Customer Reviews

Evangelical Lutheran Worship: Pew Edition

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I am not a musician and I can't read music, so I'll leave it to the more musically qualified to weigh in on the merits of the hymns and service settings in this new Lutheran worship resource. But I am a Lutheran, I love a sung service, and I enjoy singing hymns. Just published, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) is intended to replace the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW or "green book") published in 1978 which had been serving as the primary worship resource of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for the past two decades.

What I like about ELW is its abundance of choices, its completeness, and its transparency. Unlike the LBW, this new resource is designed to facilitate private worship as effectively and fully as public worship. The section for the Propers for Sundays and Principal Festivals is clearly laid out, including for those Sundays beginning in Pentecost when churches have the option of pursuing "complementary" or "semicontinuous" Old Testament readings. Unlike the old, two-year Daily Lectionary, the Daily Lectionary in the ELW follows a three-year cycle, making it easier for the worshipers to integrate their priviate devotions with what the larger church is doing on Sundays. Another important improvement is the inclusion of all 150 Psalms, not just the "safe" or "polite" ones. The first piece of service music, which immediately follows the last Psalm, is numbered #151. This is significant. It is a way of reasserting the Psalter's rightful place as the Church's primary collection of worship music. The numbering helps us remember that the Psalms are not to be treated as texts only. They pre-date the church, in fact, and from the beginning have served as important works of musical and spiritual expression. Also important for private devotions is the inclusion of Martin Luther's "Small Catechism" and a short article explaining the Scriptural basis of worship (where the precise verses are identified for all the key phrases that form the skeleton of our worship service). More than its predecesor, ELW gives the motivated Lutheran worshiper the chance to prepare ahead of time for Sunday worship, and to reflect upon it afterwards--a reminder that being a Christian is not just what we do, think, and say on Sunday.

What I mean when I praise ELW's "transparency," is that those who prepared this volume have taken pains to explain why we worship the way we do, to present the logic and rationale behind the options available to us. Each section of the book is introduced with a brief explanation of what is being presented and what makes that element of worship noteworthy. Similarly, there is ample use of rubrics to call attention to worship options within the various settings and services. I even appreciate that they have added a footnote to the Nicene Creed to remind worshipers that the phrase "and the Son" is a later addition to the Creed.

Even more so than the LBW, this hymnal is sensitive to the diversity of the church and demonstates a sense of joy about embracing all lands and cultures. Likewise, it recognizes that the laity is capable and ready to take greater leadership in the "work" of the church; the text distinguishes between "presiding ministers" (i.e., ordained clergy) and "leaders" and "assisting ministers" in a way that is empowering rather than restrictive.

I look foward to exploring the new settings for Communion as part of my Sunday worship. And I encourage all Lutherans to obtain a personal copy of ELW and begin using it as part of your personal devotiions.

Because my parents are both Lutheran ministers who received a small sample copy including some of the changes they were planning on making from the LBW in updating it, I got to see a copy. Neither my parents, boyfriend, or I were at all impressed. In that sample, they had changed the melody of some well-known and loved hymns to ones that were more difficult to sing, they changed words spuriously on well-beloved hymns that were difficult to sing, not very musically fitting with the melody, and downright awkward.

Thankfully, most of the problems with that sample have been addressed, and overall this book is very good. Often when they have changed a melody to a well-known hymn, they still include the old melody that everyone loves, an example of this being "I heard the Voice of Jesus Say." Also, most of the terribly awkward rewording went away too, not all of it, but at least some.

The biggest benefit of this book, and the reason why this book is much more useful to individual and home use, as opposed to solely church purchase and pew use, is its inclusion of a whole slew of prayers for different subjects, a listing of Luther's small catechism--I do not remember whether the LBW included this, but I don't think it did--a listing of the church seasons, two versions of the Revised Common Lectionary, one for Sundays only and the other a list of the daily scriptures. Also, as with the Lutheran Book of Worship, the ELW includes the psalms.

For church use, it mostly preserves the two most well-known and beloved communion settings, and adds several more contemporary settings in different styles, on the assumption that most churches weekly provide the creed in the bulletin, the full text of them only appears in a couple of the first settings. It preserves the hymns from the LBW while adding many great contemporary hymns that actually have some actual theological content, "You are Holy," "You are Mine" and "The Feast is Ready to Begin" are just a few examples. As with the LBW, it includes some of the daily offices, such as morning prayer, evening prayer, and Compline.

I do have a few gripes with it. At Lutheran Summer Music, a month-long music camp for which you do not have to be Lutheran to attend (or really even Christian, though you will be required to attend evening prayer), I fell in love with the LBW's arrangement of the Evening Prayer service music. For whatever reason, they decided to alter some of the chanting, and change the beautiful melody of the Magnificat, as presented in the LBW. Thankfully, at least, they preserved the melody in, "Let My Prayer Rise before you as incense,"

I especially dislike the way that they arbitrarily chose to include the accompaniments and harmonizations on some hymns and not others. Those of us who are musically inclined but not quite quick enough to get the chordal structure to harmonize without guide, especially while trying to sing the words, and to pay attention to the message of the hymn--even more especially when the melody exceeds our tolerable sounding vocal range-- like to be able to see the harmonies, so that we can switch to one of the lower ones.

This also presents a difficulty to Church accompanists such as I who prefer to practice at home, because it means that we also have to purchase both the liturgy book and the accompaniment edition, both of which are much more expensive than the pew hymnal, since we have no reliable access to all the hymn accompaniments. Formerly, the only thing we had to buy was the liturgy accompaniment if we were willing to put up with the tendency for the pages to refuse to lie flat and to flip themselves occasionally.

This books improvements, greater worship setting options, greater usefulness in personal devotion at home, continuance of the great hymn classics, inclusion of much theologically sound and musically beautiful contemporary music truly outweighs the few gripes I have against it.

I highly recommend this, not only to churches who haven't yet switched over from the LBW, but also for dedicated Christians who would like a rich source of daily devotional material.

This is a long time coming and long overdue. The last time the LBW (now the ELW) got a rewrite was in the 1970s.

If you're looking for the Gift Edition the ISBN number is 978-0-8066-5671-7. Currently, it's only available from Augsburg Fortress.

Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) came out in the fall of 2006, an update to (or replacement of) 1978's Lutheran Book of Worship. It is "commended for use" in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and "approved for use" in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.

There are, really, two settings for using a new hymnal / worship book: in the home, and in the congregation. In both settings, ELW has much to commend it with a few rather glaring shortcomings.

In the home, ELW is a nice devotional piece. The inclusion of Martin Luther's Small Catechism, a lectionary for daily Scripture reading, the offices of daily prayer, as well as a complete Psalter all make ELW a useful resource for the home. In addition to the Sunday propers, there are prayers for various occasions found in the book. On the downside, the hymns are hit or miss as to whether they include the harmonies, or only the melody. If you are a musician or a singer who likes to have a hymnal around to practice or just for fun, this can present a problem.

In a congregational setting, there are a few highpoints for ELW. It is very adaptable, with many options in terms of liturgical music and wording (10 settings for Holy Communion, plus an additional 87 pieces of liturgical music). There are also many hymns included in the book (655). It is a bonus to see the inclusion of the liturgies for Holy Week in a pew resource, as well as a service of the Word that is more than a truncated service of Holy Communion. However, to fit in this much material, some cuts had to be made. Using most of the settings of Holy Communion involves a great deal of page flipping, as the bulk of the spoken material is only found in the first two settings. This sort of defeats the purpose of having a comprehensive worship resource, requiring the congregation to print the material in a worship booklet so that the congregation can follow along.

In the same way, having resources like the services for Holy Week in the book is helpful -- but only to a point. In reality, what you find are outlines. The actual service is found in the Leaders Edition which means you cannot, for example, use portions of the service of Good Friday for devotion in the home -- the words aren't there.

In all, there is a lot in ELW with which I am very happy, and which I have found to be very helpful and useful. And yet, the inclusion of so many resources required some editorial decisions which make ELW awkward to use at times. A congregation or individual can gain much from using ELW, with some adaptation.

The newest official hymnal of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is not just for congregational worship. True, it has ten communion settings, vernacular arrangements of the Divine Office, the complete Book of Psalms with sixteen tones for singing, and the complete Revised Common Lectionary. So it's more than useful for performing the Sunday service.

But if you flip to the back, you'll find a complete daily lectionary for private Bible study, as well as Luther's Small Catechism. The settings of the worship contain thorough introductions for those who want to learn more about how and why we Lutherans perform service in certain ways. So it's also valuable for self-guided study, private worship, and lay leadership in outreach to shut-ins and others.

This book isn't without controversy. A few cherished hymns were squeezed from new edition to make room for hip, poppy praise tunes. There isn't very much plainchant, for those of us who like the old ways. And though I mostly applaud the effort to utilize more gender-inclusive language, a few hymns (#207 springs to mind) have been tortured to fit the new mold.

Still, this worship hymnal is portable, inexpensive, and provides instruction that many pew editions haven't offered. Service hymns are laid out seasonally for ultimate clarity, and the prayers are brief but wide-ranging. Don't leave this hymnal in the pew. Get yourself a copy and use it to guide your personal prayer and study. That's what they made it for.

The new Lutheran worship book is a wonderful resource, both for congregational worship and private devotions.

The 10 settings of the Eucharist provide a rich variety of musical styles and liturgies. I've been involved with two congregations who have adopted ELW, to almost universal praise.

The prayers and daily lectionary make it a valuable tool for private devotions.

As a student at an ELCA seminary, I've been exposed to the ELW from a variety of angles. I've spent time studying it as a pastor-to-be, I've studied it from being a theology student, I've studied it from being a worshipper. What strikes me is how this resource is one breath a great resource for worship planning and in the next breath a terrible pew-version.

I've enjoyed the flexibility of choices that I have in liturgies, prayers, and song selection. Though, I do have to question the use of the term "contemporary" when talking about some of the hymns (I guess they were written in the last 30 years), I also question any idea that these liturgies can be used by a band ... I've played in worship bands for as long as I can remember and I can't say any of these liturgies are "band" friendly (and by band I'm thinking about a couple of guitars, drums, bass, maybe keys and a horn section).

What irks me most about this book is that it's not something that the average worshipper will find "easy" to use in the pew. There's a lot of "flipping" that must go on to follow a given service. I don't really care for the fact that only the first two (of 10) liturgies have complete liturgical elements ... for the remaining liturgies if you want to find the text for the Lord's Prayer or one of the Creeds you have to page back to one of the first two settings. I realize this was done to save pages, but it makes it difficult to use in worship.

I do encourage this book to be on the shelves of any pastor or worship leader who is planning worship, but beware of it's limited use ... and don't go buying copies to fill your pews, your congregation will be disappointed.

Perhaps I shouldn't even review this, since I have left the ELCA for the LCMS, but while still a member of the ELCA, I was given a copy of ELW.

Disclaimer: I am not a church musician and will not attempt to review the melodies, meters, etc.

First of all, the good points:

It is attractively laid out.
Luther's Small Catechism is essential and a welcome inclusion.
The daily lectionary is an excellent resource.
The prayers from throughout Church history are very good.

BUT...

ELW has fallen prey to the political correctness that badly mars the Augsburg Fortress Lutheran Study Bible and the ELCA in general.

There is a dogged insistence throughout ELW to emasculate God the Father; i.e., refusal to assign a male pronoun to the First Person of the Godhead. While theologically distressing (of course), it is also just awkward. A rough paraphrase would be "God loves the world so God sent God's only Son..." The Psalter goes even further than the already-questionable NRSV in this regard, and in the liturgy "It is right to give Him thanks and praise" is changed to "It is right to give OUR thanks and praise."

I commend the ELCA congregations who are staying with the LBW. It may be old, but it's worlds better.