By the time I got to seminary the LBW (Lutheran Book of Worship) was pretty well established as the hymnal used in Canadian Lutheran churches (at least those in the ELCC and the LCA-Canada Section, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod had been involved in the development and production of this hymnal, but at the last moment they withdrew their support and created their own version, which was pretty similar as far as I could tell). The Green Hymnal, as it commonly was known, was the worship resource for most of my time in ministry. There were things I liked about the LBW, like the use of current English, and a simpler layout of the content. There were also things I was disappointed in, like the emphasis on unison singing – I missed the harmonic emphasis of the SBH. Most irritating was how some of the great harmonies for hymns found in the SBH was deliberately changed, and seldom for the better as far as I was concerned.
The LBW wasn’t as contemporary as many people originally thought. In Seminary David Hunter and I decided to write new liturgical music as a special project. We used the words from the LBW, but composed new music. The result was “Hosanna: a Jazz Setting for Holy Communion.” This new setting met with great approval from our professors and colleagues, so at their encouraging we sent it to Augsburg Publishing House, the primary publishers of Lutheran worship materials in North America. The response was slow in coming, and when it did arrive it basically stated that there was no interest in our setting at all. Later I discovered that around this same time Marty Haugen was not having any success in getting Augsburg interested in his worship setting “Now the Feast and Celebration”. This led to Marty taking his work to GIA Publications (a Roman Catholic based company), which has published most of Marty Haugen’s music ever since.
In the early 1991 GIA published a hymnal supplement, complete with Marty Haugen’s music. This book, simply called “Hymnal Supplement”, was primarily the work of a group of Lutheran Campus pastors who were looking for something more contemporary to use in their settings. The popularity of this supplement got Augsburg’s attention and in 1995 they introduced With One Voice (WOV) which came to be known as the Blue Book. This is what I call half a hymnal – it contains 4 different worship settings, and a collection of 200 new hymns, but it was clearly intended to supplement the LBW, rather than replace it, as indicated by the hymn numbers starting where the LBW hymn numbers ended.
Ironically in my own parish by this time we had already put together our own “Blue Book”, complete with a number of worship settings and words to many Country Gospel and Contemporary Worship songs. At first we didn’t see the need to get another Blue Book, but then with a generous memorial donation we were able to purchase this supplement. It quickly became a favourite resource, the liturgies and hymns reflecting a more diverse musical world.
A few years after WOV was released the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada began a project called “Renewing Worship”. After much consultation and discussion the Renewing Worship program led to the development of a new hymnal called “Evangelical Lutheran Worship”. The ELW was introduced in 2006 and given our propensity for calling hymnals by their colours this book was designated the “Cranberry Red Hymnal” (cranberry was added to distinguish it from the SBH I suspect, however lately I am noticing that most places have simply dropped the ‘cranberry’ and call the ELW the Red Hymnal.
I was on the Saskatchewan Synod Introduction Team for this new worship resource. This meant that I became very familiar with the content of the newest hymnal before most folks. Thus it surprised me when people made comments about the new hymnal that were quite inaccurate. For example some people complained about the new hymnal being heavier than the LBW, actually both are the same weight (2.4 pounds), though the ELW has 251 more pages – thus the paper is thinner, which admittedly makes page turning a little more finicky. Another complaint making the rounds before it was even produced was that all the masculine language for God had been replaced with gender-neutral words. There are some places where gender neutral language is used, but there are far more examples of where the familiar masculine based language for God has been maintained. Perhaps the most ridiculous comment I heard was that the new hymnal had a service for use in the blessing of same-sex unions. This is quite inaccurate, and the marriage service that is included actually re-introduced a ‘declaration of intent’ which harkens back to the SBH and earlier.
This final example points to something I like about the new hymnal, that it has really tried to take the best from the past and the present and include it all in one book (which would account for the 1211 pages). Many of the hymn harmonisations from the SBH which I enjoyed so much as a child have been brought back. Worship settings range from a Gregorian chant-like setting to African–American Gospel style to Latin-American music, and even what is known as Contemporary Worship music. There are even familiar worship settings drawn from the LBW and WOV. This new hymnal really tries to reflect the diversity of the Lutheran Church in North America, and it packs a whole bunch of resources into one book. I admire the impossible task the editors had, and how well they managed to succeed in the end.
However the ELW will never be the sole worship resource for the Evangelical Lutheran Church, there is far too much excellent worship resources available these days, and far too many wonderful liturgies, prayers and songs being created every year. Some of these are found in printed resources, but more and more of them are being distributed through the internet. It has been noted that the average life of a denominational hymnal is about 20 to 25 years. Will there be a new hymnal introduced in 2025? I suspect not, rather I think congregations will have moved to digital based worship resources, either projecting words and music on screens, or printing the liturgies in the bulletins. Already we are doing this more and more at Christ Lutheran Church, where I serve. I still enjoy paging through hymnals, and I don’t think I will ever get to the point of totally disregarding these printed and bound worship resources (I actually have quite a collection of Hymnals from different generations, denominations and locations). What I am quite certain is that within the span of my ministry I will have had to deal with primarily two and a half hymnals.
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