CROSSACCENT - Association of Lutheran Church Musicians · 2017-08-22 · Fall/Winter 2016 CrossAccent 1 CROSSACCENT vol 24, no 3 | FALL/Winter 2016 journal of the association of lutheran

Fall/Winter 2016 CrossAccent 1

CROSSACCENTjournal of the association of lutheran church musicians vol 24, no 3 | FALL/Winter 2016

CrossAccent is published three times per year by the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. Subscription is included with membership in ALCM. Libraries may subscribe at $60 per year by contacting the Business Office. Copyright © 2016 Association of Lutheran Church Musicians.

The views expressed on the pages of the journal are those of the authors and do not reflect official positions of the editorial board of the journal or of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians.

This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database®, a product of the American Theological Library Association, 300 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 2100, Chicago, IL 60606, USA. e-mail: [email protected], www.atla.com.

ISSN 2151–1772

Editor: Jennifer Phelps OllikainenMusic Editor: Lara WestBook Editor: Paul GrimeCopy Editor: Anne-Marie BogdanGraphic Design: Kathryn Hillert Brewer

Editorial OfficeJennifer Phelps Ollikainen, Editor1127 Magazine RoadGreen Lane, PA [email protected]

Editorial BoardKent BurresonPaul Friesen-CarperJoseph HerlNancy RaabeStephen Rosebrock

Advertising OfficeCheryl Dieter, Advertising Coordinator810 Freeman St.Valparaiso, IN [email protected]

ALCM Business OfficeCheryl Dieter, Business ManagerAssociation of Lutheran Church Musicians810 Freeman St.Valparaiso, IN [email protected]

www.ALCM.org

The Association of Lutheran Church Musicians is a service and professional organization that works to strengthen the practice of worship and church music of all North American Lutherans. Membership is open to any person or institution whose interests are in harmony with the Associa-tion’s goals. Address all change of address, subscriptions, and business correspondence to the ALCM Business Office.

ALCM OFFICERSPresident: Julie GrindlePast President: Anne Krentz OrganSecretary/Treasurer: Kevin BargerDirectors at Large: Jeffrey Blersch, Michael Krentz

Region 1 (Northeast) President: Jennifer Baker-TrinityRegion 2 (Southeast) President: Ryan HostlerRegion 3 (Midwest) President: Linda MartinRegion 4 (West) President: William Kuhn

2 PRELUDE Editorial Comment—Jennifer Phelps Ollikainen

3 TAKENOTE Center for Church Music—Nancy Raabe

COUNTERPOINT 5 Formed/Re-formed: Engaging Worship across Cultures

and Generations—Robert Alan Rimbo and Justin Rimbo

15 Partnering with the Spirit: Gathered, Enlightened, and Transformed—Brian Maas

22 For Whose Sake? Kinesthetic Energy Patterns and Liturgical Discernment—Sandra Dager

CHORUS 32 Reflections—Jennifer Baker-Trinity

34 Concordia Worship and Music Symposium Hymn Festival—Kyle Johnson

BOOKREVIEW 35 Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama Liturgy

by Markus Rathey—Kevin Hildebrand

38 SOUNDFEST New Music

52 POSTLUDE From the ALCM Past President—Anne Krentz Organ

Cover art: Steeples of churches that hosted ALCM conferences this past summer are Trinity English, Ft. Wayne, IN; St. Andrew, Franklin, TN (photo by Rion Rizzo, Creative Sources Photography); Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago, IL; and St. John’s, Sacramento, CA.

2 Fall/Winter 2016 CrossAccent www.alcm.org

PRELUDE

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The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Phelps OllikainenEditor, CrossAccent

O ver this past summer, more than 400 worship leaders and musicians gathered for the regional ALCM conferences.

Each gathering offered up the gifts of the region through workshops, plenary presentations, mu-sic reading sessions, and hymn festivals. While each regional gathering was unique in its local expression, the camaraderie of colleagues serving a common vocation united us across the country. Even more, we gathered to praise God in wor-ship and song, united by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This issue of CrossAccent includes sever-al regional conference presentations and hymn festivals edited for print. More than for-print-only articles, though, one can hear the voice and rhythm of the live events spring from these pages.

ELCA Bishop Robert Rimbo and his son, Justin Rimbo, presented plenaries as conver-sation interspersed with song in Region 1’s gathering in Fort Wayne, IN. They explore wor-ship across the generations, grounded in ancient worship practice and responsive to our current times. This father and son share a common love for Christian worship that rings true and clear in their words and songs.

Another ELCA bishop, Brian Maas, pre-sented the three plenary sessions of Region 3’s gathering in Chicago, IL. His comments explore how the wind of the Holy Spirit moves through worship. Maas reminds us that in the Spirit we are called and gathered, inspired and renewed, transformed and sent. Even as we are sometimes surrounded by chaos in our lives and weighed down by waiting for new life to spring forth,

God is at work in and through our lives and our worship.

Sandra Dager explores a sensory side of our music in worship in her plenary presentations from the gathering of Region 4 in Sacramen-to, CA. Grounded in the community of Christ and sensitive to gracious and mutual hospitality, Dager explores energy patterns that musicians often consider intuitively. Our music in worship and our preferences for music may have a driv-ing beat, lyrical melody, swinging rhythm, or ephemeral quality; Dager explores the balance for which we strive in worship.

The Chorus section of this issue provides ex-amples of the rich gifts of our ALCM members offered in hymn festivals at our regional confer-ences. Jennifer Baker-Trinity’s reflections from the Region 1 festival, “Let All the People Praise You: Singing through the Generations: A Cele-bration of Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs,” are beautifully poetic. Kyle Johnson gives us his outline of a hymn festival patterned after the church year. Perhaps you will find inspiration in these gifts for your own local hymn festival.

As we gathered as colleagues and explored our worship-centered vocation at regional con-ferences, our voices joined together in song and praise for the One who gave us the song to sing.

Hymnal Abbreviations:ELW: Evangelical Lutheran WorshipLSB: Lutheran Service BookCW: Christian Worship


by Nancy Raabe

T he theme of ALCM’s 2017 biennial gathering (Minneapolis, MN, July 10–13, 2017) is “Rise, Remember Well the

Future.” The conference brochure tells us that we will “simultaneously celebrate the treasures of the last 500 years and look to the future and God’s covenant of faithfulness in all that is yet to be.”

Yet with a dimming awareness of the scope of history in our culture, “remembering” is not a strong suit. ALCM’s revised worship statement, “Called to Be a Living Voice,” tells us that “We simultaneously care for our congregations’ lo-cal musical heritage and tradition while being bridge builders to the ever-emerging songs of the church. We delight in the riches from our past, as well as the gems in our new songs.”

The gems in our new songs are not hard to come by, but the riches from our past often prove hard to locate. With the reduction in church music degree programs in our educational insti-tutions, we may well ask (paraphrasing Paul in Romans 10:14), “How are they to know about something of which they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to tell them?”

This is where the Center for Church Mu-sic—a multifaceted initiative based at Concordia University Chicago (CUC)—brings good news (https://www.cuchicago.edu/about-concordia/center-for-church-music/). Formally launched six years ago to house the manuscripts of Rich-ard Hillert and Carl Schalk, the Center has expanded under director Barry Bobb to include five dimensions of lively activity:

1. A resource room located in Klinck Me-morial Library on the CUC campus that includes a growing storehouse of composer

manuscript archives, the 541-volume Schalk American Lutheran Hymnal Collection, and an array of relevant books, journals, and recordings. Original music manuscript ar-chives now housed there, starting from the most recently added, include those of John Eggert, Paul Bunjes, Donald Busarow, Jaro-slav Vajda, Walter Pelz, Henry Markworth, Ralph Schultz, Carl Schalk, Paul Manz, and Richard Hillert. The transfer of several oth-er archives is in various stages of negotiation.

2. A digital initiative that has two major components:

• the first, undertaken in cooperation with hymnary.org, makes it possible to view hun-dreds of hymnals in the Schalk American Lutheran Hymnal Collection in 26 different categories (such as Pennsylvania Ministeri-um, Lutheran–Reformed, and Ohio Synod), meaning that tens of thousands of individual hymns from the vast river of American Lu-theran hymnody are now at one’s fingertips

Center for Church Music

TAKENOTE

Steven Wente shows a man-uscript from the Center’s collection.


TAKENOTE

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(go to “Hymnal Collection Index” on the Center’s website); and

• the second brings us scans of the Center’s music manuscript archives, so that one may view those online instead of making the trip to Chicago. To date, those of Paul Manz and Richard Hillert are available; many mp3 recordings are available as well (go to “Com-poser Manuscript Indices” on the website).

3. An array of other newly produced re-sources on the website. These include a complete three-year cycle of devotions on the hymn of the day, 500-word theological reflections on many of our most treasured hymns; two series of newly written essays, one by Paul Westermeyer (“Reflections”) and the other by Carl Schalk (“Perspec-tives”); “Conversations,” featuring a series of video presentations, dialogues, and panel discussions on various topics relating to the music of the church, including a discussion of the legacy of Gerhard Cartford by Paul Westermeyer and Luther Seminary archi-vist Paul Daniels, and workshops on hymn writing by Stephen Starke and Susan Palo Cherwien; and, under the heading of “Pro-files in American Lutheran Church Music,” an ever-expanding series of video inter-views (22 at present) conducted both by and about leading figures in American Lu-theran church music, which offers revealing windows into the lives of these exception-al individuals and the forces that shaped them—these warrant special mention as a means both for young musicians of the church to become immersed in the craft of the cantor and for seasoned veterans to be renewed in their commitment to their call-ing. A second component of the “Profiles” consists of 13 essays on cantors of the church by Victor Gebauer.

4. A series of eight (to date) print publi-cations in the series Shaping American Lutheran Church Music, available through Lutheran University Press and amazon.com. A Festschrift for Charles Ore was recent-ly released and, with the volume by Carl Schalk released last year, there are now nine books published under the Center’s auspices (go to “Publications” on the website).

5. Two awards given by the Center, designed to encourage the next generation of church musicians. These are the Hillert Award in Student Composition and the Schalk Scholars, the latter consisting of stipends for research and opportunities for publica-tion and presentation. The Noel D. Schalk Annual Lecture Fund was also recently es-tablished under the Center’s auspices to support scholarly presentations at the an-nual CUC conference Lectures in Church Music.

The Center’s website provides access to more information about all aspects of the Center. A quarterly newsletter and a Facebook page, both accessible through the website, offer updates on the latest news and events.

Another feature to watch for will bring online, in a searchable database, organ impro-visations by Paul Manz from the vast set of his hymn festival recordings that are now housed at the Center. And what else? Director Barry Bobb won’t quite say it, but the sky’s the limit. In a recent letter to friends and supporters of the Center, he wrote,

the Center for Church Music is a place where you can tap into that great flow of energy, ei-ther on site or online, in order to get new ideas for music ministry in its various forms; gain a perspective on the music of the Church; take time for reflection; connect with the larger endeavor of Lutheran church music; be inspired by some remarkable leaders and thinkers in our midst; be energized for music ministry; [and] satisfy curiosity. Please visit us on site or online and engage the amazing, dynamic mosaic of Lutheran church music which continues to be “the living voice of the Gospel” as it helps to propel church music into the future.

Soli Deo gloria!


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by Robert Alan Rimbo and Justin Rimbo

Plenary 1Bob: Worship is a collaborative engagement across cultures and generations in which God and the people of God “listen” to each other and are formed in love around each other for the sake of the world. It is an imaginative, risky, and life-giving venture. Here we pray that all the peoples will praise, and we mean all!

Worship shapes our lives. It may appear that worship is all about what we do: we gather, we sing, we pray, we read, we listen, we raise con-cerns, we offer ourselves and our resources to God, we embrace, we give thanks, we eat and drink, we scatter. Sometimes we get wet or at least remember that we got wet.

Sometimes we hallow the days and hours of life with prayer and praise. We remember the story of God’s deliverance from slavery, sin, and death in Israel and in Jesus, following a set of days and seasons. Worship seems to be what we do, something we form.

But there is another way to look at worship. Though on the surface it may appear to be our doing—especially for people like us who are pro-fessional worshippers—at a deeper level and in the long view it is the work of the Triune God in and through us. In our doing, our God prompts us to listen more deeply to what God is calling us to be. We are being formed and re-formed

by the Source of all, the eternal Word, the Holy Spirit. In worship our visions, desires, attitudes, yearnings, wills, and lives are recast, molded, and shaped to conform to the dying and rising of Christ for the life of the world. This conference invites us to enter more deeply into worship as the work of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ to the glory of God. Justin and I and all of us who are leading in these days are inviting you to see yourself as part of a great work that is imagi-native, risky, and life-giving for all.

Worship grows out of the resources of Holy Scripture, a calendar of celebrations and a lec-tionary, a treasury of hymns and songs both ancient and new, prayers, rites centered on Holy Baptism and Holy Coommunion, and daily pat-terns of prayer linked to times of the day.

Now, I suspect that some of you have your own ideas of what worship really is. I have, my-self, been known to think that no good music was written after 1750, and I have a few thou-sand other opinions, some of which are godly. That kind of thinking, I confess, is only a few degrees of separation from the entertainment evangelist folks. Liturgy is more than personal preference or even personal piety. Worship is not our answer to the all-pervading American ques-tion, “What’s in it for me?”

Editor’s note: These are the plenary addresses given at the ALCM Region 1 conference, Ft. Wayne, IN, July 2016.

Formed/Re-formed: Engaging Worship across Cultures and Generations

Worship is the work of the

Triune God in and through us. In

our doing, our God prompts us

to listen more deeply to what

God is calling us to be.


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Such self-indulgence and self-orientation threatens and undermines the fullness of the Christian life and the fullness of the Christian Church when it focuses on “come to church and we will give you what you need to live successful-ly.” That sounds like an invitation to go shopping at the mall to buy something advertisers tell us we want or need, but it’s not evangelism or worship.

The gospel names us and calls us to give up our false selves and to be united with our true selves in Jesus Christ. To be formed and re-formed. “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’” (Mt. 16:24–25; NRSV). The “self” Jesus asks us to deny is false in that it is devoted to futile ends by destructive means. The cross Je-sus asks us to take up is participation in his dying and rising—an incredibly threatening and risky business, to say the least. The prospect horrifies our false selves. To give ourselves up is impossi-ble except by the grace of God.

And that’s why we are talking about being born and reborn, formed and re-formed across generations and cultures.

Justin: I wrote the song “Born/Reborn”1 for a synod assembly; I was asked to compose an original song that worked as both a baptismal re-membrance and a song of praise. I was inspired by my friend Nate, who had recently written a baptism-themed song after reading a book about pirates. In that song he brings up the relationship between drowning and finding treasure, and the kind of death that sets you free. And I thought, “why aren’t there many songs of praise about dy-ing?” And in asking that, I had my answer. The only way it would make sense is in light of bap-tism—being ushered into a life of carrying the cross, through no power of our own. Bob: Worship is not an end in itself. It is a portal into the heart, mind, and work of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God.

The liturgy is formative and re-formative.

In it we recognize God’s action in converting us from self-occupation of any kind to God- occupied living. Here are several ways in which participation in worship forms us.• Worship carries us into the presence of Jesus.

Just as the paralyzed man’s friends in the gospel carried him to Jesus (Luke 5:17–26), worship brings us to Jesus. It breaks through the crowdedness of our preoccupations and the false self that keeps our true self from him. It is a means of grace—which is to say, it is not something we do but a means through which the community called to-gether by Christ acts in concern to bring us into the presence of Christ. We carry one another into that presence, especially we who are musicians.

• The liturgy in its repetition is cumulative yet always new. Many suspect that liturgy as a pattern of action and words is mere repe-tition and therefore boring, deadly, and irrelevant. I can understand this viewpoint. I’ve experienced it even in some Lutheran churches where it is done by the book. In-deed, you may feel this way, too. But I trust that God will offer you—at least over these days when you are not necessarily having to worry about the cherub choir or that shut-in call—a more dynamic appreciation of God’s mighty and gracious action in worship.

• Worship requires a discernment of what is “good” and what is “bad.” In a parable Jesus speaks of casting a net. When the net is full and pulled to shore, people put the good fish into baskets and throw away the bad ones. After telling this story, Jesus asks his fol-lowers, “Have you understood all this?” and they answer, “Sure. Yes. Of course.” And he says to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Mt. 13:47–52). That’s a question for all of us: “Have you understood all this?” And we take care not to answer too quickly as we, too, bring treasures old and new.

• Worship makes us part of a web of relation-ships with fellow worshippers from all times and places. When we profess the Apostles’


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Creed, we affirm our belief in the commu-nion of saints. We are already in a glorious eschatological relationship with all who have been made holy by God’s grace, all God’s people in every time and place. Worship acts as a lens, allowing us to perceive gifts and relationships that are invisible in ordi-nary seeing. Even if we worship with a small group, the house is packed! Martin Luther, Julian of Norwich, Harriet Tubman, Albert Schweitzer, Fanny Crosby, Mother Teresa, and a host of others are there. They call us into the deeper water where we splash in the waves of God’s new creation.

Song: “Come, Holy Ghost”2

Come Holy Ghost. Come God and Lordwith all your grace on us outpoured.Come Holy Light. Come Guide Divinenow cause the Word of Life to shine.Come Holy Fire and Comfort True;grant us the will your work to do.Lord by your pow’r prepare our hearts.Where we are weak, Lord strength impartthat bravely here we may affordour life and death to you our Lord. (x 2)Alleluia.

Bob: Worship always reflects the catholic, univer-sal dimensions of living tradition at the same time that we make it local and particular. If we believe in the communion of saints, then they all have a voice in what we do around book, table, font, pew.

In Gordon Lathrop’s truly remarkable book, Holy Things (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), he reminds us that the ordering of Christian worship is best understood as a process and ex-perience of mutual gift giving. The long and large cumulative tradition of the church univer-sal gives us rich and splendid gifts. When loved and treasured, this legacy is also what Lathrop describes as the “remedial norm.” But this norm

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invites us to broaden what we tend to make ex-clusive, narrow, and impoverished when we limit our practices and imagination to our own taste or experience (174–6).

The liturgy must be particular to the time and place where it happens. Thus, accepting the gifts that come from the larger tradition, we bring our own gifts to the table so that the legacy is always here and now. Let’s try it this way: in worship we receive and give gifts in ways that are venerably ancient and faithfully current.

Justin: Of course, as many people here would know, there’s no formula for creating an original worship song (or prayers, or sermon) that will be a perfect fit for every possible situation. That is due to the need for generative worship material to be peculiar to its context. For every detail that is the same between our churches, or that strives to be the same (“one Lord, one faith, one bap-tism”), there are other details emphasizing the reality that our communities are increasingly different and diverse. I had a seminary professor who called this relationship “reconciled diversi-ty.” At the rate at which cultural change happens in the postmodern era, which is exponentially growing, the church—your church—is never going to get less diverse. And that’s good news—because it’s also never going to be less reconciled. So when writing songs for a congregation, the first thing I make sure of is that it is true to God’s character as revealed in Scripture, but second, that it’s true to the character and identity of my congregation. My end goal is to write (or choose) songs that sing with the voice of my congregation, whatever that group may be. When I sing songs at a synod assembly, they are going to be differ-ent from the ones I sing in a prison visit. Past that, I try to create songs that are simply singable and have some sort of beauty. Sometimes I find all three. Sometimes I don’t.

Song: “When It Seems the Day Will End”3

When it seems the day will end And all light give way to fear We will speak your name again To remind us you are here New life rising Ashes falling Joy and weeping In your calling When it seems the day will end Sinking low under our sin We are dead and born again And with you now enter in When it seems the day will end And a coldness fills our bones We will walk the way you’ve been And our hearts will be your home

Worship is ordered and outrageous, scheduled and uncontrollable. This is because the body of Christ is supremely human, even when it is en-gaged in liturgy. There is both grandeur and an “oh, wow” dimension to the experience of a flesh-and-blood gathering around holy things. Whatever our age, gender, status, culture, eth-nicity, we can only gather and participate in our full humanity.

With the great addition of a track for chil-dren at this conference, it is good to remember that children participating in worship can only be themselves, sometimes to the dismay of us overly socialized adults! Would we want them to stay away? No. We are diminished by their absence.

Bob: Before Justin speaks a bit more about that, I would like to tell a Justin story. He was four years old and very attracted to television. On Palm/Passion Sunday that year, at the conclu-sion of the Passion reading after Jesus had been taken from the cross and there was, disappoint-ingly, no mention of an empty tomb, Justin turned to Lois and excitedly whispered, “Mom, Mom, this is to be continued, right?”


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Justin: Kids and adults, together. At Sobremesa (the church I’m a part of in South Carolina), we have a glorious problem, which is that nearly 60 percent of our regular attendees are under 4 feet tall. That means it gets loud, and we as adults have to slow down to care for the smallest and youngest among us. It reminds me of a compari-son that was made at my home church, Humble Walk in St. Paul, Minn. We had an awakening when we heard visiting preacher Susan Tjornehoj remind us that Jacob, on his way to reconciling himself to his brother, was dragging his whole family with him, with the children in front of the entourage, setting the pace. For a long time, and lately especially, I’ve been considering her assertion that in order to pick up a child who needs attention, you often have to put something else down. Like groceries. Or a computer. Or sense of control. Or a neat/orderly/contemplative worship service. So at Dinner Church events we move at the pace of children. I talk more loud-ly. I beg people to sit and lead kid dinner-talks. If you’re sacrificing the youngest among you for the sake of a prettier, quieter, predictable wor-ship service, you’re doing it wrong.

This is the kind of noise we want in worship. If the Israelites raised children in the desert, we can sit with a noisy toddler for 65 minutes, and furthermore, allow all of the most vulnerable among us to dictate our pace.

In worship we are always spirits and bod-ies, from infancy to death, being who and what we are. And just as there is no perfect or correct liturgy, there are no perfect or ideal assemblies. Liturgy is not about dressing up and pretend-ing we are other than who we are. Even when our youngest members dress like shepherds and angels (a holy and devastating spiritual practice) there is no pretending. They are embodying and incarnating the nativity, being who they are in the fullest sense. Our quest—remember the ref-erence to Lathrop’s Holy Things—our quest is to give ourselves to God.

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Plenary 2Justin: Liturgical churches use lots of words, particularly printed words. So I want to invite you to lay aside that connection in order to em-brace a broader and more dynamic appreciation of liturgy, which is exactly what Lathrop asks us to do in Holy Things.

There are several dynamic pairings—or, if you prefer to remain faithful to Lathrop, juxtapositions:• Word next to word. I’m pro-simplicity in

worship. I think God can work in the spaces we leave open, but I also think they have to be intentional. In an effort to simplify wor-ship, some of us have reduced our worship to a single gospel reading. This saves time and energy, but it also has an adverse effect. By combining a gospel reading with a Hebrew Scripture text (at the very least), we’re illu-minating both readings and breaking open what the gospel is saying to us. I would rath-er have a complex scriptural narrative than a single, simple Bible story.

• Assembly next to individual. In worship, we enter as individuals and become communi-ty. Worship breaks open our self-centered orientation. This runs counter to the world’s consumerist claim that everything can and should be tailor-made for the individual. I think contemporary worship, even more than other styles of worship, has to work hard at remembering that the preferences and opinions of the individual exist as a part of a whole. That includes you, musicians! If a certain song doesn’t fit your tastes, then stop and ask whether it’s beneficial for the faith of the people gathered: faith is made whole in community.

• Seven days next to meeting on the eighth day. The day we worship is the eighth day: a day outside of time and space, where everything is made new. But it also exists in juxtaposi-tion to the other seven days when we have lives to muddle through, rejoice in, and so on. Some contemporary content comes un-der fire for being exaggerated self-help TED talks without divine mystery or spiritual depth, but if your high-church liturgy isn’t equipping the people of God to carry their

faith with them throughout the other seven days of the week, you also have work to do.

• Word next to table, leading to the poor. Meet the risen Lord as guest and host, priest and sacrifice, body and blood in order to live with and in us for the sake of others. The liturgy after the liturgy is a moral and ethi-cal sense of being the body of Christ for the world, particularly those in need. Sobremesa gathers in thin spaces: those public encoun-ters where heaven and earth meet and there are no walls—anything that draws us closer to those people who will never enter a tradi-tional church building.

• Praise next to lament. Worship must be hon-est. The greatest crime of the contemporary worship movement over the past 30-odd years is that it’s 99 percent happy praise songs. I get it. Those songs are fun to sing. But we can’t be happy, happy, happy—even on Easter. Worship must be truthful. We weep with those who weep. As someone who pays attention to independent worship re-sources, I’m encouraged to see an increase in songs and liturgies of lament. After all, we’re called to weep with those who weep. With-out this honesty, worship becomes myopic and dishonest. Look at the psalms: praise and lament are in proximity. ELW contains a seldom-used section on lament, and ar-tistic groups like Bifrost Arts have released collections of contemporary lament songs.

Song: “In Labor All Creation Groans”4

In labor all creation groans till fear and hatred cease,

Till human hearts come to believe: In Christ alone is peace.

In labor all creation groans till prejudice shall cease,

Till every race and tribe and tongue in Christ will live in peace.

In labor all creation groans till rape and murder cease,

Till women walk by night unharmed and Christ is this world’s peace.


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In labor all creation groans till false divi-sions cease,

Till enemies are reconciled in Christ who is our peace.

Formation relating to baptism, both before and after the washing. As good Lutherans, we know that we’re reborn, transformed in our baptisms, but if we’re going to be a people of the calendar, a Paschal people, that means we need to hold the “event” of holy baptism in tension with our re-alities before and after the washing. It would be good for us to adopt those ancient practices that hold a time for preparation and education be-fore the rite, or in the case of infant baptisms, a robust catechesis that lasts an entire life long. If we make baptism a one-time event, we’re fur-ther compartmentalizing that single hour out of the week and saying that worship is a one-hour weekly check-in rather than it being a time that transcends mundane time.

The church year next to the Easter Mystery. Speaking of calendars, we remember that Easter is the hinge for the Christian sense of time. As Michael Bridges from the band Lost and Found says, the story of Jesus didn’t start with, “In those days Caesar Augustus declared . . . .” It started with, “Have you heard? Jesus is alive!” The Easter Mystery is the center of our worship. From there it spreads to the waiting of the Easter Vigil, the grief of Good Friday, all the way back to the Na-tivity, all the way back to the first Passover. All time and events are changed, both their signifi-cance and their power to determine our actions and thinking.

The tensions inherent in the structure of our worship shape us. No Christian worship, wheth-er it’s organ-led or band-led, exists in a vacuum that sucks us up away from the world, chews us up, and spits us out to “be nicer.” Worship is an eighth-day zenith into which we’re gathered and from which we’re sent out to live transformed lives. If it has nothing to do with the world around us, or with God’s praise being sung by creation, then it is empty. Only in the juxtaposed tensions that create opportunities for worship can we find a God who is always with us, always at work.

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Consider: have there been experiences when, with Jacob, you could say, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” (Gen 28:16). How has your experience of worship shaped your life and your identity as a Christian?

Song: “O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High” [ELW 322, LSB 544]5

Justin: In worship we explore the depth, height, and breadth of God’s love. In this hymn we have the whole story of Christ Jesus, a story the calen-dar takes a whole year to tell.

Worship reveals our identity, gives us our vocation, and sustains us in it, binds us into a community gathered around the risen Christ, places us in time and space, holds us accountable for living responsibly, and guides us through ag-onizing ethical choices, sickness, or death.

We keep time with the risen Christ. We keep a calendar and a related table of Scripture readings—a lectionary. And we glory in telling the story of Jesus.

Why do people come up to you just before you enter the chancel or the gallery to lead wor-ship and urgently tell you about some detail in their lives or someone else’s? The head of the property committee tells you the church’s lawn mower isn’t working, or Mildred reports that you will miss her warbling soprano because she’s going on a vacation to Borneo for a month. Why do they do that, when it seems totally out of con-text just as you are about to process down the aisle?

Maybe it’s because somehow they know that we all could go into worship and be changed for-ever! God’s presence and power just might make us forget all the silly, mundane facts of our lives and take us out into the deep, where God’s mis-sion and love sweep us into God’s own passion for the world. Maybe it’s because we continue to be re-formed and reborn.

Worship is momentous and dangerous. It can form and re-form us. And that’s because it is all related to the amazing story of what we call the Paschal Mystery: Christ crucified and risen for the life of the world.

Song: “Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds” [ELW 367, LSB 465]

In our worship, Christ is not past. He is our contemporary. We are delivered, healed, restored to sight. We are forgiven, find our true voices, and are freed to joyful service. We experience Christ eating with us sinners.

Worship all flows from the deep, broad, and high love of the Paschal Mystery. The history of the calendar’s development is a bit messy because we have been trying—and still are trying; you’ve heard rumors about trying to set a fixed date for Easter in both the Western and Eastern church-es, right?—we keep trying to come to terms with Christ and who he is; and because worship is contextual, worship developed in and sought to be faithful to its own context.

The valuable insight and formative power of the church year can only be realized in ex-periencing it. It provides moments of encounter, truth-telling, and abounding grace. The Chris-tian year is the communal setting where we are blessed with a shared memory. Imaginations are charged by fire, water, bread, wine, ashes, foot basins and towels, oil.

As you reflect on your lived experience of the church year, what moments in worship stand out? How have these moments shaped and an-chored you?

Bob: You know, dear friends, how worship forms and re-forms us. For me that is seen and experienced in a great many ways in our wor-ship, including singing, remembering baptism, hearing the word of God proclaimed. But now I briefly want to talk about how the eucharistic prayer forms and re-forms us.

The eucharistic prayer begins with what God has done in the past. It looks to the fu-ture, to the consummation and unification of all things in Christ, when all divisions will be overcome and all sorrow ended and every tear wiped away. And it situates the present moment in that context: this Sunday in July, this time of bereavement, this marriage, this conflict, this hour of suffering, this time of gladness. We pray


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for the Holy Spirit to enter anew into our histo-ry and into our lives through this celebration, so that God’s work of salvation may be experienced now and, through our lives, be brought closer to its completion. We pray that God will make us signs of God’s gracious love.

The eucharistic prayer makes clear the pas-chal character of the whole celebration. It is about Christ’s sacrifice, about he who—in sub-mission to God and for love of us all—did not try to evade death but let himself be crucified and killed rather than be unfaithful. Remem-bering the death of Jesus is not something that can be done simply by thinking about it. To re-member Jesus is to live as he lived, to think as he thought, to act as he acted. To remember the death of Jesus is not just to be moved by tears at the old rugged cross but to heed the words of St. Paul: “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).

The purpose of the liturgy is not to give lip service to God but to glorify God as Jesus glorified God. This is done when our lives are transformed under the influence of the Holy Spirit so that we become increasingly Christ-like

in our total devotion to God and to God’s work in the world, no matter what the cost.

ConclusionWhen I think about forms of worship I automat-ically think about print, which shows that I’m rushing headlong into the 1970s when it comes to high-tech stuff and paperless liturgy. A wise pastor once shared with me his three laws of li-turgics: “If it’s old, it’s good; if it’s in print, it’s true; if they give you options, use them all.”

My spouse and Justin’s mother, Lois, should actually be talking about this. I was the pastor, up front, leading worship. Lois was the cate-chist who modeled for our children, Debbie and Justin, both the shape and the behavior of wor-ship. From Lois I have learned that children are formed as Christians through the experience of assembling faithfully. Our children knew the texts and tunes of the liturgy (and even some hymns) well before they were in kindergarten. They sang because we sang at home and in the car. We carried a hymnal with us on trips. They learned the sign of the cross by participating with their parents in that signing. They turned


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to face the cross in procession because the as-sembly turned. In some ways it’s like patterning, a technique used by physical therapists to restore the use of limbs following disasters like strokes: the therapists move the limbs for the victims un-til such a time as the victims are able to do so themselves. This form of our worship forms us, takes us from the font and shows us what bap-tism means, brings us to the table and feeds us what we need.

Worship invites us to pilgrimage and offers us the grace suited to the stages of the journey. When we first discover the rich dimensions of communal prayer and praise, we may be especial-ly conscious, even fascinated, with the outward aspects of worship. We like the music, the art, the architecture. We like the shape, the histo-ry, the sense of tradition. As time passes and this way of being together before God becomes more ingrained, we recognize that the Holy Spirit is making connections between what we perceive in worship and what we are called to discern in our daily living.

Justin Rimbo is a musician, songwriter, worship leader, and writer. A deacon in the ELCA, he works with the South Carolina Synod exploring the future

of Sobremesa, a pilot community for those in the Vista neighborhood of Columbia, SC.

Robert Alan Rimbo is bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod (ELCA). A graduate of Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, IN, and Christ Semi-

nary–Seminex, St. Louis, MO, he also holds an honorary doctor of divinity degree from The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, New York, NY. He has published essays, sermons, and numerous other articles relating to worship and is the author of Why Worship Matters (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004). He was a member of the resource proposal group for the ELCA Renewing Worship project, which led to Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006).

Notes

1. Words and music by Justin Rimbo.

Born, reborn — Born, reborn Formed, reformed Souls with gladness now adorned

Born, reborn — Born, reborn Formed, reformed Praise our God forevermore Drown us Raise us Mark us Claim us Name us Heal us Wash us Seal us

The song may be heard at http://justinrimbo music.bandcamp.com. Justin’s music is under a Creative Commons Share-and-share-alike license—people are welcome to use it as long as they don’t claim authorship, they attribute Justin, and they don’t sell it.

2. Words by Martin Luther; music by Tara Ward and Paula Best. The lead sheets are available for download at http://belovedschurch.org/hope/get album.php.

3. Words and music by Justin Rimbo. The song may be heard at http://justinrimbomusic.bandcamp.com/ track/when-it-seems-the-day-will-end.

4. Words by Dolores Dufner; tune traditional; featured on the digital album Lamentations by Bifrost Arts Music. See https://bifrostartsmusic.bandcamp.com/track/in-labor-all-creation-groans for a lead sheet.

5. A version by Jonathan Rundman from his digital album Lost Songs may be heard at https://jonathanrundman.bandcamp.com/track/oh-love-how-deep-2000.


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Editor’s note: This is a plenary presentation from the July 2016 gathering of ALCM Region 3 in Chicago, IL.

Partnering with the Spirit: Gathered, Enlightened, and Transformed

by Brian Maas

Called and Gathered: The Spirit Draws Us In

T his year’s [ALCM] event and these com-ments use the theme “Blowin’ in the Wind.” But why? Even Bob Dylan didn’t

know what it meant! The wind of the Spirit nev-er ceases to move. Worship is to be inspired and inspiring. Because, at the end of the day, there is no single answer to what makes for worship that inspires—it’s forever blowin’ in the wind.

Some of you recognize in this section’s title the reference to Martin Luther’s Small Cate-chism’s explanation of the Third Article of the Creed. More importantly, you may have noticed that my three little spiels are sequential, follow-ing the flow of worship itself. I ask you, how many Lutheran confirmation survivors are here? How many of you remember this little book

from which we all learned and remember the most frequently repeated sentence, “What does this mean?” Luther’s greatest legacy may have been this encouragement to ask questions.

Jesus himself was a question asker, not an answer giver. Martin Copenhaver, in his book Jesus Is the Question (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014), tells us that in the four gospels Jesus was asked 183 questions. He only gave eight direct answers. Jesus asked 307 questions of others! Statements end in periods, which are like closed doors. Questions end in question marks, which are open doors. These open doors invite us in. The Holy Spirit is the question mark of the Trin-ity. Are you curious about what that means? That curiosity is the Holy Spirit. See how it draws us in. We are partners in the Spirit’s work.

Remember Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, when God created.…” What did God create out of? Most people respond, “out of nothing,” but that’s not quite what Genesis says. Genesis uses the Hebrew phrase, tohu wa vohu. The Hebrew does not translate literally. We say, the earth was

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a “formless void,” a seething mass of potential (think of a teenager’s bedroom), and that’s about as close as we can get in English. What was it that moved over that tohu wa vohu? A wind—in Hebrew, ruach; in Greek, pneuma—from God. Borne on that wind were God’s words, “Let there be light.”

This story of the beginning is normative for all of the word. While the universe waited as mere tohu wa vohu, God was up to something. When the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, God was up to something. When they were in exile, God was up to something. When Jesus fasted after his baptism, God was up to some-thing. When he lay in the tomb, God was up to something. While the disciples sat behind locked doors, God was up to something. While you’re staring at hymnals and calendars wondering if you’ll ever complete your worship planning, God is up to something!

In my own ministry in the parish and in the bishop’s office, I have experienced how little most of our members are aware of the treasures of the Spirit’s work in these times of waiting, in our understanding of the word, and in the Small Catechism’s question-driving wisdom. It’s this lack of knowing, and the mystery and power that are thereby missed, that led to the titles of these keynotes. We are partners in the Spirit’s work.

What does this mean? If the Spirit’s work is to “call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify,” what is our role? How do we partner with this work?

Think of the story of Pentecost’s wind and flame. These are phenomena we plains-dwellers understand well. Wind and fire, each powerful in their own right, are downright terrifying in combination. Yet even a prairie fire leaves in its wake vast potential for new life. The fire gets rid of accumulated undergrowth and makes new life possible. Isn’t this sometimes the role of the Holy Spirit?

In John’s gospel, the gift of the Spirit looks like this: the disciples gather in fear on the eve-ning of the resurrection. Jesus appears, breathes the Spirit on them, and sends them out. A week later, they come back. They gather again in com-munity—and the Spiriting, the inspiring and sending, happen once more. The Pentecost Spirit

in Acts looks like this: the disciples gather to-gether, the Spirit blows and burns. And then the Spirit sends them out. A week later, they’re back again.

In both tellings of the Spirit, the process un-folds like the familiar three-arrow triangle of the recycle symbol. The disciples are sent out, they tell others, they gather for renewal, and then they repeat. This is the formative cycle of life in the church—or at least it’s intended to be. It’s easy to fall short on one or more segments of the cycle, to the detriment of the congregation and its surrounding community.

Long ago someone told the story of a young student whose science paper confused inhalation and exhalation with inspiration and expiration. One sentence read, “if you’re not inspiring, you’re expiring.” That’s a pretty accurate sum-mary of life in the church.

So how do we, those charged with planning and leading worship and arts in the church, part-ner in the calling and gathering, the inviting and drawing in? I should confess as I ask this ques-tion that I’m not a fan of “worship evangelism”! Worship as evangelism doesn’t work—it’s and, not as. Great worship can’t fail to inspire evange-lism; but worship is not, nor is it intended to be, evangelism itself.

People still seek God and good news. From my perspective, saying “I’m spiritual but not religious” is a little like saying “I play football alone.” Sooner or later, life is going to come rush-ing at you like a bunch of furious linemen and defensive backs. With whom have you huddled in order to be prepared? Who is helping you fend off those threats and challenges? How do we help people locate God and good news, not just church?

As a lifelong Nebraska Cornhusker, I have for years been hearing people tell me that the N on the helmets of our football players stands for “Nowledge.” I suggest that there are three sim-ilar N ’s to our weekly cycle of worship. And I want to ask you again as worship planners and leaders, what is our role in the iNspire–eNgage–iNvite cycle? Put another way, how does your congregation’s worship partner with the Holy Spirit to call and gather?


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Consider:• What happens before Sunday? Before

worship? • What’s the prelude about? What’s it for? • What does worship say to your community?

What does the community say to you? • How are you helping those who gather to

prepare for worship? • What about announcements? Greetings?

Hospitality among members and guests?These are all important questions to bear

in mind in all the planning and leading we do. Likewise, it’s important to remember this criti-cal truth: we are part of a story that reaches back beyond time and is based on the promise that always, God is busy in our chaos and waiting. The Spirit moves within and beyond to call and gather—to draw all in to the life expressed in the good news we proclaim.

Enlightened: The Spirit Inspires and RenewsIn this section, I move to the next verb, “enlight-ened,” in the Small Catechism’s explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed. If you travel across Nebraska on Interstate 80, you will encounter a sign near one of the overpasses that reads, “Watch for wind.” That probably makes some people scratch their heads. You can’t watch for wind, you can only watch for evidence of wind: what’s moving, and how and in what direction? Still, you do have to watch for it, to be ready for it, or disaster could strike—hence the sign. More than one tractor trailer has been blown completely off a prairie overpass. By the same token, you want to watch for evidence of the wind because opportunity could strike! Windmills used to dot the plains.

My question to you is, how do we watch for the wind of the Spirit in our planning and lead-ing worship, and how do we help others to do the same in their experience of worship? When peo-ple arrive in our congregations for worship, do they arrive expecting to be met by God? Do they expect to be transformed and to leave inspired and enthused? Or do they, as one cynic noted, come to worship for the same reason they read

the newspaper: to be assured that nothing much has changed?

I want to turn again to the word and invite you to consider the story of Moses encountering the burning bush as a model for worship and for encountering the holy. How might our worship aspire to this sequence: Moses sees a sight. He hears his name. He’s told to put off his sandals.

Pause here and imagine for a moment that a modern crime scene lab got hold of those san-dals. Imagine that their thorough, microscopic examination leads them to conclude that be-cause of their style and quality of construction, they were made for someone wealthy or power-ful—perhaps a prince; that a stain reveals a trace of human blood, perhaps shed by a murderer;

What if Moses and this

holy encounter at the

burning bush became

our aspirational model

for worship?

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that different particles of soil in the seams sug-gests the wearer has been to Egypt, trekked through the wilderness, and lived near the bush where the sandals were found; and that, based on what’s found on the soles, the wearer has been following sheep.

Those sandals are, metaphorically, the sum of his identity—prince, murderer, fugitive, shep-herd. They are the roles Moses plays, the labels the world would put on him. But before God, he’s barefoot! Before God, he has no roles to play, no labels to endure—he is just Moses, only Mo-ses, the chosen and gifted child of God.

What if Moses and this holy encounter at the burning bush became our aspirational mod-el for worship? How would we:• garner attention?• let God speak?• invite into holiness?• get people to “take off their sandals,” their

roles, their labels?• remind and renew them with God’s incar-

nate presence?• remind them of their God-given names?

their God-given gifts?How do we get them to put their shoes back

on and fulfill God’s mission for their lives?Consider another story that can inform our

worship, that familiar story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet in John 12. Judas, the keeper of the purse, gets upset, suggesting that the money lavished on Jesus could be better spent in oth-er ministry. (How many of us haven’t heard this rationalization any time a worship-related expense is proposed?) Think, again with imagi-nation, about Jesus’ response: “the poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” What if, instead of the way that phrase has been used to justify our tolerance of pover-ty, we heard Jesus’ words instead as “the poor in imagination and inspiration you will always have among you—those who see only budget lines and dollar signs and pragmatism and pro-grams—but those who sense my presence, who seek to encounter me, and who offer worship in response—those people and moments will be harder to find”? How might such a reading free

us from the limits we too often impose on our preparations for worship and open us to more lavish experiences of Christ’s living presence in our worship?

Imagination is critical to partnering with the Spirit. Imagine a simple exercise in which you partner with one other person. One of you tells the other a story, weaving in four images given to you. After a few minutes, you reverse roles with four new images. This practice of story- telling with images from outside your own imag-ination, artificial though it is, actually helps us become more imaginative in the minutes that follow. It’s as though we’ve moved out of some of the ruts in which our thoughts run.

How might we now think about retelling the story of the liturgy instead of just letting it be a rote experience? How might we use music or images or words differently in service to our wor-ship? How might we apply imagination in ways beyond hymn and anthem selection?

Imagination already abounds in congrega-tions. Which ideas have you encountered? Used? Here are only a few examples of how congrega-tions have exercised imagination in worship and worship planning:

How might we now

think about retelling

the story of the liturgy

instead of just letting it

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• explored the fullness of the Revised Com-mon Lectionary; for example, using the semicontinuous readings instead of the complementary readings;

• used the narrative lectionary, which seeks to tell a larger story than the Revised Common Lectionary;

• created a worship or preaching series;• offered the assembly the opportunity to read

the Scripture, instead of or in addition to in-dividual readers;

• set up “creation stations,” which give access to art supplies right in the sanctuary during the sermon, so that children or others can explore the day’s Scripture or the season’s meanings in different ways;

• held silence, in different places and of great length; and

• utilized congregational interactivity in preaching, prayers, choral offerings, and hymns.In addition to imagination, awareness is criti-

cal to planning and leading worship—awareness of the culture and context in which we worship. Generally speaking, our congregations don’t look like the communities around them. Whole segments of our communities are separate from our congregations, because their race, ethnici-ty, or socioeconomic status is different from the dominant ones in our congregations.

Once again, the word is instructive in how this element can impact our work, through the lens of the story of the Prodigal Son. Mark Al-lan Powell, in his essay “The Forgotten Famine” (in Literary Encounters with the Reign of God, ed. Sharon H. Ringe and H. C. Paul Kim [New York: T & T Clark International, 2004]), tells of his experience of how differently seminarians in North America, Russia, and Tanzania read this familiar story. Depending on context, students’ emphases shifted from the son’s personal choices to the role of the famine in the story and even to the awareness that no one from the surrounding community helped the son when he was living with the pigs and longing to eat their food. Em-phases and meanings that seem simply obvious and unchanging to us are not always shared by others.

How might this be true not only of our reading of stories but also of our living in com-munity? Consider:• what is the cultural context of your worship-

ping community?• what are the marks of the cultural context to

which you’ve adapted your worship?• how does your worship prepare missionaries

for that context?• how does your worship invite or welcome (or

both) those from that context?Always, the Holy Spirit inspires and renews.

With imagination, sensitivity, and awareness we are invited, like those drivers along I-80, to watch for evidence that the wind of the Spirit is blowing.

Sanctified: The Spirit Transforms and SendsThe Holy Spirit “calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth,” according to Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. Worship is a cycle. It is the respiratory cycle, the breathing of the body of Christ. Remember the inhalation/exhalation parallel: if there’s no in-spiration, there’s expiration!

Sanctification is an under-utilized word for Lutherans. We focus more on justification, per-haps an over-utilized word for us. In a time and religious system in which sanctification was key to salvation, and almost no one qualified, Lu-ther’s insight into justification was critical. If God has the justification piece taken care of, we’re free to be made holy—not the other way around! Getting justification ”right” makes sanctification possible—and celebratory.

Looking to sanctification as the means for achieving our justification is a fool’s game; hence Luther’s strong emphasis on justification (see the Augsburg Confession, Article XII, “Of Repen-tance”). But Luther did not intend justification to be a focus to the exclusion of sanctification. In truth, one cannot experience justification with-out sanctification, just as one cannot do half a somersault. To be aware of one’s being made right (justified) before God leads to a response in holy living (sanctification).


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In Luther’s On the Freedom of a Christian (1520), he expresses these critical truths: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”1 This statement, wholly paradoxical and quintessentially Lutheran, ex-presses the natural relationship of justification and sanctification. Justified by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are free from any bondage the world may try to throw at us. Thus freed to live beyond limits and ex-pectations, we can dedicate our whole lives to serving others and are thereby sanctified simply in our living.

To be sanctified is literally “to be made holy.” And to be made holy is to be made differ-ent. Or as Flannery O’Connor is said to have put it, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Saint Paul put it this way in Ro-mans 12:2 (NRSV): “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect” (emphasis mine).

This is part of what worship does for us and to us. Worship makes us different—it transforms us. We become holy; and yes, by the world’s standards, we become odd. We are not the same. Consequently, if I leave worship the same as I ar-rived, I have not been encountered by the living God. Or I’m really, really stubborn!

To revisit an earlier theme: worship, as dis-cipleship, does not happen in a vacuum. We are all swimming in a cultural context. Given the vi-olent events of the past several months, it’s time to ask how we can live out our sanctification by becoming different ourselves. More than simply asking how our worship can more effective-ly mirror our community, it’s time to ask how we, our congregations and, yes, even our wor-ship, can inhabit, inspire, impact, and sanctify our communities. But we have to be willing to be sanctified—changed—ourselves.

Questions need to be asked of our worship-ping communities not only because of recent events sparked by racial tensions but also be-cause of systemic challenges that we continue to endure:

• how would you rate race relations in our na-tion? in your community?

• how does your race impact your life?• how do you live differently—for better or

worse—than someone of another race?• how do you feel you’re called to live as a dis-

ciple of Jesus and a member of your race?• how are you being sanctified, changed, with

regard to the matter of race?• how are your congregation and your com-

munity being sanctified? • or is the matter even being discussed (or

acknowledged)?If we believe that the Holy Spirit is doing

what we confess, we need to be attuned to how sanctification is happening—or whether it is happening—and how we might do our work differently to partner with the Spirit in making room to celebrate the freedom of our justifica-tion by the living out of our sanctification.

How might we do our work

differently to partner with

the Spirit in making room to

celebrate the freedom of our

justification by the living out

of our sanctification?

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Whether it is in this critical area of racism or in another, we are the heirs of a great tradition when it comes to being formed in faith (another phrase for sanctification). Every Lent, most Lu-therans in most congregations simply know, like salmon returning to spawn, that it’s time to be taking part in midweek worship. Look ahead to our next Lenten season. How will you partner with the Spirit to enlighten and sanctify your worshipping community and the community beyond?

Lent gives us five Wednesdays between Ash Wednesday and Holy Week—five opportunities for new learning, new formation, new worship-ping experiences. Here are only a few examples of themes for capitalizing on those five Wednes-days. One could focus on:• preaching/teaching on the five sections of

the Small Catechism;• preaching/teaching on the five blessings of

Affirmation of Baptism;• inviting members to share the story of their

faith (not a Lutheran habit—but needs to be); or

• inviting members to share life experiences, under such themes as “What I learned from suffering,” “When hope was real for me,” “My experience of the power of reconciliation.”Lent is also a good time to consider varia-

tions not only in the content of preaching and teaching but also in the structure and experi-ence of worship itself. If you haven’t already tried them, Lent is a great time to introduce Taizé mu-sic, evening prayer (vespers), compline, dinner church, or thematic interactive worship.

Being open to the Spirit makes room for and inspires sanctification. Resistant as we human beings can be to change, we nonetheless strive in faith to be changed, to be sanctified—made holy—in worship, so that we may become agents of sanctifying—changing, making holy—the world. This is the never-ending work of the Holy Spirit.

ConclusionIn and through us and the worship we serve, the Spirit calls and gathers, busily doing things

even in the chaos and wondering of our wait-ing. The Spirit enlightens, blowing as the wind and breath of God to destroy barriers, eliminate undergrowth, make new life possible, and carry aloft our hopes. As we prepare and lead worship with imagination, we watch for that wind. The Spirit sanctifies, transforming and making us holy, in order to transform and make holy the world.

I believe that the Spirit is always more active and available than we recognize. Our challenge isn’t waiting for the Spirit to show up—it’s get-ting out of the way so that the Spirit can do what the Spirit does. Perhaps nothing expresses that desired attitude toward the Spirit more than the prayer of Fr. Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the New York Fire Department who perished on 9/11. His daily prayer was, “Lord, take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet, tell me what you want me to say, and keep me out of your way.”

As you offer and live out that attitude and prayer, bear this in mind: you have been called to and gifted for this holy service, imperfect and sinful though you may be. Your talent and passion, your reason and strength, are insuffi-cient alone. But the Holy Spirit has called you by the gospel, enlightened you with his gifts, sanctified and kept you in the true faith. The Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. You are the Spirit’s partner in this holy endeavor. This is most certainly true.

Brian Maas is bishop of the Nebraska Synod of the ELCA. He is a graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University and Yale Divinity School and holds a

certificate of studies from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg,

Note1. In Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed,

Timothy F. Lull (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), 596.

Artwork for this article is from the “God’s Promise” biblical pictoral timeline, a pri-vate collection of First Congrega-tional Church, Riv-er Falls, WI. www.firstchurchrf.org/bibletimeline.


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by Sandra Dager

W hen Father Joseph walked into the sanctuary of his new congregation on Maundy Thursday morning, he no-

ticed there were no bowls, towels, or ewers at the foot-washing stations. Instead, there were shoeshine boxes and polishing cloths. Curious, the new priest called the head of the altar guild and asked for an explanation. He learned that the ritual Jesus carried out on the night of his be-trayal and Jesus’ mandate for his followers to do likewise had been deemed a bit too “invasive” for the parish. Somewhere along the way it had been decided that the shining of shoes was a perfectly good substitute for the washing of feet. It cap-tured the essence of servanthood and bypassed the embarrassment.

Father Joseph was faced with his first pas-toral test. Not surprisingly, it involved worship. Should the congregants be invited to shine one another’s shoes or wash one another’s feet? For whose sake would he make that decision? What issues and factors should he consider? Father Jo-seph decided to banish the shoeshine boxes and bring back the foot-washing bowls.

In less time than it took to cry “Kyrie eleison,” a small liturgical mutiny erupted. The head of the altar guild let it be known that she would be wearing pantyhose on the first day of the Tridu-um. No one would be washing her feet! Taking their cue from their leader, other women showed up on Maundy Thursday wearing that indis-pensable wonder fabric that minimizes bulges, hides varicose veins, and makes a woman look more polished and put together. For whose sake was their decision made? We may chuckle about Editor’s Note: Presented at the ALCM Region 4 conference

in Sacramento, CA, July 2016.

For Whose Sake? Kinesthetic Energy Patterns and Liturgical Discernment


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the shoeshine boxes and pantyhose protestors, but this was no laughing matter for the priest who had to deal with the situation.

Whether liturgical decisions have to do with musical interpretation, the selection of hymns and liturgies, expanding a congregation’s wor-ship repertoire, handling a conflict, or any other aspect of worship and music, worship leaders engage in liturgical discernment over a wide va-riety of issues on an ongoing basis. At the heart of every decision we make about worship there lies this question: “for whose sake will this deci-sion be made?”

We will consider this question from three perspectives: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s insights about the nature and foundation of Christian community, Henri Nouwen’s treatment of the two sides of hospitality, and Marcia McFee’s dissertation on kinesthetic energy patterns in worship. Their ideas generate fresh thinking about the criteria for liturgical discernment and enhance our ability to make decisions for the sake of Christ.

Christian CommunityDuring a horrific period in Germany’s histo-ry, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught in an underground seminary for Confessing Church pastors. This experience caused him to reflect on the nature, challenges, and demands of Christian community.1 His insights about the essence and foundation of Christian communi-ty invite us to consider how our understanding

of Christian community informs our liturgical discernment.

Bonhoeffer emphasizes the foundational role of God’s grace in relation to Christian com-munity. He believes Christian community is a gift from God: “it is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God’s Word and Sacrament” (18). As far as Bonhoeffer is concerned, God’s grace is the bottom line, the sole foundation and rationale for Christian community. Gathered by God’s grace, Christians only come to one anoth-er through Jesus Christ. Without Christ, human interactions are driven by people’s egos. If Christ is not at the center, churches can morph into what Bonhoeffer refers to as a “wish dream” or human creation. According to Bonhoeffer, prob-lems in Christian community occur whenever a Christian community is guided by the ideas or ideals of its members rather than by Christ:

innumerable times a whole Christian com-munity has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Chris-tian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. (26)No aspect of a Christian community is im-

mune to wish dreams—including worship. Liturgical wish dreams can be just as difficult to handle as other areas of ministry. Bonhoeffer’s antidote to wish dreams is a willingness to put Christ at the center of a Christian community:

the more genuine and the deeper our com-munity becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. (Ibid.)Bonhoeffer’s comments about the nature of

Christian community are relevant to liturgical discernment and raise important questions. As we consider our own contexts, we do well to ask

Without Christ, human interactions are driven by people’s egos.

Gather visibly ... to share God’s Word and Sacrament.


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what currently occupies the space between the members and the leaders of our community’s worship. Is it Christ, or is there something else at play? Is our worship deeply and truly Christ-cen-tered, or has it developed into a wish dream—a reflection of human ideas, ideals, and agendas?

It takes great courage and integrity to ask questions such as these. If we wish our liturgical discernment to be grounded in God’s grace and shaped by Christ, these questions need to be tak-en seriously.

HospitalityA Christ-centered community is a hospitable community. Christian hospitality flows from a profound understanding of God’s grace and finds expression in neighbor-love. Drawing in-spiration from the story of Abram’s extension of hospitality to his mysterious visitors in Genesis 18, Henri Nouwen stresses the importance of hospitality:

if there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality. It is one of the richest biblical terms that can deepen and broaden our insight in our relationships to our fellow human beings. Old and New Tes-tament stories not only show how serious our obligation is to welcome the stranger in our home, but they also tell us that guests are car-rying precious gifts with them, which they are eager to reveal to a receptive host.2

Nouwen envisions hospitality as the cre-ation of a free space where people can come into our lives and offer their gifts. When we are re-ceptive, we allow people to enter our space on their terms, not ours. If we tell people, “‘You can be my guest if you believe what I believe, think the way I think and behave as I do,’ we offer love

under a condition or for a price” (69). We might add “worship the way we do” to the list. Nou-wen says conditional receptivity is hostes, not hospes—hostility, not hospitality.

Interestingly, Nouwen suggests that recep-tivity is only one side of hospitality. As yin is to yang, the flip side to receptivity is confrontation. The idea that confrontation may be an import-ant aspect of hospitality may come as a surprise. Nouwen does not view confrontation as aggres-sion. He sees confrontation as the offering of an unambiguous presence, a clarity about one’s own positions. Hospitable confrontation is the clear articulation of limits, boundaries, and identity. For example, is it hospitable to select music for Lutheran worship from a tradition that stresses human agency or decision-based theology over and above a Lutheran understanding of God’s grace? To adopt a worship format that makes the assembly’s role more passive and less participato-ry? To base worship decisions on congregational politics? To excise large chunks of the liturgy to make it more “appealing” to visitors?

From Nouwen’s perspective, hospitable con-frontation combines clarity with love:

When we want to be really hospitable we not only have to receive strangers but also to con-front them by an unambiguous presence, not hiding ourselves behind neutrality but show-ing our ideas, opinions and life style clearly and distinctly. No real dialogue is possible between a somebody and a nobody. (Ibid.)Sometimes hospitable confrontation re-

quires us to walk a rather fine line. Nevertheless, striking a balance between receptivity and con-frontation is not only crucial to hospitality, it is also crucial to healthy liturgical discernment. As Nouwen sees it, “Receptivity without con-frontation leads to a bland neutrality that serves nobody. Confrontation without receptivity leads to an oppressive aggression which hurts every-body” (70).

Offering liturgical hospitality that is bal-anced between receptivity and confrontation is challenging. But it is not impossible. When Christ becomes the only thing between us, Christ will be central to our liturgical discern-ment as well as to our expressions of hospitality.

If we tell people, “‘You can be

my guest if you believe what I

believe, think the way I think

and behave as I do,’ we offer love

under a condition or for a price.”


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Kinesthetic Energy PatternsThe world in which we live pulsates like a great energetic symphony. Everything in this poly-rhythmic planet moves in distinct energetic cadences. Lumbering elephants and buzzing bees, raging waters and quiet streams, beating hearts and clapping hands—all move in unique rhythmic patterns. Even rocks have an energet-ic rhythm. Music, of course, is all about rhythm. We, who have been created in God’s image, are part of this energetic orchestra. Everything we say, think, or do is expressed and negotiated through rhythm—specifically kinesthetic en-ergy patterns.3 Kinesthetic energy patterns are neuromuscular patterns of muscular excitation that determine how people move, think, relate to one another, and behave in their environment. Kinesiologist Josephine Rathbone discovered the existence of four distinct energetic patterns in her subjects while conducting research on neuromuscular excitation.4

Essentially, every person has a primary (pri-mal) energy pattern. A person’s primal energy pattern is impacted by many factors, including the influence of other people’s primary patterns, culture, environment, and the expectations oth-ers place upon us. Our primal pattern is the one

with which we feel the most at home and do our best work. When we operate out of our primal pattern, we have the greatest access to our alpha brain waves; experience our highest levels of cre-ativity; and feel the most relaxed, centered, and happy (McFee, 159, 209). While we have the ability to access each of the four patterns and may even have a strong secondary pattern, one pattern will be primary.

Energy patterns not only influence peo-ple’s perceptions and relationships with others; they also influence the way people worship—or would prefer to worship. McFee’s doctoral dis-sertation on the ways energy patterns impact worship will be our guide as we look at worship through this fascinating somatic lens.

(For those joining this excursion as readers, the next five paragraphs chronicle the conference participants’ interactive, embodied introduction to the four patterns—thrust, shape, swing, and hang [159].5)

Our kinesthetic exploration began with a rousing rendition of “We Are Marching in the

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Light of God” (ELW 866). The pianist burst into the driving rhythm of this hymn, emphasizing the bass notes. With gusto and enthusiasm, ev-eryone launched into the forceful rhythm of the thrust energy pattern. Arms pumped back and forth vigorously; feet stomped to the beat. The singing was clear, unambiguous, focused, and loud. We were headed toward the promised land without deviation, delays, or detours.

Smoothly, the pianist segued to the clear, or-derly rhythm of the shape pattern, expressed by the steady cadences of “The Church’s One Foun-dation” (ELW 654, LSB 644, CW 538). The first order of business was to organize the singers for the singing. Following the leader, everyone si-lently conducted the hymn in 4/4 time while the piano played the hymn with quiet precision. Without being told, everyone waited for the leader’s instruction before breaking into four-part harmony. Not surprisingly, everyone sang the correct notes for each of the parts.

As soon as “The Church’s One Foundation” drew to a stately, dignified conclusion, the pianist whisked us away to the free-flowing, improvisa-tional world of the swing pattern. Like ice skaters gliding on a pond, people smiled and swayed as they sang “Gather Us In” (ELW 532), happily undulating to 6/8 time. Everyone moved back and forth smoothly, shifting their weight effort-lessly from one foot to the other. Arms swung in a relaxed figure-eight pattern. No one felt com-pelled to figure out the “right” way to move or

get in sync with anyone else’s movements. The spontaneity of this pattern was contagious and connected us to God and to one another in a completely different way than the previous two patterns.

Quietly, subtly, the music shifted. The pi-anist’s fingers caressed the keys to a worshipful whisper, setting the stage for a collective ascent to the seemingly formless, ephemeral world of the hang pattern. While the piano gently nudged people into a state of quiet awe, the assembly floated into a quintessential hang hymn: “Eat This Bread” (ELW 472, LSB 638). Arms and bodies moved slowly, like anemones in the sea. Moving in no particular pattern, people turned inward. Many closed their eyes and drifted into the Holy of Holies. There was no formal indi-cation as to when the singing was to stop. The group simply sang until it felt “right” to let go, and savored the final strains of the music, which drifted away like a dandelion in the wind.

After everyone had returned to their seats, people were asked if they noticed how different each of the rhythms sounded and felt. Heads nodded. The contrasts between each of the pat-terns had been striking and obvious to all. This experiential introduction to kinesthetic energy patterns shifted to a didactic exploration of Mc-Fee’s dissertation on the characteristics of each pattern—thrust, shape, swing, and hang—focus-ing on the ways each pattern influences speech, music and kinesthetic God-images.6

The Four Kinesthetic Energy Patterns in WorshipThrust The thrust energy pattern is characterized by powerful, focused, and decisive energy. Accord-ing to movement analyst Betsy Wetzig, thrust utilizes the power of the right brain’s capacity for gestalt7—the ability to see that the whole has as-pects or qualities that are more than the total of its parts. Individuals whose primal patterm in thrust do not meander. They move with a clear sense of direction. In speech, people with a thrust pattern use various techniques to maintain the intensity and focus of their energy pattern as

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they work to achieve their goal. They may in-crease the volume, pitch, and intensity of their speech so as to keep to the point. Speakers with this pattern might also use their bodies in a per-cussive manner—anything to get to the point and make it stick. While an extended period of thrust speech can overwhelm the listeners or appear abrasive, good use of this pattern can gal-vanize and invigorate the assembly in ways that are powerful, inspiring, and transformational.

The music of this pattern is characterized by clear, assertive attacks and deep, resonant instru-mentation (McFee, 164). As a ritual goal draws near, the strong, driving beat often increases in intensity until it accomplishes its transfor-mational task. Anyone who has heard a strong thrust rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” or listened to an organist give a thrust composition its full dynamic due has experienced the invigo-rating power of this pattern’s music.

McFee believes there is a relationship be-tween energy patterns and imago Dei (“the image of God”). She contends that each ener-gy pattern reflects a particular understanding of the nature of God. The kinesthetic image of the thrust-God is “a transformational God—a God on the move” (166). It is an image of a God who has the power to lead people through their

wildernesses and keep them on track until they reach the promised land.

ShapeContained, well-placed, and correct: these are some of the characteristics of the shape pat-tern. In contrast to the thrust pattern’s focus on achieving a goal, those for whom shape is the dominant pattern are concerned about the form that is needed in the moment. They work “from part to whole, thinking and sorting correctly,” using the left brain’s verbal and auditory abil-ities.8 Spoken or sung words in a shape liturgy seldom achieve the dynamic range or volume of other patterns because the goal is clarity of thought: an orderly and logical sequence of ideas and a clear presentation or articulation of con-cepts and ideas (McFee, 170).

The shape penchant for symmetry and rep-etition carries over into music. Hymns are typically strophic, sequential, or have some oth-er predictable, structured form. Other examples of the shape pattern in worship include psalm tones, chanted prayers and creeds, and season-al liturgies that seldom vary. Wetzig claims that people with a shape orientation have a deep ap-preciation for music that is classical or formal. They prefer the known boundaries of the music

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and like the sequential progression of thought and movement.9 McFee says individuals with a shape pattern like to discern and use the “cor-rect” way of doing things—a preference that leads to a “rule” orientation. People of a shape pattern are theoretical and systematic, and they think things through logically in order to devel-op high-quality processes that endure (171).

The kinesthetic God-image from the per-spective of the shape dynamic is a steadfast, eternal, enduring God (172), exemplified by. e.g., the hymn “Abide with Me”: “O God, who changes not, abide with me” (emphasis mine).

SwingSwing is characterized by spontaneous movements, songs, and rituals; the use of im-provisation; and a more “personal” tone of voice. Leaders with this pattern tend to be highly rela-tional and interactive, and they move easily as they weave the community together in a play-ful, creative manner. The swing energy pattern encourages the development and deepening of community by incorporating elements of play, the use of color in the worship space, and an openness to the possibilities engendered in the moment. Of all the patterns, swing is the one that most appreciates and uses the emotions. Move-ment in worship is more spontaneous, varied, and playful. If there is an “order,” then impro-visation and variation are the “order of the day.”

Swing speech is interactive, geared toward what is happening in the moment. Swing preach-ers may use an array of tools to communicate with the assembly: spontaneity, stories, improvi-sational or extemporaneous prayer, or speaking with a tone of voice that feels “personal,” “nat-ural,” or “conversational.” Swing musicians may be quite intuitive and are often adept at impro-visation. Their music-making has a smooth, flowing quality. It is not unusual for swing lead-ers to engage the assembly in a playful, evocative, interactive dance of call and response that may include clapping; spontaneous, creative vocaliza-tions; or physical movements that get people out of their seats, into their bodies, and into the wor-ship space in a variety of ways.

Regardless of tempo or style, swing music is “contagious.” The music can be repetitious or syncopated, but the musical strategies will have a playful, singsong quality. Tempos may vary, but the rhythm will most likely be sustained at length until everyone has been “infected” by a joyous spirit.

The image of God engendered by a swing energetic pattern is “a God of hope, of possibili-ties, of community and of celebration—often in the face of oppression—a resilient God indeed” (178).

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HangThe fourth pattern—hang—flows freely, seemingly without structure or design. Hang en-ergy has the sense of quiet depth, timelessness, serenity, and profundity. Listening to meandering Gregorian chants, singing repetitive Taizé re-frains, or enjoying long periods of silence allow worshippers to “center” themselves, to be ful-ly present in the moment, and to descend to a place of deep thought.

There is a great economy of the spoken word and a notable absence of superfluity in hang speech—much like Japanese Haiku. Words are simple, evoc-ative, and free-flowing. Of all the patterns, hang is most com-fortable with silence. Words are spoken in lower vocal registers. Pauses are well spaced to al-low time for the images that have been evoked to settle in the minds and imaginations of the assembly.

The music in a hang-inspired ritual may suggest timelessness. It supports the meditative flux and flow of the ritual by seamlessly wend-ing its way through cyclical songs, chants, or refrains to create a contemplative, awe-inducing atmosphere.

The kinesthetic image of God in a hang pattern suggests a Being characterized and ex-perienced by words such as “immanence,” “awe,” or “omnipresence”—a God who eternally moves “into the core of the community’s being” (182–3).

Liturgical and Kinesthetic HospitalityThis brief sketch of energy patterns and how they are at play in Christian worship raises a variety of questions, among them the connection between kinesthetic hospitality and liturgical hospitality.

A common challenge for Christian communities and their worship is the presence of kinesthetic imbalances. McFee calls the unhealthy domi-nance of one pattern over others an “override” (193–210). Pattern overrides are no small matter. Not only do they rob worship of richness, they “colonize” the bodies of kinesthetic minorities.

Kinesthetic OverridesAt the conference, our exploration of an override began with a short clip of South Korean pianist Ji-Yong Kim playing Beethoven.10 The pianist plays a portion of the music on a typically tuned grand piano. He then pivots to play the portion of music on a piano where all of the keys are tuned to the same pitch. The effect of this pianis-tic “override” was rather stunning. Who would want to listen to a Beethoven sonata consisting of a single note? It is a rather sobering thought that this is how kinesthetic minorities may ex-perience worship that is dominated by another pattern—even if their ritual “disconnect” occurs at the unconscious level.

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The consequences of an energy-pattern over-ride run the gamut from mild expressions of ritual irritation or boredom to the more serious issue of hindering others’ access to a life-giving, energetically synchronous experience of God. The sheer power of a thrust dynamic to herd par-ticipants into a given direction can result in “us versus them” thinking and euthanize alternative perspectives, leaving no room for full partici-pation or collaboration. A shape preference for order, “correctness,” and uniformity can morph into an allergy to ritual diversity, improvisation, spontaneity, or metanoia—thus producing a “status-quo-at-all-costs” mentality. Swing over-rides can give way to a lack of focus and energy drains. The swing pattern’s desire for personal in-teraction and emotional bonding may narrow the community’s focus to itself, reduce worship to an exercise in coziness, or make its “emotion-al climate” the primary factor in determining whether or not “God has been experienced and praised.” A hang override can resemble the pro-verbial sheep in the Bible who wander off due to a lack of direction or insufficient ritual organiza-tion. Spiritual passivity can also develop from an override of this pattern (McFee, 89). Whether consciously chosen or unconsciously employed, energy pattern overrides in worship are signs that wish-dream thinking is at play in the com-munity of faith.

Kinesthetic Hospitality and Polyrhythmic PraiseThe diverse members who gather for worship need to know they are part of the body of Christ—not just conceptually but holistically: in body, mind, and spirit. Worshippers need to see how their own rhythms are part of “the holiness of God.” They want to enjoy “ritual resonance”—the ex-perience of their primal or home energy pattern being matched at some point in worship. This is what makes people “feel at home” during wor-ship (207). This is the kind of hospitality they yearn for—and deserve. How can worship lead-ers increase rhythmic hospitality in ways that are life-giving? This is an important aspect of litur-gical discernment for those who wish to create

and lead worship for the sake of the whole peo-ple of God.

McFee suggests that worship leaders devel-op various “polyrhythmic strategies” in order to meet the needs of a diverse liturgical assembly. She does not view “blending” the four rhythmic patterns into a liturgical melting pot as the only or preferred way to create kinesthetic diversity. Rather, McFee encourages the development of a rhythmic “mosaic”: a “polyrhythmic” church that cultivates hospitality, delight, and trust in ways that respect the rhythmic diversity that is the church (221–3).

A liturgical “mosaic” could be created in a variety of ways.• Offer services with different energy patterns

or “kinesthetic sensibilities.” This might include a reciprocal relationship with a con-gregation whose dominant energy pattern is different than yours. If your congrega-tion offers diverse styles of worship, create opportunities for liturgical sharing, such as singing the same hymn or song at the “con-temporary” and “traditional” services using a style, arrangement, or tempo best suited to the genre of each service.

• Diversify the use of dominant patterns throughout the liturgical year. Use generous periods of silence in Advent or Lent (hang). Create bold liturgical spaces and use strong, driving music on the Day of Pentecost, Passion Sunday, or Reformation Sunday (thrust). Select hymns, psalm refrains, sung prayer responses, or liturgical music in 3/4 or 6/8 time during Easter (swing). Repeat a shape hymn for a short season or portion thereof. Make a new hymn the “hymn of the month” (shape).

• Choose hymns and liturgical music from all four patterns. Perform them according to each pattern’s characteristics. Vary the en-ergetic interpretations of stanzas in hymns where appropriate. This can be especially helpful in high-shape assemblies. Get to-gether with kinesthetically diverse musical colleagues. Share and learn ways to expand one another’s kinesthetic repertoire.

• Read a sacred text in the pattern that best


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expresses its meaning. Presiding minis-ters, assisting ministers, and lectors in any time or season could: read pithy words or passages in a thrust dynamic instead of a shape oration; speak with swing’s relation-al cadence during communal prayer; or use hang’s well-timed verbal pauses to give the assembly time to absorb images and ideas.

• Conduct a liturgical “energy audit.” Educate your congregation about energy patterns in worship. Help them understand the impor-tance of kinesthetic hospitality and provide opportunities for them to practice it.

• Explore the patterns with children. A cross-generational process will prepare the next generation of church leaders to be kin-esthetically hospitable. It could also increase adults’ willingness to explore energy pat-terns in worship.

For the Sake of …Soli Deo gloria: to God alone be glory. “S.D.G.” appeared at the end of Bach’s cantatas and oth-er compositions. The same appreciation of and respect for God’s primacy is evident in Bon-hoeffer’s treatment of Christian community, Nouwen’s parsing of Christian hospitality, and McFee’s exploration of kinesthetic diversity and inclusivity in worship. May the insights of these spiritual guides inspire us and enhance our abili-ty to make liturgical decisions to God’s glory for the sake of … Christ.

Sandra Dager, an ELCA pastor, has a doctor of ministry degree in liturgical studies from the Graduate Theological Union and a master of divinity degree

from Yale Divinity School. She is a certified kinesthetic energy pattern coach through Focus Leadership and a certified Alexander Technique teacher.

Additional BibliographyDager, Sandra. “The Embodied Liturgist: Contributions

of the Alexander Technique and the Primal Patterns Theory to the Development of a Holistic, Embodied Pedagogy for Liturgical Presiding” (D.Min. thesis, Graduate Theological Union, 2012).

McFee, Marcia. Think Like a Filmmaker: Sensory-Rich Worship Design for Unforgettable Messages (Truckee, CA: Trokay Press, 2016).

Notes1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. by John

W. Doberstein (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), is a probing exploration of Christian community.

2. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of Spiritual Life (Garden City, NY: Dou-bleday, 1975), 47.

3. The word “kinesthetic” (from the Greek words ki-nein—“to move”—and aiesthesis—“perception”) refers to the “sense by which motion [or the force/energy of that motion] is perceived” as well as the “sensory experience of this sense,” according to Mer-riam-Webster’s Medical Desk Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2002). Cited in Marcia Mc-Fee, “Primal Patterns: Ritual Dynamics, Ritual Res-onance, Polyrhythmic Strategies and the Formation of Christian Disciples” (PhD diss., Graduate Theo-logical Union, 2005), 15.

4. Josephine Rathbone. “Residual Neuromuscular Hy-pertension: Implications for Education” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1936). Kinesiologist Valerie Hunt, movement specialist Betsy Wetzig, leader-ship coach Ginny Whitelaw, and others have also studied the patterns and applied them in a variety of contexts.

5. Betsy Wetzig was the originator of these terms for the four primal patterns.

6. McFee’s dissertation also considers each pattern’s influence on worship spaces.

7. Betsy Wetzig, “Moves 4 Greatness: Coordination Patterns: Thrust,” http://www.moves4greatness.com/ patterns_thrust.htm.

8. Ibid.

9. Wetzig, as summarized from unpublished handouts, cited in McFee, 170–1.

10. This 58-second clip may be viewed at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xLhJIFC8xkY).


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by Jennifer Baker-Trinity

Reflection One (Invitation)How many times do we say, “Look here,” but we, ourselves, do not see?

Do we say, “Listen up,” yet never hear? “Look here!” “Listen up!”These are imperious commands, often

spoken in urgency, tinged with bossiness. As musicians and pastors, you know tone makes all the difference in communication. Consid-er saying, “Look, here. Did you notice the color of moon this evening?” Or, “Can you hear the harmonic shift in the second measure?” “Listen. Can you hear the birds singing?” Or, “Did you notice the addition of the 2-foot flute?”

Wake, awake! The days, the nights, are flying, and do we notice all we can, not out of command, but because we stand in awe, in wonder?

What transforms command into invitation? Without love, we are noisy gongs, hearing noth-ing, gaining nothing. Without awe, without gratitude, the alleluias fall flat.

Oh, Spirit of Love: can we see, hear, and touch by your stirring, your invitation to us, to all creation? “We hear your invitation, and heed, O Lord, your call,” we sing in one communion song.1 “Now the Spirit’s invitation” in another.2 Divine Love abounds, mercy for the world.

Can we hear the invitation and join the song?

Reflection 2 (Story)Poets notice. Storytellers surprise us. Minnesota poet and storyteller Kevin Kling was recently interviewed by Krista Tippet in her program, On Being. She reminded Kevin of this, noting he once penned, “As children we are clos-er in time to the creator.” In his interview response, Kling explained further: “I realized who I connected with. It was with my grandparents. I think it was because we were in the same light. I was in dawn, they were in twilight, but we were in the same light. They are heading to the creator, I’m coming from the creator, and because of that, we spoke a similar language.”3 From generation to generation, from dawn to twilight, we praise. The child spies a dandelion. It is a gift to be tucked behind the hair or placed in a glass of water.

The older adults sit and tell stories, enriching our lives through theirs.

Those of us neither in the dawn nor in the twilight might be quicker to root out the weeds, easily tempted to clip short the story session.

The generations are telling and showing the story, proclaiming God’s salvation day to day. They sing it over and over and over again.

The song is new each and every time. Do we perceive it?

editor’s note: alcm region 1’s conference included a hymn festival (july 6, 2016). this festival was structured under the headings “let all the Peoples Praise thee”; “Praise with all creation”; “from one Generation to another”; “through the church the song Goes on”; and “adding our voices to the heavenly chorus.” starting with the second section, each began with an invitation to reflection by jennifer Baker-trinity. these reflections are offered here as an invitation for personal reflection or for use or adaptation. note that these reflections are part prose, part poetry and are intended for the ear to hear rather than the eye to read.

Reflections


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Reflection 4 (Promise)Have you noticed how hard it is to see the words of a hymn when your eyes are brimming with tears? Perhaps it was the hymn your grand-mother sang to you before you could read. Or a hymn you sang at the funeral of a spouse, par-ent, or friend.

A song that, for one reason or anoth-er, possesses the power to open the floodgates. Sometimes you cannot even explain why “There in God’s Garden” or “Lord, Thee I Love” or a host of others brings you to tears.

Is it the angels? Angels bring tidings of great joy. They also meet us at the tomb. “Why are you weeping?” they ask. “My loved one has died,” we say. “And that was their song.”

We cannot hold onto a song, any more than we can hold onto Jesus or onto our loved ones. And yet, perhaps this is more good news from the angels. The song holds us, carries us when we cannot go on as we were.

We have seen the Lord, dimly, through tear-clouded eyes. And we have the promise that, in time, God will wipe away every tear. We will be fully known. Then we will need no hymnals, or eyes at all, for the Holy One will be our song.

Jennifer Baker-Trinity is a deacon in the ELCA and leads assembly song at Beaver Lutheran Church, Beaver Springs, PA. She writes

devotional and liturgical material for the church’s worship, reflection, and study.

Notes

1. “Around You, O Lord Jesus,” ELW 468, stanza 2.

2. “Now the Silence” (ELW 460, LSB 910, CW 231).

3. For the full interview, see https://www.onbeing.org/program/kevin-kling-the-losses-and-laughter- we-grow-into/1863/audio?embed=1.

4. Jeremy S. Begbie, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 39 (emphasis mine).

Reflection 3 (By the Spirit)Church. We speak of it as a noun. Merriam-Web-ster’s confirms it, so it must be true. “I am going to church.” “To what church do you belong?”

But you know what Webster’s misses: ec-clesia. A people, yes, but a people doing, God’s people called forth: gathering, praying, healing, singing, feeding, clothing, serving. If we are a body, Christ’s body, we cannot be a noun, but a verb. Living bodies act.

Music. Also a noun by definition. “Give me the music.” “I bought some new music.” “I don’t like that kind of music.”

But you know music cannot just be down-loaded, bought, or thrown away. Theologian and musician Jeremy Begbie proposes, “that music is best construed first of all not as an object or ob-jects but as something done.”4

In our attempts to preserve, mold, and make, music has its way with us, working on us not as passive recipients, but as doers of the song. Through the church, the song goes on. By the Spirit’s breath it is sent forth.

And how is it that we hear in the language of each? Spiritual, ballad, folk song, brass, bell, drum, reggae, jazz, Gospel. And on and on.

We find our rhythm, the song carrying us to worlds known and unknown. We find our rhythm, being church for the sake of God’s creation.

And even when we stumble around for the right beat, unsure of where to enter the song, we are found by the God who acts: creating, saving, sending.

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by Kyle Johnson

ADVENT“Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,” BWV 645—

J. S. Bach

“God with Us,” Cherwien 66-671

“Savior of the Nations, Come” [ELW 263, LSB 332, CW 2]

CHRISTMAS“Glory,” Cherwien 92

“In dulci jubilo,” BuxWV 197—Dietrich Buxtehude

“Jesus Christ the Apple Tree,” arr. Kyle Johnson

“Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” [ELW 272, LSB 359]

EPIPHANY“Seeing Face to Face,” Cherwien 156

“Brightest and Best of the Stars of the Morning” [ELW 303, LSB 400, CW 92]

LENT“Return,” Cherwien 158–9

Prelude and Fugue in D Minor—J. S. Bach

“Lamb of God,” arr. Kyle Johnson2

EASTER“We Sing the Story,” Cherwien 192–3

“The Day of Resurrection!” [ELW 361, LSB 478, CW 166]

PENTECOST“Fire,” Cherwien 350–1

“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” [ELW 807, LSB 686]

“Jesus Is a Rock in a Weary Land,” arr. Kyle Johnson3

Kyle Johnson is coordinator of chapel music, university organist, and lecturer of music at California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Notes1. Susan Palo Cherwien, From Glory into Glory:

Reflections for Worship (Fenton, MO: MorningStar, 1989). All subsequent page number references above are to this work.

2. https://www.augsburgfortress.org/store/product/ 18113/Lamb-of-God

3. http://www.canticledistributing.com/jesus-is-a-rock-in-a-weary-land.html

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Concordia Worship and Music Symposium Hymn Festival:

From Darkness To Light

Editor’s Note: Below is the outline of the hymn festival at the ALCM Region 4 summer gathering in Edmonton, Alberta, following the church year. Region 4 joined the 2016 Concordia Worship and Music Symposium, which was titled, “The Church Year as Missional.”

Moonrise over Lake Michigan.

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BOOKREVIEWMarkus Rathey.Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama Liturgy.New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.

x, 234 pp.ISBN-13: 978-0-300-21720-9.$35.00, hardcover.

Readers of this journal already should be familiar with the writing of Markus Rathey,

having seen his fine essay, “Reinterpreting Lu-ther: Lutheran Chorales in Bach’s Chorale Cantatas and Organ Works,” in the most recent issue of CrossAccent (24, no. 2 [Summer 2016]). Rathey’s essay can serve as a prelude for his entire book, Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama, Liturgy.

It is reported that upon a visit to Leipzig where he studied manuscripts of Bach’s compo-sitions, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart remarked about Bach’s music, “Now here is some-thing we can learn from!” Likewise, Rathey’s book provides something that we all can learn from—whether one is a Bach scholar or a Bach aficionado. Above all, the unique strength of this book is the author’s ability to explain wonderful and complex musical works in quite a relatable and understandable manner. There are already many books about the life of Johann Sebas-tian Bach and many other books that analyze and dissect his music. In contrast, there are rel-atively few books that focus on how to listen to Bach’s music. This book does just that, helping those who enjoy Bach’s music, whether listeners or performers, to know even better how to listen and to understand these gems of musical reper-toire and theological depth.

When it comes to music listening in our playlist-driven society, most people will only lis-ten to what they like. Or if one attends a concert or recital, a particular piece may stand out as a favorite. But if pressed to elaborate “what do you like about it?” few will be able to explain why. Rathey’s book helps answer certain questions: what is it that you like about Bach’s music? what is significant musically and theologically in the

music? what is the con-text of how and where the music is performed?

Many of the book’s chapters had their gene-sis as pre-concert lectures or essays by the author to prepare audiences for the music they were about to hear. The works described include one cantata, BWV 10 (Meine Seele erhebt den Herrn), as well as several large works: Magnificat (BWV 243), Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248, itself real-ly a cycle of six cantatas), St. John Passion (BWV 245), St. Matthew Pas-sion (BWV 244), Easter Oratorio (BWV 249), As-cension Oratorio (BWV 11), and B-Minor Mass (BWV 232).

Frankly, it is refresh-ing to have a well-crafted and thoughtful book on these great pieces of choral literature written with the interested, but average, listener in mind. There is no con-descension or “dumbing down” of the writing or subject matter here. It simply acknowledges the fact that, of those who are favorably inclined to Bach’s music, relatively few are musicologists, performers, or researchers. The novice will ap-preciate a minimum of technical jargon (there are no such phrases as “notice the retrograde de-misemiquaver motives”), and those already well

Above all, the unique

strength of this book is the

author’s ability to explain

wonderful and complex

musical works in quite

a relatable and

understandable manner.


BOOKREVIEW

s

versed in Bach’s music will continue to find new ideas freshly explained. (The book’s appeal to a wide audience is affirmed in the fact that this re-viewer has made it required reading for a course on J. S. Bach at Concordia Theological Semi-nary, Fort Wayne, IN.)

A taste of how Rathey accomplishes this is exemplified in the first chapter on Bach’s Magni-ficat. Some background information concerning the history and revisions of this work is includ-ed, but it is not an exhaustive (or exhausting!) excursus. Instead, Rathey judiciously unpacks each movement by describing the variations in textures (five-part chorus, solo, duet, or trio), in-strumentation, tempi, and theological content. The author points out specific details in the score and gives suggestions on how to listen to a per-

formance in a way that will make the music not only more enjoyable but also more under-standable. For example, the boisterous opening chorus of Magnificat features festive trum-pet motives in triads and sixteenth-note flourishes. Those same motives are continued in the second move-ment, where the soloist mimics the same ideas. It would be informative and enlightening to

take this volume along to a live performance of the Magnificat or to read each chapter while lis-tening, movement by movement, to a recording.

The book is subtitled Music, Drama, Lit-urgy. Obviously, a great deal of the volume is dedicated to commentary on the music itself. But what about the “drama” and “liturgy” sub-titles? The author demonstrates how these vocal works tell the story of God and his salvific work for the world shown in the life, death, and res-urrection of Christ. Any good story will have dramatic moments, and to tell these stories mu-sically only underscores those aspects. However, the author makes it clear that this divine drama is not merely literary, and the eternal signifi-cance of this divine story needs to be taught and told by Bach and reflected upon by his hearers. Rathey makes it clear that Bach never wrote an opera, and although Bach wrote some secular cantatas, the bulk of his vocal works is at home

in the church’s liturgy. However, Rathey does comment frequently on particular movements in Bach’s works that sing of love—God’s love for the believer and the believer’s love for the Savior.

Rathey often uses the term “love duet” (20) for such pieces, alluding to similar music in op-era and other large-scale vocal works. One’s first reaction may be to chafe at these semantics: the choice of the term “love duet” is fraught with different definitions of the word “love.” On the other hand, it also provides an opportunity to unpack that very term in order to describe the love of God for his church shown through his Son. Rathey acknowledges this in his commen-tary on the St. Matthew Passion aria Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben (“Out of love my Sav-ior dies”). “This is a different kind of love,” he writes. “[This love] is only possible because Jesus has suffered and died” (129).

This example demonstrates that how the way one reads this book is very much informed by one’s worldview or, more importantly, by one’s theological perspective. Throughout the book, especially in discussions about the love of God and its musical and theological contexts, the au-thor includes such comments as, “The image of love is central to the theology of Christ’s passion in Bach’s time. The suffering and death of Christ were seen as an expression of God’s mercy” (21). Depending on one’s worldview and theological confession, these phrases can seem almost ri-diculously obvious: “Well, of course, what else would Christ’s suffering and death be if not ex-pressing—and exemplifying—God’s mercy?” Another of Rathey’s comments is, “Christmas, in Bach’s time, was understood as a demonstra-tion of divine love” (46, emphasis added). An issue is how Rathey frequently uses the caveat “in Bach’s time” when describing orthodox Lu-theran theology of Bach’s Leipzig, giving the impression that such belief and confession no longer exist in the church. Lutherans well know, of course, that Christmas is still an expression of divine love in 2016, not just in Bach’s time.

On the other hand, for far too many people, Bach’s music has been neutered of its theological confession and has become merely an expression of undefined beauty or vague other-worldliness. For far too many in our world, Christ-mas is nothing more than parties or decorations or even depression. For others, Christmas be-comes merely a vehicle for wishing peace on earth, although that peace remains undefined and unsatisfactory if devoid of Christ and his

The author points out

specific details in the score

and gives suggestions

on how to listen to a

performance in a way that

will make the music not

only more enjoyable but

also more understandable.


BOOKREVIEWs

incarnation, suffering, death, resurrection, and sacraments. For those lovers of Bach’s music, this book may help them see that Bach’s work is intrinsically connected to Holy Scripture, the holy Christian church, the Divine Service, and the church’s lectionary and hymns, all of which proclaim Christ, the ultimate “manifestation of divine love” (131) And such truth and love is indeed timeless, not merely a relic of 1720s Leipzig.

Regarding the Passion of Christ, the au-thor alludes to a faulty association of the Passion that already was being perpetuated in the late 19th century. Rathey quotes an 1877 English journal’s critique of Handel’s Messiah in jux-taposition to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. The bottom line of this 19th-century review is that Handel’s Messiah would never be overtaken in popularity and performance because Bach’s music was just too depressing. It goes so far as to say it is frankly impossible to perform the en-tire St. Matthew Passion because the content is too sad. Victorian hyperbole, perhaps? Yet this is still how Christ’s Passion is considered, and performances of Bach’s Passion settings can fo-cus primarily on the sadness, injustice, or social commentary, while missing the gospel.

This is the beauty and the hidden bonus of unpacking Bach’s works: ultimately, they have to proclaim the gospel. In this musical treatise, the author includes considerable theological com-mentary. Discerning theologians will rightly

take issue with some of the author’s conclusions. However, there are other places where Rathey really makes some tremendously profound theo-logical analyses, particularly in his description of the theology of the cross. For example, in his description of the opening chorus of the St. John Passion, he sets up the irony of using the text of Psalm 8 to begin the Passion narrative: “Lord, our ruler, whose praise is glorious in all lands!” The swirling musical accompaniment and driving pedal point, not to mention that this is performed on Good Friday, all seem contra-dictory to the text. And on one hand, it is. The author continues, “The glory of God is present from measure 1 of the opening movement. But this glory is, in a truly Johannine sense, directly linked to Jesus’ suffering” (81). Lutherans, rejoice in this statement! The essay continues, “In the Gospel according to John, Christ’s suffering and glorification are intrinsically intertwined. One is not thinkable without the other” (82). Brilliant! And finally, at the end of the St. John Passion, with its strikingly simple conclusion with the chorale “Lord, let at last Thine angels come,” the author states, “We are back at the beginning of the passion: the glorification of Christ in his suffering” (84). Ultimately, Rathey debunks the “Passions are depressing” myth by helping the reader and listener see and hear the theology of the cross proclaimed in Bach’s music.

So, like Mozart, we continue to learn from Bach’s music, especially when such volumes as this help us to listen to Bach’s major vocal works and to consider the musical and theological sig-nificance of them. As the church prepares for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we are constantly reminded that it is tempting to sup-plant a clear gospel proclamation of “we preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23) with trivial and worldly matters. Perhaps a renaissance of learn-ing from Bach the theologian, assisted by writing such as Rathey’s book, is precisely in order.

Kevin HildebrandKantor, Concordia Theological SeminaryFort Wayne, IN

For far too many people, Bach’s

music has been neutered of its

theological confession and has

become merely an expression

of undefined beauty or vague

other-worldliness. … This book

may help them see that

Bach’s work is intrinsically

connected to Holy Scripture,

the holy Christian church, the

Divine Service, and the church’s

lectionary and hymns.


SOUNDFESTINSTRUMENTAL | ORGAN

Franklin D. Ashdown.Adagios of Hope and Peace: Ten Settings for Organ.Augsburg Fortress (978-1-5064-1358-7), $20.

This collection of music would be useful to convey a peaceful and tranquil mood in a service. The book contains eight compositions based on hymn tunes and two free-style works. The hymn tunes represented are Assurance; Balm in

Gilead; Eventide; Finlandia; St. Colum-ba; Tallis’ Canon; Toplady; and Wer nur den lieben Gott. Ashdown’s arrangements also would be useful as preludes and offertories during a worship service and for music at a fu-neral service. The arrangements are of medium difficulty with a quite playable pedal part. MS

Jeffrey Blersch.How Shall I Meet You: Seven Organ Preludes for Advent.Concordia (97-7728), $24.

Blersch manifests the moods of Advent in his settings of beloved hymns of the sea-son. There are sprightly dances on “Hark the Glad Sound” and “Comfort, Com-fort Ye My People.” “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending” foretells the maj-esty of the second coming, borrowing

material from “La Majeste” from Telemann’s Heldenmusik. A wistful 6/8 version of “Savior of the Nations, Come” is filled with fervent longing for the Messiah. The second setting of “O Lord, How Shall I Meet You” (Wie soll ich dich empfangen) is also notable for its lovely, lyrical, ornamented treatment of the chorale. Blersch’s music has a melodic appeal that will sit well with the congregation. It is also quite playable, an important factor during the busy Advent–Christmas season. KO

Benjamin Culli.Hymn Tune Innovations, set 2: Seven Settings for the Church Year.Concordia (97-7731), $24.

Culli tastefully em-ploys a variety of compositional styles in this collection

which includes Auf meinen lieben Gott; Darwall’s 148th; Ein feste Burg; Italian Hymn; Song 1; Was mein Gott will; and Wer Gott vertraut, hat wohl gebaut. The setting of Ein feste Burg includes a festive in-trada, a well-crafted fughetta, and concludes with a maestoso chorale setting with a tenor solo for left hand. In his setting of Darwall’s 148th,

Culli artfully uses arpeggiated motives to em-bellish the tune played on a solo trumpet. In addition to familiar chorales, Culli also includes several lesser-known chorale tunes as the church celebrates the chorales of our Lutheran heritage. JRB

Emma Lou Diemer.Stars: Eight Organ SettingsAugsburg Fortress (978-1-5064-1364-8), $17.

This fine collection of hymn tune settings—many related to the theme of stars—pro-vides a wide range of

expressive music, from the simple, mysterious “Creator of the Stars of Night” to the festive “On This Day Earth Shall Ring” with its syn-copated, chromatic chords. Longer settings such as “O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright” and “On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry” offer a va-riety of contrasting textures. Diemer’s harmonic language is often pungent and dissonant with unexpected changes of key. Her unique setting of “Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying” is stun-ningly beautiful with its quiet contemplation of the long-expected arrival of Christ, the Blessed One. Throughout these settings the cantus fir-mus is clearly and audibly presented. JB


SOUNDFESTs

John Eggert.Partita on From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.Concordia (97-7729), $12.

Eggert’s partita includes eight variations on this enduring Christmas hymn proclaiming Christ’s birth through the eyes of an angel. Inspired by the text of Martin Luther, Eggert has composed specific variations to coordinate with various hymn stanzas. The joyful 12/8 variation written for manuals alone delightfully proclaims “My heart for very joy must leap.” The lovely lullaby for strings prayerfully sings, “Ah, dearest Je-sus, holy Child.” Eggert’s well-crafted partita is equally suited to be used with individual organ stanzas during the singing of the hymn or played as an entire suite. JRB

Kevin Hildebrand.Salvation unto Us: Twelve Easy Organ Preludes for Reformation.Concordia (97-7738), $26.

Hildebrand includes avariety of tunes in this

collection, such standard Lutheran chorales as Wir glauben all, Gott sei gelobet, and Nun freut euch. Also included are hymn texts with strong Reformation themes, such as “The Tree of Life” and “Thy Strong Word.” The bi-cinium on Nun freut euch is delightful; the recurring rhythmic triads in Gott sei gelo-bet provide a memorable compositional motive. This collection, while technically easy, is solidly composed and will be useful not only in this an-niversary year, but also in the years to come. JRB

Kristina Langlois.Postludes for Organ on Festive Tunes.Augsburg Fortress (978-1-5064-1363-1), $16.

Three of the four works presented in this col-lection are extended, ranging in length from five to eight pages. The initial work, a Fanta-sy on “Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord,” features a contrapuntal treatment of this mag-nificent chorale with the cantus firmus in the top voice, followed by a brilliant toccata with the cantus firmus in the pedal. The texture is full, and the solid counterpoint is enriched by the presence of subtle motives from the chorale’s opening phrase. A broad maestoso section frames the composition. The setting of “Noel! Tid-ings of Comfort and Joy!” ingeniously presents both God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen and Noël nouvelet simultaneously. The setting of “Oh, Praise the Gracious Power” opens with a syncopated motive in quarters taken from the refrain of the hymn tune that leads nicely into figuration in the right hand on the same mo-tive, now heard in sixteenths. The cantus firmus is set in left-hand chords against the continuing right-hand figuration. Later the opening section returns with chordal dialogue between right and left hands with the opening motive now invert-ed. The piece builds in intensity to the stirring conclusion. Throughout the work, harmonies are colorful and effectively move us to experience the “Gracious Power.” This collection is highly recommended for the variety of its settings and their attractive musical presentation. JB


SOUNDFEST

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Karl Osterland.A Wittenberg Collection: Lutheran Chorales for Organ.Augsburg Fortress (978-1-5064-1357-0), $22.

Osterland’s settings of these nine Lutheran chorales were published in commemora-tion of the upcoming 500th anniversary of the posting of Luther’s 95 theses at Wit-tenberg, Germany. In 2005 Osterland and fellow members of Trinity Lutheran

Church in Detroit made a pilgrimage to the Lu-ther sites in Germany; this trip was the original inspiration for setting the three chorales written by Luther. The most ambitious work in the col-lection is a Grand Partita on Ein feste Burg; four separate movements comprise the Partita. The “Fanfare” and “Trio” evoke the spirit of the Renaissance with their dancelike rhythms and transparent textures. The Totentanz, inspired by the woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer, reflects Luther’s terrifying encounters with the dev-il (“though devils all the world should fill”) by means of obsessive rhythms and sharp disso-nances. The concluding “Final” (“the word they still shall let remain”) provides relief in a great dance of joy featuring polyrhythms, repeated note figures, and the intermittent cantus fir-mus in the left hand. An effective setting of “O Christ, Thou Lamb of God” begins in a subdued manner, gradually increasing to fortissimo before returning again to the original pianissimo. This collection is recommended for those desiring to revisit the Lutheran chorale tradition creatively interpreted by Osterland. JB

A Reformation Celebration: Organ Preludes on Sixteenth-Century Hymns.Concordia (97-7734), $25.

As we approach the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Lutheran publishers are increasing their selection of new settings on old tunes. This collection features eight newly composed arrangements by well-known contemporary musicians, with a variety of compositional techniques in-

spired by musical styles of the 16th century. It begins with a trumpet tune “carillon” rendition of Ein feste Burg by James Biery based on the rhythmic version of the hymn. Benjamin Culli

offers an unexpected bourée-style treatment of Erhalt uns, Herr, leading into the darker mi-nor key of the hymn by way of a bright C major introduction. In three organ stanzas, the piece modulates from C major/A minor through E-flat major/C minor and finally ends up in G major/ E minor, by which point the congregation will have had time to consider the hymn in a new light and be ready to sing. The remaining set-tings also provide enjoyable options, with good work by Donald Rotermund, Sam Eatherton, Jeffrey Blersch, J. Wayne Kerr, Walter L. Pelz, and John Eggert. DR

A Reformation Christmas: Organ Preludes on Sixteenth-Century Hymns.Concordia (97-7732), $25.

Advent and Epiph-any are included in this Christmas vol-ume. Several familiar composer are represented: Charles Ore’s vari-ations on “Savior of the Nations, Come” and Carl Schalk’s “To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord.” Some less-familiar composers are includ-ed as well, such as Bernard Wayne Sanders’ “All Glory Be to God Alone” and “The Only Son from Heaven” by Mark Knickelbein. A wide variety of compositional styles are represented. Charles Ore’s first variation on “Savior of the Nations” evokes the spirit of the Renaissance, calling for a detached style, while Charles Cal-lahan’s lush, romantic treatment of “Once He Came in Blessing” exudes an Advent quiet that will surely be a hit with the congregation. The volume would be a great way to lead into the Ref-ormation anniversary. KO


SOUNDFESTs

A Reformation Easter: Organ Preludes on Sixteenth-Century Hymns.Concordia (97-7733), $25.

The eight hymn-tune arrangements in this

volume are presented by eight different com-posers. Hymns represented are from the seasons of Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost. The settings are useable as hymn introductions or pre-service preludes and are all of medium dif-ficulty level. Pedal parts, when present, are not difficult. The tunes represented are Aus tiefer Not; Christ ist erstanden; Christ lag in Todesbanden; Gott sei gelobet und geb-enedeiet; Jesus Christus, unser Heiland; Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott; Nun bitten wir; and O Lamm Gottes, unschuld-ig. MS

Jacob B. Weber.Epiphany Mosaics.Concordia (97-7723), $20.

This volume contains hymn tunes often used in the Epiphany season, some of which are also wed with lyr-ics from another

season of the church year, making this volume useable throughout the year. The majority of the settings are of medium difficulty with an easy pedal part. The form of the settings varies from fanfare to simple variation to a toccata. The ar-rangements could be used as hymn preludes, introductions, and even postludes. Weber does an excellent job of bringing out the meaning of the hymn text in the style of his compositions. The tunes and compositional styles included make this a good collection to have. Tunes repre-sented are Christ, unser Herr; Dejlig er den himmel blå; Deus tuorum militum; Dix; Mississippi; and Wie schön leuchtet. MS

Jacob B. Weber.Joy to the World: Three Settings on Antioch.Concordia (97-7724), $12.

Everyone sings this tune ev-ery year (originally written as an Advent hymn), so why not freshen it up with a sprightly new introduction (I) or per-haps prelude (II). Both use a trumpet or other reed stop effectively and aren’t difficult. The “Prelude” throws some charming curves at the organist—watch out for those A-sharps. The most practice time will be required for the “Festival Flourish” (III), an ex-tremely joyful toccata-like movement. Feet will fly, hands will be all over the keys, and eyes will be watching for some dramatic key changes, even six sharps. Although this is music that begs for a large instrument, those with an organ of a modest specification should be able to pull it off. Adequate early practice will be required, but you’ll be proud of your accomplishment when you master it, and your congregation will appre-ciate it. Highly recommended. JG

Wayne L. Wold.Light on Your Feet, vol 4: A Collection for Organ with Minimal PedalAugsburg Fortress (978-1-5064-1362-4), $20.

Vol. 4 of this series contains several arrange-ments as well as two original works by Wold. The style of his arrangements makes some famil-iar works attainable for the organist with little pedal experience, without changing the flavor of the original compositions. This series does a good job of introducing developing organists to a wide variety of compositions and compos-ers. All of the selections are freely composed and are not based on hymn tunes. The book is wire bound. MS


SOUNDFEST

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Philip M. Young.Carols of the British Isles for Organ.Augsburg Fortress (978-1-5064-1361-7), $18.

In polls of church musicians, British Christmas carols often top the list of favorites. Young has set many of these tunes in gentle fashion, and he provides

a key phrase from the text as the source of his in-terpretation. The settings make use of frequent changes in registration, which might be better suited to an instrument with three manuals rath-er than two. There is a suite of short variations on the Sussex Carol that could be presented as an extended musical offering or used intermit-tently in worship. The other tunes in this lovely little collection are Coventry Carol; Forest Green; God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen; Irby; Sans Day Carol; Somerset Carol; and Wexford Carol. Have a jolly good time with them. DR

PIANONancy M. Raabe.Grace & Peace, vol. 8: Songs of Lament and Longing.Augsburg Fortress (978-1-5064-1367-9), $19.

This volume in the series fo-cuses on songs of lament and contains pieces useful for a variety of occasions, includ-ing the Lenten season and

funerals. The arrangements do an excellent job emphasizing the sorrow and longing of the fa-miliar hymn texts. The tunes included in vol. 8 are Aus tiefer Not; Bradbury; Deep Blue; Herzliebster Jesu; Kaz dziedāja; Land of Rest; On Eagle’s Wings; Pace mio Dio; Pān Bůh; Ryburn; Schmücke dich; and That Priceless Grace. All are of medium difficulty and would make nice piano solo material for spe-cial music in worship. MS

Patricia Zindler.Hymn Settings for the Piano.Northwestern (2700064), $22.

Most church musi-cians are occasionally called upon to pro-vide music that is “churchy” but not necessarily for a worship setting. This book would be perfect to fill that requirement. Zindler has taken 23 well-known chorales and hymns and arranged each in a cre-ative way, many with a jazzy feel to them. One of my favorite Christmas chorales, “Oh, Rejoice, All Christians, Loudly” (Freuet euch, ihr Christen alle), has very few arrangements, let alone one that sounds like jazz! These settings will be welcomed by piano teachers and by par-ish musicians who utilize piano and keyboard at worship. Tunes for children, for the liturgical year, and for many other occasions are includ-ed. A cross-reference to Christian Worship, the WELS hymnal, is included, but nearly all the tunes are common to other Lutheran hymnals and worship books, as well as most Christian de-nominations. Highly recommended. JG

KEYBOARD AND INSTRUMENT

Benjamin M. Culli.Duo Baroque: Classic Chorale Preludes Arranged for Keyboard and Any Solo Instrument, vol. 3.Keyboard, solo instrument.Concordia (97-7722), $34.

Culli has taken some well-known chorale pre-lude settings by early Lutheran masters and extracted the melody for an instrumentalist to play. Nineteen preludes are included in vol. 3;


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Bach, Böhm, Buxtehude, Doles, Kauffmann, Kellner, Kneller, Krebs, Pachelbel, Scheidt, Te-lemann, and Walther are represented. Although originally written for organ, Culli has carefully arranged each piece to be playable without ped-als, making them suitable also for harpsichord or piano as well as for organ. Most are in their original key. There is much opportunity for cre-ative uses for these settings. Tunes in vols. 1 and 2 are listed. Instrumental parts in a variety of transpositions are available for download at www.cph.org. JG

Organ Plus Anthology, vol. 2: Advent/Christmas.Ed. by Norma Aamodt-Nelson.Organ, treble instrument.Augsburg Fortress (978-1-5064-1376-1l), $35.

This collection of 22 Advent and Christmas tunes will be especially useful if you have a flute or oboe player. The difficulty level for the instru-mentalist varies. Jacob Weber’s setting of “Away in a Manger” would be lovely for a beginning flute player, yet his setting of “On Christmas Night” highlights the virtuosic flautist with its scale runs and trills. This collection will enrich worship services as well as Christmas programs as instruments of the parish join in celebrating Christ’s birth. JRB

Organ Plus One: Death and Eternity/ Funeral Service.Ed. by Carsten Klomp. Organ, solo instrument.Bärenreiter (BA 8504), $23.50.

This is the fifth in a series designed for practical use by church mu-sicians in worship or in concert. This particular set will find applicability as a resource for special music at funerals, memorials, or other celebra-tions of life. It includes arrangements of such

familiar Lutheran chorale preludes as the Krebs Wachet auf and the Walther Christus, der ist mein Leben, as well as new arrangements of such traditional chorales as Vater unser im Himmelreich and Jesu, meine Zuversicht. Familiar classical pieces are also arranged, in-cluding works by J. S. Bach, Erik Satie, Théodore Dubois, and César Franck. All feature an in-strumental solo part which may take one of the pre-existing musical lines or play a separate ob-bligato or countermelody against the organ part. The instrumental writing is not difficult (de-signed for amateur musicians) and is available in several keys. Since the organ music is largely fa-miliar, practice and prep time should also be less demanding. This would make a good investment for times when a little extra touch is desired. DR

Organ Plus One: Gottes-dienst Divine Service.Ed. by Carsten Klomp.Organ, solo instrument.Bärenreiter (BA 8506), $21.50.

This is the third volume in the Organ Plus One series. It contains pieces based on hymn tunes as well as some freely composed works. The edition includes in-strumental solo parts in C, B-flat, E-flat, and F, making this quite a versatile collection. The instrument parts are of medium or medium-dif-ficult level and will require a confident soloist. All of the hymn-tune arrangements feature the instrumental solo playing a part other than the melody. This is a fine series to have on hand for service music as well as recital pieces. MS

Organ Plus One: Passion, Ostern/Easter.Ed. by Carsten Klomp.Organ, solo instrument.Bärenreiter (BA 8503), $21.25.

This volume in the Organ Plus One series consists of 21 prac-tical adaptations of historical literature that add one instru-ment to the organ. Sometimes the additional instrument plays the cantus firmus of a chorale.


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Other times the instrument plays one of the other parts. A wide range of composers is repre-sented including J. S. Bach, Karg-Elert, Vierne, Satie, Brahms, and Krebs. Parts are provided in C, B-flat, F, and E-flat, so a wide variety of in-struments can be used. Several free movements are included, although most of the pieces are based on Lutheran chorales for Lent and Easter. The chorale-based works are transposed into the keys that correspond to the Evangelisches Gesang-buch, although these may or may not correspond to the keys in American hymnals. Klomp’s edit-ing and adaptation is sensitive and well crafted, making the Organ Plus One series a must-have for the Lutheran church musician who is serious about including instruments in worship. KO

Wayne L. Wold.Credo for Organ and Trumpet.Organ, trumpet.Augsburg Fortress (978-1-5064-1375-4), $22.

Subtitled Settings for Festive Occasions, Wold has provided a unique work with capacity for both worship and concert. Three movements are dedicated to the Holy Trinity, based on Martin Luther’s Latin Credo (chorale sung as the Nicene

Creed). There are also five pieces based on well-known chorales and hymns: Grosser Gott; Lobe den Herren; Noël nouvelet; Puer nobis; and Solid Rock; in addition to Wir glauben all, the Credo. These settings could be played as festive extended introductions to the singing of the hymns, or as individual pieces. Noël nouvelet is sung both at Christmastide and Eastertide; Puer nobis is often sung during Advent, Eastertide, and Pentecost. Both B-flat and C parts are provided for the trumpeter in the book. A skilled trumpeter is needed for many of the movements, while others require only a mod-est technique. JG

HANDBELLS Christmas Bells.Arr. by Sondra K. Tucker.3–5 octaves hand-bells, with optional 3 octaves handchimes.Concordia (97-7714), $4.50.

This medley of well-known Christmas tunes (Personent

hodie, Waltham [Calkin], Branle de l’of-ficiel) will keep your ringers quite busy. There are three key changes and various techniques, including mallets, marts, mart-lifts, thumb-damps, echo rings, shakes, and tempo changes. Handchimes are used for the melody in “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” and there are many opportunities to practice the LV (let vibrate) technique in that section. This is a challenging piece; allow plenty of time to rehearse the transi-tions. This piece would work nicely as a prelude on Christmas morning. Level 3. ML

Dan R. Edwards.Chapel Chimings.3 octaves handbells or handchimes.Concordia (97-7712), $4.25.

This lovely original piece for beginning bell choir would be quite effective as an

introit or a prelude in any worship service throughout the year. The use of the singing bell technique could only be used with handbells, but the echo technique could easily be transferred to hand chimes. Due to the level 1 nature of this piece, there are no key or meter changes, and it is in the key of C major without any accidentals. There is no note denomination smaller than the quarter note. The composer ends the piece with the option to “chime the hour,” as well as a gyro ring to fade. Level 1. ML


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From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.Arr. by Lauran Delancy.3–5 octaves handbells, with optional 3 or 5 octaves handchimes.Concordia (97-7721), $4.50.

Using Martin Luther’s hymn tune Vom Himmel hoch, the arranger has added a lovely counter-melody on the highest bells to bookend this piece. The melody is straightforward on both handbells and handchimes, using only quarter notes and eighth notes. There are two brief me-ter changes when the melody enters. The tower swing technique is quite effective in the bass. As an added bonus, there are two quick measures of “Joy to the World” during the final interlude. Level 3. ML

Go Tell It on the Mountain.Arr. by John A. Behnke.3–5 octaves hand-bells, 3–5 octaves handchimes.Concordia (97-7720), $4.50.

This upbeat arrange-ment of a favorite African American spiritual is rated level 3, but is quite accessible to most church handbell choirs. It has an easy syncopa-tion in the melody, accompanied by echo rings and marts. The middle section is in the parallel minor key of G minor and rung on handchimes. The vibration technique is used exclusively in those eight measures quite effectively. The re-turn to G major brings the original techniques with the added bonus of the upper 4th and 5th octaves of bells. The bass ringers even have the melody for one stanza. This piece is a wonderful way to bring some light jazz into the worship ser-vice on Christmas morning. Level 3. ML

Felix Mendelssohn.Peace in Our Time.Arr. by John A. Behnke.3–5 octaves handbells or handchimes.Concordia (97-7719), $4.50.

The hymn tune Mendels-sohn da pacem is beautifully arranged for a beginning bell choir with many opportunities to practice the LV technique (let vibrate) and to achieve a legato sound. There are few tempo changes and one seamless key change from C major to E-flat major. The piece ends quite effectively on a single pitch, as if we have all come together as one. Level 2. ML

This Joyful Eastertide.Arr. by Cathy Moklebust.3–6 octaves handbells.Concordia (97-7713), $4.50.

This piece is perfectly suited for any joyous occasion, not just Easter. The arranger has added some quite musical and lilting melodies that act as an interlude between the stan-zas of the hymn. The Dutch hymn tune Vruechten, from Davids Psalmen, is handled with strong quarter notes, so that the meter change in the middle of the first phrase should not prove challenging. The higher bells introduce a more percussive sound with mallets on suspended bells, followed by pluck, thumb damp, or mallets on the bass bells. Ringers and congregation alike will enjoy this offering. Lev-el 2+. ML


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VOCAL | CHILDREN’S CHOIR

James Marriott.Mary’s Song.SA, piano.Concordia (98-4241), $1.90.

Marriott has adapted the text of Luke 1:46–53 (the Magnifi-cat) in a fresh, melodically rich setting. The first page is an op-portunity for a soloist to chant the canticle in Latin, or the so-prano section may sing. This would be hauntingly beautiful

if the opening page was sung from another loca-tion in the nave. The full choir starts the text in English, first in unison, then in two parts. Eight measures of lovely, three-part texture follow, and the harmonies will delight both singer and lis-tener. Highly recommended for treble choirs, both youth and adults. JG

ADULT CHOIRJay Althouse.Glory to God in the Highest.SATB, piano.Hope (C 6042), $2.20.

This energetic anthem starts in F major with a driving, rhyth-mic motive in the piano that continues through much of the work. After original mate-rial, the composer includes an a cappella stanza of the Doxol-ogy, set to Old Hundredth.

After this stanza the choir repeats the opening material, then modulates to G major and ends with a big finish. The texture is homophonic throughout for the choir. It is suitable for large or small choirs and for a variety of seasons through the church year. AW

Johann Sebastian Bach.From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.Arr. by John Leavitt.SAB, piano.Concordia (98-4239), $1.90.

If you would like your choir to be able to sing this familiar Bach chorale (#9) from the Christmas Oratorio but have no tenors, this simplified SAB arrangement works quite well. Leavitt has retained as much of the original voice leading as possible without creat-ing awkward lines or suddenly thin textures. The bass part is almost identical to Bach’s, and the alto line weaves effectively between the original alto and tenor parts. Leavitt’s piano reduction is both musically satisfying and comfortable un-der the fingers. There are two stanzas in English (stanzas 1–2 of the Luther text as translated by Catherine Winkworth), with stanza 2 using the exact same musical setting as stanza 1. This piece could be used as a Christmas anthem, in a ser-vice of lessons and carols, or as a choral variation for the complete hymn. DR

David Blackwell.A Scottish Blessing.SATB, keyboard, with optional treble instrument.MorningStar (MSM-50-6320), $1.85.

Blackwell’s gentle, flowing anthem is based on a tradition-al Scottish blessing, a text that uses imagery of creation, both in its use of light—“Be a light before to lead me; be a guiding star above”—and in its visions of different creatures singing God’s praises. The use of the Scotch snap (16th note followed by a dotted 8th note) in both the voices and keyboard lends a Scottish feel to the piece. The melody is first introduced in all voic-es before moving to a lush SATB texture. The final stanza includes an optional obbligato tre-ble instrumental part that is within the ability of a good high school student. A reproducible


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part for B-flat or C treble instrument is available separately in print (MSM-50-6320A; $3) or for download (MSM-50-6320A-E; $3). Suitable for any service with themes of guidance or creation or for general use as a choral benediction, this is a beautiful addition to the SATB church choir repertoire. Medium-easy. AE

Jeffrey Blersch.A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.SATB, congregation, organ, brass quartet, timpani.Concordia (98-4246), $3.25.

As the Lutheran church celebrates the 500th anniversary of

the Reformation, Blersch’s concertato on Ein feste Burg will add a note of musical dignity to a Reformation celebration. The festive 64-mea-sure introduction for brass quartet and organ is followed by the first two stanzas using the rhythmic setting of Ein feste Burg for unison congregation, organ, brass, and timpani. The third stanza, set for SATB and organ, is in triple meter, giving a dance-like feel, celebrating the victory that, indeed, “the devil will not overpow-er us.” The final stanza, with its soaring descant, utilizes all instrumental and vocal resources. The full score (97-7746; $55.00) includes all instru-mental parts. JRB

Jeffrey Blersch.O Sing to the Lord.SAB, organ, with optional congregation.Concordia (98-4231), $2.80.

This is a nice setting of Psalm 98 for con-gregation and choir. The choir introduces the refrain, which is

followed immediately by the congregation join-ing in. The verses of the Psalm are arranged for the choir. The music for the verses does a good job of reflecting the text. There is a short-lived

modulation in one of the choir stanzas, showing a change in the flavor of the text. A reproducible congregation page is included on the octavo with all of the text printed. MS

William Braun.By Grace I’m Saved; Baptized Into Your Name Most Holy; Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices. SATB, brass quartet, cymbals, timpani, organ, congregation.Northwestern (2806136E), $29.99.

Northwestern is offering this “package” as a PDF file, and the purchaser may make as many copies as needed for rehearsal and performance. Based on O dass ich tausend Zungen hätte (Dretzel), it includes the full score for both conductor and organist, choir score, trumpets in B flat, trombones, and percussion. Braun’s set-ting will get triple use, as texts for three hymns are included. The brass adds a festive touch, as does the descant for the final stanza. Available from www.nph.net. JG

William Braun.Salvation Unto Us Has Come.SATB, trumpet, organ, congregation.Northwestern (2806137E), $24.99.

This is also offered as a PDF file. With the 500th Reforma-tion anniversary in 2017, new, fresh settings of beloved cho-rales are welcome additions to the repertoire. This arrangement uses five stanzas, with the as-sembly singing 1, 3, and 5, the choir singing 2 and 4, and a descant on 5 (tenors could join the sopranos if desired). The choir has a four-mea-sure “postlude” and they are invited to break into eight parts for the final chord. The trumpet part is in C only and could be played by a better high school trumpeter. Available from www.nph.net. JG


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Wes Cameron.Be the Light of Christ.SATB, piano.Hope (C 6043), $2.10.

Composed in D major, this lyrical anthem is set to a text focused on service and mis-sion. Much of this accessible anthem contains sections in unison or in two parts, perfect for developing solid expres-sion from the various sections

in the choir. The piece ends with a full four-part stanza. It is suitable for large or small choirs and for any service where stewardship, service, or mission is the focus. AW

Henry V. Gerike.Shepherds, Come A-Running.Two-part mixed, organ or piano.Concordia (98-4229), $1.90.

Gerike gives us a sweet, easy setting of a Polish carol that choir and congregation alike will find charming. Textur-al changes add variety. The voices trade off phrases in the

first stanza and begin the second in canon before moving to two-part harmony, while the final stanza is mostly in unison. The keyboard part, while fairly simple, contributes textural and har-monic interest. This would be a good addition to the repertoire of the small church choir or a choir looking for an easier piece for a Christmas

service. AE

Georg Friedrich Handel.The King Shall Rejoice (HWV 260).SATB, orchestra.Bärenreiter (BA 10259-90), $12.99.

One of two coronation anthems written for the cor-onation of George II in 1727

(the other being Zadok the Priest), this would be

an exciting and grand choice for a festive occa-sion or concert by a choir with large resources. Written before Handel’s better-known oratorios, this work already has the musical hallmarks of his well-known choruses from The Messiah and Israel in Egypt. The King Shall Rejoice consists of four choruses, which could also be performed separately. The final “Alleluia” would be espe-cially appropriate for Easter. Three movements call for divisi altos, and two movements call for brief bass divisi. This is an urtext edition by Han-del scholar Stephan Blaut, and the absence of editorial markings, including dynamics, means that the director will need to take extra time and care to establish dynamics and other expressive markings. In addition to the vocal score with pi-ano reduction, a conductor’s score (BA-10259, $27.99) and string, wind, and organ parts are available separately. Medium difficult. AE

Mark Hayes.Shepherd Me, O God.SAB, piano, with optional cello, violin.Hope (C 6054), $2.25.

This anthem is an ar-rangement of a hymn by Marty Haugen with the same name as the anthem. Based

on Psalm 23, this accessible and lyrical anthem starts in F minor with a short piano introduction. The choral parts start in unison, then proceed to two-part or three-part writing. There is also an SATB arrangement (C 5832; $2.25). Conduc-tor’s score, violin, and cello parts are available separately (C 5832P; $7.50). The piece is suitable for large or small choirs and for a variety of sea-sons where comfort, hope, or God as the Good Shepherd is the focus of the service. AW


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Kevin Hildebrand.The Gifts Christ Freely Gives.SATB, congregation, organ, oboe.Concordia (98-4223), $2.80.

This is a wonderful setting by Hildebrand

of the Richard C. Resch text. The lyrics are set to the tune Denby. The 49-measure introduction is arranged for organ and oboe and clearly pres-ents the tune to the congregation. Stanza one is sung in unison with a standard organ accompa-niment. Stanza two includes an oboe part over the women’s voices. There is a short interlude connecting this stanza to the third stanza, which is written for SATB choir and is intended to be sung a cappella. It contains voice leading that makes the choral entrances easy to learn. Stan-za 4 is written for unison male voices with oboe, leading into another choral stanza using the same arrangement as the previous choral stan-za. The concluding doxological stanza is written in unison, with the oboe presenting a descant. The organ supports the congregation quite well throughout. This hymn is an excellent text for a Sunday that focuses on the means of grace. There is also a TTBB arrangement (included in Hildebrand’s Reformation Hymns for Men’s Voices [Concordia, 97-7754; $10.00]). MS

Kevin Hildebrand.Now Thank We All Our God.SATB, congregation, organ, trumpet, with optional brass quintet.Concordia (98-4224), $2.80.

Hildebrand provides a fresh arrangement of an old favorite

that can add a festive touch to a Thanksgiving service or other celebratory occasion without requiring huge forces or lengthy rehearsal. Af-ter a brass and organ introduction and stanza 1 in unison with congregation, the middle stan-za gives the cantus firmus to the trumpet while

giving obbligato material from the introduction to the choir (a nice change of pace for the sing-ers). The congregation joins in again on stanza 3. At least one trumpet player is required; howev-er, parts are also available for a brass quintet of 2 trumpets (in B-flat or C), F horn, trombone, and tuba. The B-flat trumpet part is printed with the choral score, but full brass parts must be or-dered separately from Concordia (97-7758 print [$16.00] or download [$14.00]). DR

David Meece.One Small Child.Arr. by Lloyd Larson.SSA, piano.Hope (C 6044), $2.25.

This well-known song has been around since 1971. Al-though not a deep, theological piece, it has a sweet essence and might have multiple uses. Since there is an emphasis on the three kings, it might be possible to use it for Epiphany services, which often catch choirs and directors off guard if the choir takes a brief break right after Christ-mas services. This piece is also available in other voicings: SATB (C 5303; $2.25), SAB (C 5467; $2.25), two-part mixed (C 5655; $2.25), and vocal solo (8587; $5.95); and with various ac-companiments: orchestration (C 56550; $69.95) and 3–5 octaves handbells (2403; $5.50). A per-formance/accompaniment CD is also available (C 5655C; $5.50). Directors will enjoy planning ahead which arrangements to use, which accom-paniments will be most effective, and how to utilize all resources available. JG

David W. Music.The Angels Descending.Two-part or SATB, piano.Northwestern (2806134E), $1.80.

The story of the angels announcing the birth of the Christ Child to the shepherds is the basis for Music’s new easy Christmas anthem for two-part mixed or SATB choir. The lilting 6/8 melody and use of grace


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notes and open fifths in the accompaniment give this anthem a Celtic feel. The composer notes that the unison men’s part could be sung up an octave to create a two-part equal voice setting. Available in PDF format only, from www.nph.net. Easy. AE

Carl F. Schalk.Lullaby for Christmas.SATB, organ, flute, oboe (or optional string quartet).Concordia (98-4226), $2.30.

Entirely in E major, this lyrical anthem is set to a Christmas text by Schalk, Martin Luther, and Coelius Sedulius. The an-them starts with a flute, oboe, and organ introduction. Af-

ter a unison soprano/alto stanza, the a cappella second stanza contains some dissonances for the entire choir. Much of the third stanza is in two parts, except for an SATB ending. The anthem ends with a coda for organ, flute, and oboe. It is suitable for large or small choirs and for Christ-mas or a lessons and carols service. Quartet parts are available in print ($11.00) or downloadable ($9.00) formats (www.cph.org). AW

Carl F. Schalk.Where’er I Go.SATB a cappella.Concordia (98-4225), $1.90.

This unaccompanied mo-tet provides another example of Schalk’s ability to set a meaningful text with musical sensitivity. The text, written by the 17th-century poet Paul Fleming and translated by

Catherine Winkworth, is a prayer for the coun-sel of God: “Then let Him order all for me / As He in wisdom shall decree; / On Him I cast my care.” The same music is used to set each stan-za. The texture changes throughout, moving between fully polyphonic, independent voices and a more homophonic texture. An optional ending, “So shall it be, amen,” could also find life separately as a prayer response. This anthem would be good for a celebration of ministry or for general use. Medium difficulty. AE

Reviewers:

John Bernthal (JB)Associate Professor of Music EmeritusValparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN

Jean R. Boehler (JRB)CantorRedeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church, The Bronx, NY

Ann Edahl (AE)Choir DirectorOur Saviour’s Lutheran Church, Fresno, CA

James Gladstone (JG)Retired Cantor, Saginaw, MIMusic Assistant, Ev. Lutheran Church of St. Lorenz, Frankenmuth, MI

Marilyn Lake (ML)Handbell DirectorSouthminster Presbyterian Church, Prairie Village, KSMusic Educator, Shawnee Mission School District, KS

Karl A. Osterland (KO)Music DirectorHistoric Trinity Lutheran Church, Detroit, MI

Deborah Reiss (DR)Minister of MusicVillage Lutheran Church, Bronxville, NY

Mark A. Schultz (MS)Minister of MusicTrinity Lutheran Church and School, Wausau, WI

Austen Wilson (AW )Director of MusicLutheran Church of Our Savior, Haddonfield, NJ



POSTLUDE

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Anne Krentz OrganPast President, ALCM

M any thanks to the contributing writers for their thought-provoking, in-spirational articles that began as spoken

presentations at our 2016 regional conferences across the country. ALCM conferences are ex-cellent opportunities to gather together for continuing education, fellowship, worship, sup-port, and encouragement. Heartfelt thanks to all who worked so diligently to plan and implement each one of these gatherings.

As we begin a new church year, what ex-cites you? What hopes and dreams do you have for your congregation? How might you help to draw people more deeply into prayer and wor-ship? How might you more clearly and strongly proclaim the gospel through music?

Your ALCM board of directors is hard at work, looking into the future with excitement. We realize that what our organization has to offer is of utmost importance to the life of the church and to the life of the world. We have hopes and dreams of reaching out to still more musicians who lead the church’s song and of finding addi-tional avenues to nurture and equip them to lead with confidence and clarity.

In order to more fully embrace the work set before us, we have embarked upon a search for an executive director. The job description for this full-time position is posted on ALCM’s website (www.alcm.org). If you or someone you know is interested in applying, please let the office know! Applications will be received through January 6, 2017.

As we continue with our 30th anniversa-ry year-long celebration, please keep ALCM in your prayers. What might God be calling us to in these next 30 years?

“O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (ELW, evening prayer, 317; LSB 311).

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association of lutheran church musicians810 freeman st.valparaiso, in 46383

CROSSACCENT

2017 INSTITUTE OF LITURGICAL STUDIESREGISTRATION

NOW OPEN

April 24–26, 2017See our website for details and for a printable registration form:valpo.edu/ils

Online registration available: valpo.edu/ils-conference

For more information, email [email protected] or call the Institute of Liturgical Studies at 219.464.6514.

PLENARY SPEAKERS• Father John F. Baldovin, S.J.• Lorraine Brugh• Edward Foley, Capuchin• Timothy Wengert• Timo-Matti Haapiainen • I-toh Loh

Theology, Music, Practice

LITURGY SERVING THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH: HOW WORSHIP RE-FORMS US(500th Year of the Reformation)

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CROSSACCENTjOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF LUTHERAN CHURCH MUSICIANS VOL 24, NO 3 | FALL/WINTER 2016

ALCM Regional Conferences


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Worship SymposiumThis three-day conference brings together pastors, worship leaders

and planners, artists, musicians, scholars, students and other interested worshipers from around the world.

Over 12 seminars, 75 workshops, 90 presenters, and 50 themes, including preaching, visual arts, culture

care, pastoral care, prophetic lament, Psalms, faith formation, the Lord’s Supper, outreach,

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The year 2016 marks 10 years since the publication of Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the family of resources that helps congregations support and provide engaging worship focused on God’s mission. Discover the

treasures within these four resources and how they can help enrich your church’s music ministry.

Now through January 31, 2017, enjoy 10% off and free shipping when you order through augsburgfortress.org. Enter promo code CROSSACCENT16 at checkout.

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Hymn Descants for Trumpet

Vocal Descants for the Church Year

Choral Stanzas for Hymns, Vol. 1

Choral Stanzas for Hymns, Vol. 2

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SOUNDFESTsVA L PA R A I S O U N I V E R S I T Y

CHURCH MUSIC STUDIESBachelor of Music in Church MusicBachelor of Music in Performance (Organ or Voice)Bachelor of Arts

CURRICULUMPerformance, Church Music, Theology, Liturgical Organ Playing, Conducting, History, Theory

ENSEMBLESChorale, Kantorei, handbells, and worship leadership opportunities

FACULTYLorraine S. Brugh, Ph.D., University Organist/Frederick J. Kruse Organ Fellow; Director, Institute of Liturgical Studies

Christopher M. Cock, DMA, Director of Choral and Vocal Activities;Director, Bach Institute at Valparaiso University

Joseph Bognar, DMA, Chair, Music Department; Associate University Organist

Stephen Schnurr, DMA, Adjunct Instructor in Organ

For more information, please contact the Music Department219.464.5454 or email: [email protected]/music

Department of Music

103 Rank Schlicker/Dobson Organ in the Chapel of the ResurrectionCOMPETITIVE SCHOLARSHIPS ARE AVAILABLE

Documents

CROSSACCENT - Association of Lutheran Church Musicians · 2017-08-22 · Fall/Winter 2016 CrossAccent 1 CROSSACCENT vol 24, no 3 | FALL/Winter 2016 journal of the association of lutheran