Monday, June 22, 2020

Coming in Advent 2021


WELS Connection - February 2020 from WELS on Vimeo.

You have to admire the effort even if the verdict on the book will have to wait.  After all, the Wisconsin Synod is a small fraction of the size of the Missouri Synod and they have been plugging along not simply for a new hymnal but for 17 volumes to be released in Advent of 2021.  I continue to be amazed by the ambitious project they have underway and the fact that they appear to be on schedule.  It points to the many companion volumes slated for Lutheran Service Book that have not yet been been begun, much less completed, and our hymnal is not 14 years old this Fall.  I only wish that we had the same drive and were willing to expend the same dollars to finish our hymnal project before the next one is begun.  This is not the first time we have been slow.  Lutheran Worship: History and Practice was slated to come out with Lutheran Worship in the early 1980s and it took a decade before it showed up.  Late enough for people to have already formed an opinion about LW before they even got a detailed background into the book!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a WELS pastor, I wish I could say otherwise, but I'm fairly certain that your final verdict will not be a positive one. It's a tragedy that we've expended so much energy to produce a book that will contain a watered-down liturgy that uses the NIV11 as its base text, along with more CCM hits than Lutheran chorales.