Lutheran Worship

I'd never known any other hymnal.

And then came its successor, Lutheran Worship, and then that hymnal's successor, Lutheran Service Book.

But there are still congregations in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, in the Wisconsin Evangelical Synod, and in the Evangelical Lutheran Synod that are still using that book.

It may be blue, it may be red, but it's The Lutheran Hymnal from 1941.

Thank you so much for having me, Todd.

Glad to be here.

Why did this hymnal, The Lutheran Hymnal, become, and has remained in many congregations, a staple of American Lutheran worship in the 20 and now the 21st century?

Well, the groups that put it together were able to represent their respective hymn traditions, and they also discovered new hymns together that became new classics.

They're both hymnals of ours.

The first one is from our most previous hymnal, Lutheran Worship, and the second from our new hymnal, Lutheran Service Book.

I'm just gonna pull a couple excerpts out from the front of the hymnals to make my point.

So first from Lutheran Worship.

"Our Lord speaks and we listen.

His Word bestows what it says.