Welcome to Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the new hymnal of the ELCA!

The ELW, our new "cranberry" colored hymnal is the hymnal of the ELCA. We have been using it for about two months in electronic form. I hope we will get the printed copies eventually.

Evangelical Lutheran Worship bears the rich tradition of Christian worship practiced among Lutherans and, at the same time, seeks to renew that tradition in response to a generation of change in the church and in the world. Its identity and its content reveal several goals. Evangelical Lutheran Worship continues to emphasize that freedom and flexibility in worship is a Lutheran inheritance, and there is room for ample variety in ceremony, music, and liturgical form. And, through its design and through a variety of interpretive materials, it seeks to make more transparent the principle of fostering unity without imposing uniformity.

However, at St. Stephen we have just begun to scratch the surface of the richness that this hymnal has to offer. ELW contains ten settings for Holy Communion, a Service of the Word, and much, much more.

Since the 1^st of October , at our 11:00am worship service we have been using Setting Three, which was known in the old [green] Lutheran Book of Worship as Setting I. You may have noticed there have been a few variations in that setting.

At our 8:00am and 9:30am services we are learning Setting Two which Tom felt was the contemporary style liturgy. Setting Two was also composed by Marty Haugen, which was the composer of “Now the Feast and Celebration,” the service we were using this summer. Tom has also added his own orchestration to this setting to add to the contemporary feel. At the 8:00 and 9:30 services we have used the flexibility offered us in the ELW and have not followed the setting exactly, nor are both services identical.

The other settings in the ELW consist of Setting One, which was composed by Robert Buckly Farlee, Thomas Pavlechko and Mark Mummert, with the accompaniments composed primarily for organ, but also work with piano and other instruments. Setting Two was composed for piano leadership, yet could be used with an organ.

Setting Four was LBW Setting II; Setting Five is a chant setting, that has its origins in the old red hymnal, The Service Book and Hymnal. Chant is especially growing in popularity among young people. Setting Six includes music from This Far by Faith, our church’s African American worship book. Much of this music is in Gospel style. Setting Seven includes music brought forward from Libro de Liturgia y Cántico, our church’s Spanish language worship book. Setting Eight includes music from a variety of composers, all in contemporary musical styles. This setting includes music for a band and chords for guitar, rather than leadership from an organ. Setting Nine, by Joel Martinson, was composed for the ELW and offers more challenging congregational singing options. Setting Ten, (which we used last month) provides music that is very accessible for many congregations. The liturgical texts are all paraphrases in simple metric form and set to familiar hymn tunes.

Lutheran worship offers a wonderful amount of variety, yet is tried, true and dependable. There are many portions of this hymnal that we have yet to explore. Eventually I hope we will get the new hymnals as replacements for all of the hymnals in our racks. The ELW has 893 hymns in it. I’d like folks to look through it; you may wish to look for your favorite hymn, or your favorite new hymn . . . . this summer we will have our very own Top Ten Favorite Hymn countdown. No stuffing the ballot box!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor