Singing the Church’s Song

The essays in this collection are gathered from presentations made over the years to various groups interested in the worship and music of the Church. Some essays have previously appeared in print but are in a variety of publications no longer generally available.

While these essays were written at different times and for widely different occasions over an entire career, they are grouped here for convenience in five categories: three are general essays on the tradition of the Church’s song; six deal specifically with the Lutheran tradition of worship and church music; three essays discuss different aspects of Lutheran hymnody; three essays are on the composer of church music in the Lutheran tradition; and several miscellaneous items address acoustics in worship, appearing together with several brief homilies and other devotional writings.

At the root of these writings is the simple proposition that church musicians need to be both theologically informed and musically skilled—that they are simultaneously church musicians and church musicians. It should also be evident that several underlying themes form the background of these essays. Sometimes explicitly stated, more frequently they are implicit in the argument. These include the central importance of the great tradition of the Church’s worship and song and the central role of proclamation and teaching in the Church’s worship, its music, and its congregational song.