PASSING THE TORCH

Today at the WELS National Worship Conference we are off to New Ulm, MN, where we will have classes and worship at Martin Luther College. An institution of the WELS, they will showcase the fabulous new chapel they have built there. We will enjoy the day there, and then return to St. Peter this evening. (The conference is hosted at Gustavus Adolphus College because there is not room to accommodate 1000 people in the dorms at Martin Luther College)

Yesterday, the keynote address, "Passing the Torch" highlighted the role of the church musician as the one who hands down a tradition. This reminds me of my work in Africa, where Lutherans there eagerly desire to learn the hymns of our faith, and so treat me as some sort of esteemed elder who teaches them the family story. Whether born into a family or adopted into a family, someone who is truly part of a family wants to know the family traditions. Musicians serve the Lord's ministry by teaching and celebrating the family song, that they may also tell "the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders He has done." (Ps. 78)

Rev. Aaron Christie, who is a musician as well as a pastor, encouraged us with five principles to help us "pass it on":

* Strive for a life-long pursuit of excellence.

* Proclaim the Gospel always in our music and our art.

* Be students of art and culture, and carefully apply your learning to the art of church music.

* Develop along with your art. Make the best of the various styles your own.

* Teach your craft to young musicians, and inspire them to be the next generation of leaders.

Seeing all the young people here at the conference, I think the WELS is definitely passing the torch. May all Christian churches learn from their example.

The Best-Kept Secret in Church Music

Once again I am totally impressed by the quality, organization, and spirit of the WELS national worship conference. I have been to many such gatherings of other organizations, many of them fine in their own right. But every time I spend a week with the WELS, I am reminded of Proverbs 31:29 ("Many have done excellently, but you have surpassed them all!"). That such excellence proceeds from a church body of but 400,000 souls is truly noteworthy. Clearly, these saints love the Lord's song, and, as we prayed in chapel this AM, desire "to worship in excellent, noble, and lovely ways."

There is so much that merits these accolades that I will not be able to squeeze them all in here between morning chapel and the upcoming keynote address to be delivered by Rev. Aaron Christie. But one highlight that must be mentioned is the outstanding opening concert last night given by the Festival Choir and Orchestra. Volunteer groups gathered from WELS congregations around the country, these ensembles performed magnificently under the inspiring direction of Dr. Kermit Moldernhauer and Katherine Tiefel. Especially memorable moments included a beautiful setting of "When You Pass Through the Waters" (Is. 43:1-3) by Paul D. Weber (published by Morning Star Music), Evelyen R. Larter's arrangement of "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel (Augsburg Fortress), Mendelssohn's "There Shall a Star", the Crucifixus from Bach's B Minor Mass, and Manz' "Even So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come." Liturgy Solutions composers Kevin Hildebrand and Jeffrey Blersch also had works performed: Kevin's setting of Jaroslav Vajda's incredibly moving text, "In Hopelessness and Near Despair," and Jeff's concertato on "Crown Him with Many Crowns" (CPH). Both of these works were excellently performed, as was John Rutter's Psalm 146. Above all, this reviewer was particularly moved by Brad Holmes "Star in the East". This should not surprise my friends who know my love for Sacred Harp music! :)

More to come. It is now time for the keynote address, "Passing the Torch." The hymn festival last night was loosely themed on "passing the joy of our Lutheran heritage to the next generation." It'll be good to discuss this, and we need strategies and motivation for training up all those who are new in the faith in the Lord's song - whether young or old. But it'll be great after discussing this to get back to enacting it, both here at this conference and back home in our congregations. And with 1000+ participants here at this conference, there will be a lot of places after this conference where the Lord's song will be sung with greater nobility, excellence, beauty, and joy!

GREETINGS FROM THE WELS NATIONAL WORSHIP CONFERENCE

It is a great day here in St. Peter, Minnesota, as musicians and pastors are gathering for the triennial WELS National Music Conference. Phillip Magness and Stephen Johnson are both here to make presentations, and also have set up a display booth in the vendor's area. We are so happy to be here, as the Commission on Worship for the WELS always does such a fantastic job.

If you are here, come by, say hello, and sign up for a free Liturgy Solutions download of your choice!

Lamb Of God (Twila Paris)

This weekend I'm putting the finishing touches on a 4-minute piano meditation on Twila Paris' "Lamb of God". I was commissioned to write this by the Wisconsin Synod for their triennial national worship conference this summer. I won't be able to publish this on LS due to copyright restrictions, but NPH or another print house may choose to publish this should the piece be favorably received.

The inclusion of this tune in confessional Lutheran hymnals has generated some controversy because of its roots in the CCM genre. I have not shared those concerns, because I believe that each tune and text should be judged on its own merits, but I do understand them. After all, the mind works by association. (For this reason, I make exception to my "stand on its own merits" policy and don't use AUSTRIA for "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken" because of the tune's association with "Deutchland, Deutschland Uber Alles", the Nazi anthem. Maybe it'll be OK for my grandkids to use the that tune, but I chose that tune once and had a Jewish convert and also a woman who grew up in the 40's Germany ask me not to choose it again.) If the song were still "the latest thing" in Christian Pop and had not proven its staying power, I would be more likely to agree with the objection that its use confesses unity with American Evangelicalism. However, the song has been seasoned by time, and the popular culture has moved on, and so we sing this American hymn at Bethany.

But though I have supported LSB 550 because the text is salutary and the tune is beautiful and accessible, I had always wondered if the tune was sturdy enough to support convincing compositional elaboration. The "sturdiness" of our historic chorale tunes is one of the reasons they are still so commendable for the church: they support all sorts of musical treatments. So after I accepted this commission, I mused extensively on the tune itself, seeking to separate it from all "poppy" accompaniment associations. I also didn't want to submit a predictable, formulaic piece that may be superficially pleasing but not really say anything.

I'm happy to report that I was able to do some pretty cool things with the tune, thanks to inspiration from the text but also due to some of the qualities of the tune. I used some polytonal techniques to paint "no sin to hide" and some impressionism to highlight "brought me to his side" and "O wash me in His precious blood". I created a mutation of the tune's intervals to accompany "I was so lost", and derived a harmonic progression from the polytonal assertions I made in the first stanza to accompany the Passion stanza, with pianistic flourishes to evoke the mocking and crucifixion. I was able to land all this with recapitulations of several ideas in the third stanza and found resolution in the end for "and to be called a lamb of God." It will take some pianism to pull it off, but is not a technically demanding piece.

I'm so pleased with this piece that I think I'll play it as the Voluntary at the Tenebrae on Good Friday this year at Bethany. I had another piece selected last August, but there is room for adjustment when something unexpected and convincing comes along. And I think the sobriety of my arrangement combined with the familiarity of the tune and text should result in more worshippers actually engaging with the text than usually happens with instrumental music in the church.

At least that's what I hope will happen. We'll see!

Solutions In Your Hymnal

Today we offer a guest column, which readers of Rev. Larry Peters' excellent blog, Pastoral Meanderings, have already seen. Larry has given his permission to run his article here, which we are glad to do because it so well supports one of the chief aims of this blog: to help musicians and pastors discover and explore the treasury of resources available to us for preparing authentic Lutheran worship. Almost all of the music published on our website is written to support the use of hymns & lectionaries of the Lutheran Service Book. (Which therefore means the music works well with other Lutheran hymnals, as our many WELS friends have discvoered.) Pastor Peters here offers an excellent outline of how to make the best use of this book. Whatever hymnal you use, this article will renew your appreciation for your hymnal, and help you explain its purpose and benefits to others.

THE FULLEST USE OF OUR RESOURCES
Rev. Larry Peters

Often the problem with "traditional" worship is not that what is done is bad but that it fails to exploit the full measure of the resources provided by the hymnary, lectionary, and liturgy of the Church. Those who yearn for creativity are, in some respects, right in their condemnation of of "traditional" worship as being boring or routine. But the fault lies not with the hymnal or liturgy. The fault usually lies with the people planning and conducting the Divine Service. In our busy lives it is easy to fall back upon the book and use it because it is there. In this respect many congregations using the hymnal are not technically "liturgical." I write this not to condemn but to encourage a more full use of the inherent resources of the hymnal, liturgy, and pericopes.

I forget where I read it that if you are using these resources fully, only something between 12-15% of the time on Sunday morning carries over from week to week. Block out the sermon, the readings, the collect, the hymns, and the liturgical options within the Divine Service and you see how the figure is achieved. When we use all of these resources to their fullest measure, then it is true. When we fail to use these resources fully, this figure may still be true but you would hardly recognize it while sitting in the pew.

Lets begin with the lectionary. Lutheran Service Builder allows you to print out all the pericopes on one sheet (Introit, Collect, Psalm, Lessons, Gradual, Verse). It is great to have these texts together and to spend time looking at them more fully before sermon and liturgical choices are made. You can do the same thing without Lutheran Service Builder but it takes just a bit more work. The point is that by immersing yourself in these texts you are better equipped not only to preach them but to use them in the Divine Service.

From the lectionary I always go to the hymnal. LSB has a marvelous hymn selection guide and you can use Lutheran Service Builder to locate hymns through its digital concordance to the hymnal but nothing replaces you own familiarity with the texts. I believe that praying the texts of hymns is important devotionally for you and is the greatest tool and gift when planning for the Divine Service. If you know the pericopes and you know where your sermon is going, then the next step for connecting the dots is to know the hymnal well enough that hymn choices are already flowing through your mind as you make it through the pericopes and sermon preparation.

I might say something here about tracking your use of hymns. It is easy for the congregation to be reduced to using only 25% of the hymns in the book. You want to use a combination of many familiar with one or maybe two new or less familiar tunes. Given the desire to satisfy people and working within the limitations, it is not uncommon for parishes to know only a small percentage of the hymns in the book -- I knew one parish where only about 12 tunes from LW were used! This is a problem that needs to be addressed. If you do not know these tunes, set up a plan and program to learn them -- week by week. Use soloists to sing them as preservice music, as the offering is gathered, or during the distribution. The choir can do the same thing. Warm up the folks before the liturgy begins and use these less familiar hymns to stretch their voices. The only way a new hymn becomes a favorite is through frequent use. Once you introduce a new hymn, use it again through the coming month so that its text and tune are embedded into the memory of the people.

Finally, the liturgy is addressed. What season are we in? What options are inherent to the season (omission of the Gloria in Excelsis and Alleluia during Lent, for example)? What additional choices are there to be made (offertory, how to use the Psalmody, post-communion canticle, etc.)? As you flesh out the choices for the Divine Service you also begin to see how the hymn possibilities may fit (entrance hymn, hymn of the day, distribution hymn, sending hymn, etc.).

The goal is to have it all fit together as a seamless garment in which nothing seems out of place or out of character. In this way the fullest resources of the hymnal, lectionary, and church year flow together toward a common goal and purpose in the Divine Service. I do this several times a year for 1/3-1/2 of the Sundays of the year so that I am always ahead. It works for me. Saturday night is the one thing that hardly ever works. If you cannot plan months in advance (for the sake of your parish musician), at least plan one month ahead.

The hymnal is a tool. If it is unfamiliar to you as the Pastor or parish musician, it will most certainly be unfamiliar to your people and an uncomfortable resource. If you know it and use it as one who knows it inside and out, then it will encourage the people in the pew to use the full resources of the book in their family and individual devotional lives as well as Sunday morning. Just do it...

A Tale of Two Conferences

I was able to join Stephen for the last night day of the WELS worship conference and so offer some comparison and contrast for our readers:

1 - Preaching. What I heard in St. Peter was consistent with reports I got from a couple of folks who attended all of both conferences: the WELS preaching overall was stronger, more substantive, and more Lutheran. Not that the preaching was all bad at LCMS, but certainly there are some gifted preachers in the WELS - and they take the idea that the Worship Conference is for pastors as well as musicians quite seriously. I will say that the LCMS preaching was stronger at past Institutes, but if I were to keep score here (which I'm not), I'd say "score one for the WELS!"

2 - Orders of Service. The WELS are introducing a new hymnal supplement and so several new service settings were introduced at the conference. (Full disclosure: it includes my tune for Christopher Idle's "If Christ Had Not Been Raised") Certainly this is the place to do that sort of thing - but I think it was a little overdone. Part of the joy of these conferences is singing the common tradition together and that wasn't done as strongly at the WELS conference as I think it should have been. I might have liked a little more liturgical variety at the LCMS conference - but LSB didn't give us much new to work with (which is another story for another post). That said, I thought the LCMS had a better balance between "familiar" and "fresh" - even as I commend the WELS Commission on Worship for doing an excellent job with their hymnal supplement AND this conference.

3 - Hymnody. Both conferences featured good hymnody, sung with gusto by the assemblies. The WELS had an accent on new tunes & texts appearing in their new supplement; the LCMS did a better job of reflecting and expressing the catholicity of the church with the variety of hymns selected. If there is interest perhaps we'll post a list for folks to compare. Just let us know.

4 - Psalmody. Both conferences did what most LCMS congregations don't do: they sang the psalms. I think this is actually a more common practice now in WELS, but I need more than my experiences and some anecdotal data to confirm this. At any rate, WELS is to be commended for providing many new psalm refrains in its supplement. LCMS is to be commended for having more variety in its practice of psalm singing (though we could have used even more!). I will offer one caution for WELS, though: at Evening Prayer on Wednesday night, I found myself starting to agree with Carl Schalk's observation that "we are being refrained to death these days." While I disagree with Carl on this, as I think refrains contextualize the psalms and are useful ways of engaging the assembly and incorporating them into psalm, I do think there is a limit to how much of this style one should use. Certainly with all the musicians present we could have done a little more than the THREE songs with refrains sung after the sermon at Evening Prayer that night - in addition to the one on Psalm 141 earlier in the service! I think 1-2 refrains in a service is fine; four is a bit too much.

5 - High School Honor Choir. OK, at this point I must say that even though Dr. Von Kampen did a STELLAR job with the LCMS kids - and even though one of my sons was singing with the LCMS group(!) - I must give strongest praise to the WELS for a job incredibly well done. The LCMS evidently has a lot to learn from the WELS in organizing, recruiting, and motivating young people for these conferences. The LCMS choir had 42 singers: 16 sopranos, 12 altos, 7 tenors, and 7 basses. The WELS, despite being a much smaller synod, had 128 singers - 32 in each section! They sang much more literature - and much more challenging literature - than the LCMS group. These kids were obviously working on this music well before the conference, and I suspect that the WELS high school choir directors were plugged into the planning and so used some of the conference music in their own programs this past year. Most of the students were from WELS high schools - but there was a good number of public and home schooled youth as well.

I think the contrast between these groups is illustrative of the conflict and dysfunction within the LCMS. Most LCMS schools do not value and nourish our rich musical heritage and so our youth are deprived of some great faith-shaping experiences. It appears to me that this is less of a problem in the WELS. And it was such a joy to watch 128 high school students joyfully singing classical sacred music, and great liturgical music from our Lutheran heritage. They were singing in spirit and in truth and it showed! Imagine what the LCMS could do if we were to have lots of high schools excelling in choral music, have those schools networked and plugged into conference planning and preparation, and then bring in 128 of the cream of the LCMS crop to have a music camp for a few days before the conference. It would do so much more than make for great worship: it would motivate the next generation of the church's musicians for the years to come.

One last comparison - both conferences made great and good use of instruments. I hope that all the musicians who attended will go home and use more of the musical talent in their parishes. It is so easy to simply "just play it on the organ", but there is so much more ministry taking place when we use the gifts God has placed among us in our parishes. With both youth and instrumentalists, a rich liturgical piety is nurtured through involving more people in the Lord's song. May we musicians dedicate ourselves to discipling the talent placed among us - and may our congregations support this work by budgeting appropriate funds to support music ministry in the Church.

Concio et Cantio

These two Latin words refer to the Divine Service activities of preaching and singing respectively. In Dr. Daniel Zager’s presentation today at the WELS conference on worship, he outlined how specifically Kantor Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) used these exact words to refer to the tight connection, as Luther called it, between preaching and congregational singing. Zager is a musicologist at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, so his presentation had a strong historical element. He is able to masterfully discuss history and practice in a way uncommon to most presenters - concise, yet thorough, analytical, yet accessible.

The entire presentation held my interest, but given the musings on contemporary worship in the LCMS and evidently the WELS, I was interested in how he dealt with the musical issues as they touch parish practice. I’ll hit on a couple things in this post.

First, the overarching question is how should the music function in divine worship. Music may evoke several different responses from people as it unfolds in worship, but the bedrock question of how it ought to function needs to be clear. If we are going to be Lutheran in our worship identity, we ought to start with how Luther and the early Lutherans dealt with the subject. For Luther, singing was an extension of preaching. It was the way people heard the message of the preaching anew – through song. The preaching was often tied to the Gospel and so the music was often tied to the same. Regardless, music was a partner in the ministry of the Word. This practice was very much in play for Praetorius and also for the later composer J.S. Bach, who wrote cantatas mirroring the Gospel readings for the day.

When we think of music in our worship today, is this our understanding? Do we really believe that music serves a unique place to help people reflect upon the subject of the preaching. Do we use music to teach them different facets of what they hear read and preached? Often the answer is no. We frequently are sidelined by the culture of our congregations, thinking that they cannot handle such “lofty” things. In doing so, we fail to give them the opportunity to contend with the subject. We short circuit the process before it even has begun. Is it naïve for us to think that we can actually teach our congregations to have this uniquely Lutheran outlook concerning their singing? As difficult as congregations can be, I think, even so, the answer is, not only is it not naïve, but it is a mandate, and spiritual treasure awaits the congregations who can meet the challenge.

The job of the pastor and church musician is to teach their congregations this very thing. They are to gently instruct people that their singing is part of learning Holy Scripture and even more, part of their receiving the gifts of Christ. When they come to church, they should not look for a pep-rally. Nor should they have a bad attitude when a hymn they do not prefer is sung. Congregations need to be guided into an understanding that what they receive in church is something completely other than what they receive on their radios, in their theaters, or on their favorite CDs. Music in the Divine Service is to point them to Jesus. Sometimes the hymns will be hard. Sometimes they will be easy. Sometimes they will be something the people like. Sometimes they will be something they do not like. They may have to learn something new, while singing other things that are very familiar.

One very difficult matter that keeps us from this understanding is the fact that almost everyone regards music in a one dimensional way. For most, it is entertainment, plain and simple. Entertaiment is the sole function of music in most people’s lives. In the church, our charge as pastors and musicians is to help our people leave the entertainment mentality behind the minute they walk into church. It is to help them focus on the question, “How will Christ show himself to me today in our singing?” It is to foster an attitude of unity of purpose so that our congregations are not divided along such artificial lines as musical preference. It is to cultivate a love for our rich hymn heritage amongst our people so that they learn about Baptism, the Sacrament of the Altar, the theology of the cross, the atonement, redemption and all the other gifts that Christ has lavished upon us.

Avoid the temptation to scratch the itch of a vocal minority who thinks that they cannot worship unless every last musical criteria they hold is met. This is to keep them in their entertainment mentality and to give a place to blatant consumerism in things spiritual. The Holy Spirit does not need us to “sell” the Gospel, and such an approach attempts to do just that. He is able to soften the hearts of people who have disdain for the message of our faithful Lutheran hymn poets, old and new who give us their perspective in their rich hymns. And yes, this is a disdain, not merely for the music, but for the message it contains as well as for the function and purpose of music in authentically Lutheran worship.

Very WEL Done!

I am at the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s Conference on Worship hosted by their Commission on Worship. Bryan Gerlach and his team have put together a real extravaganza, food for the soul, ears and mind. There is much I could say about all the goings on here after a mere day and a half, but I’ll start with this morning.

There was a lovely Divine Service introducing all kinds of new music, hymnody, canticles and psalm settings that are found in their newly released Christian Worship Supplement. More on the Supplement in another post, but safe to say it is a lovely compilation of hymnody and liturgical music, old and new. As with every volume any synod releases, it will receive its share of critique, but as a volume of for worship it appears to be fit for the task.

Following the Divine Service we heard our first plenary address given by Rev. Jon F. Zabell, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran in Green Bay WI. Zabell’s address was nothing less than astounding. His talent as an orator could well be described as virtuostic, with an command over the subject matter that was natural, pastoral, extremely balanced and good natured. One could not help be drawn into his speech and captivated by his careful yet accessible analysis of the subject.

He basically discussed the formulation of hymnals in the WELS, but used it to address how the church grows in its understanding of why we worship the way we do. He referenced the highly pietistic and rationalistic bent within WELS from its earliest days in the U.S. and showed how those influences kept the church from true Lutheran orthodoxy in the hymns they sang. Pietism sang about the emotions of the faithful, while rationalism concentrated on singing about morality. So the hymnody was about how well we love Jesus and how to be a good neighbor. Not that either of those things should be ignored, but rather how they need to be informed by a pure and simple confession of faith in our worship – a confession that by its nature is doctrinal.

He illustrated this quite wonderfully by taking us back to Eden. Adam and Eve really only had one act of worship they were required to perform (other than just living their lives in the presence of God). That act was simple: “Do not eat of the tree.” By not eating of the tree, Adam and Eve were making their confession. “We believe God," was the confession they made. But Satan, as he always does, offered them another confession: that they might be like God. In eating of the tree, which was “good for food” and no doubt tasted good too, our first parents supplanted the objective “we believe God” for a subjective experience of being like God. Satan played the card that the end game in their worship was to feel good. And he still does so today.

In the WELS as well as in the LCMS we are toying with just how far to go in utilizing “contemporary” worship and “alternative” services. All things are permissible, but not all things are profitable, so says the scripture. What is behind our yearning to look into these things? Could it be a dissatisfaction with things old (like our post-reformation heritage hymnody of the 16th and 17th centuries)? Could it be a desire to spice up the service so it is more appealing? That it make people feel better in the worship setting? Could it be that we think we can assist the Holy Spirit in growing his church even when Augsburg says that he creates faith in the heart when and where it pleases him? Whatever reasons we are using to assess this matter, these do not seem to reflect the understanding of worship bequeathed to us by Luther as he took his cue from Holy Scripture.

Zabell discussed many things in his hour long presentation that I cannot begin to cover here. But one thing he did mention that hit home with me, was the need for the church to set itself apart as Lutheran worshipers – apart from the world, that is. We do not seek to entertain, or just touch the emotions as an end in itself, nor do we seek to aid the Holy Spirit who would otherwise be impotent without our efforts to spice up the service a little. No, we worship that we might receive Christ. That Word and Sacrament might be lifted up as Christ is present in them. We do this through the employment of the liturgy, hymns old and new, and songs by the choir, old and new. Music that fleshes out our confession, draws us to the work of our Savior and focuses us upon him. More later.