! — and you can help them sing out by being a good leader of the congregations song.

Lutheran Hymnody Makes the Evening News

How often do you hear Lutheran hymnody on television? Not often. How often does it make the evening news? Almost never . . . that is until “Singing the Faith: Living the Lutheran Liturgical Heritage” was produced by the Good Shepherd Institute. I stumbled across the news story “Seminary Prof. Produces Music Documentary” at the Indiana NewsCenter website via a Google search. There is a text news story and an online streaming video from the evening news with that Seminary Prof. - Kantor Resch. Not bad for only a 1 or 2 minute video.

I received my copy of the DVD this past weekend and am working my way through the videos and the study guide. Eventually I might write a review on Singing the Faith. If you’d like more information, surf on over to the Good Shepherd Institute website and view the introductory video - it’s only about 12 minutes +/-.

+ Jaraslov Vajda - 1919-2008 +

The Concordia Publishing House website reports that Dr. Jaraslov Vajda died on May 10, 2008. I first encountered his hymns with the now familiar “Go, My Children, With My Blessing”.

Some of us recently sang or read his Ascension hymn “Up Through Endless Ranks of Angels” (LSB 491) . The doxological verse to this hymn is a fitting closing to a long and productive service to God and the church.

Alleluia, alleluia! Oh, to breathe the Spirit’s grace!
Alleluia, alleluia! Oh, to see the Father’s face!
Alleluia, alleluia! Oh, to feel the Sons’ embrace!

God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It

Today (May 6) I celebrated the 29th anniversary of my baptism when my parents brought me to the font. With the water and God’s word my dad baptized me in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and marked me with the cross upon my forehead and upon my heart as one redeemed by Christ. As Luther wrote, this Baptism is

“a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says in Titus, chapter three: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying.”

And because of the rich gifts God gives in Baptism (forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation) I can say:

God’s own child, I gladly say it:
I am baptized into Christ!
He, because I could not pay it,
Gave my full redemption price.
Do I need earth’s treasure many?
I have one worth more than any
That brought me salvation free
Lasting to eternity! (LSB 594)

Amen.

“There’s Just Too Many Hymn Stanzas”

How many times have you heard this: There’s just too many hymn stanzas? Or for that matter, how many times have you thought this on a Sunday morning?

I remember as a teenager reading TLH #315. (While I haven’t been at a congregation that uses The Lutheran Hymnal for a few years now, I still have the hymn numbers deeply ingrained in my mind.) Without picking up TLH, which hymn is it? If you answered I Come, O Savior, To Thy Table, you are correct. You get bonus points if you also remembered that it has 15 stanzas. As best as I can remember, I have never sung the entire hymn in one service. For better or worse, LSB broke the hymn into two hymns - LSB 618 and 619 - each with 5 stanzas and eliminated the remaining 5 stanzas. Perhaps the later stanzas will be sung more often now.

This all leads up to a memorable quote from my current lunch time reading — Robin Leaver’s study of “Luther’s Liturgical Music”. In the essay on Vater unser im Himmelrich (Out Father, Who from Heaven Above - LSB 766), Leaver recounts that Martin Franzmann was concerned that Luther’s paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer was infrequently sung because it was perceived to be too long — with 9 stanzas. Franzmann wrote a three-stanza hymn (LBW 442 — LBW did not include Luther’s hymn), as did Henry Letterman (LW 430). Leaver concludes with:

These shortened forms of hymnic versions of the Lord’s Prayer are symptomatic of our modern age, which is impatient with hymns longer than three or four stanzas and with services of worship that last longer than fifty-nine minutes. But worship and prayer require time if we are to become attuned to what we are doing and why. (133-134)

Sometimes it gets to the point of sound bite hymnody — first and last verses — or the “Best of the Divine Service” to fit the “allotted” time. Why? I would gladly stay longer to be nourished through the entire Divine Service and hymnody.

Singing Advice from Luther

I have just started reading Luther’s Liturgical Music by Robin Leaver. While I’ve only finished the second chapter, I sense this will be a very in depth but readable study of Luther and music. Chapter Two focused on how music was a central part of Luther’s life from a very young age until his death and how he was surrounded by accomplished musicians. Leaver “sought to demonstrate that Luther’s musicianship was anything but superficial and is the essential starting-point for any discussion of his musical understanding of theology or of his liturgical use of music” (pg. 63)

And after reading this chapter, what do I remember? This practical bit of advice from Luther regarding the starting pitch of a song: “No one should try to sing such a song in a higher key, for he will surely become hoarse and make a botch of it before he reaches five notes.” Thus saith Luther.