Copyright: © 2003 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

There has been a long and happy relationship, in the tradition of the Church, between worship and music. Luther considered the gift of music to be second only to the gift of theology among the benefactions of a gracious God.

It is the task of every worshiping community to develop and maintain what might be called a common voice and a common gesture in worship; Christian worship is above all communal. This task will require the best of each of us -- in competence, in good will, and in a commitment to trim individual idiosyncracies for the sake of the common good.

In many of our parishes these days, a wide variety of worship forms is utilized throughout the year: from Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW), from newer hymnals and resources such as With One Voice, and indeed from the traditions and service books of other faith communities as well, such as, for instance where I live, Anglican, United Church, and Mennonite.

Reflecting our Lutheran heritage, the chief liturgical resource in any Lutheran parish will be, un-apologetically, the LBW. (On the same principle, I would expect to find an Anglican worship book in an Anglican parish, a Presbyterian worship book in a Presbyterian parish: You get the point.)

Organists and musicians do well, therefore, to become familiar with the contents of our distinctive and well-regarded worship book, especially its sequence of parts, its calendar, its rites, and its method of psalm-singing. (Psalm tones may be found in the pew edition of LBW on page 291, with harmonizations in the LBW Accompaniment Edition, pages 123-125).

The LBW itself, however, could be described as a Lutheran version of the contemporary ecumenical consensus in worship, a consensus altogether unknown since before the Reformation. All the Christian churches are asking the same questions and coming up with similar answers. You are living in exciting times!

Worship in most parishes is planned by a Worship Committee or a worship planning team: See a subsequent essay on Planning For Worship. In any case, a review and evaluation of each Service is often a useful Monday-morning exercise, as a kind of "post-mortem" that can prove to be an important occasion for learning.

Organists and musicians should normally be invited to serve on the worship planning team and should come to each Service fully aware of what is expected of them. Church supply stores offer an array of Worship Planning Resources, and musicians may find one or more of them useful in their own looking ahead.

Organists will want to be at the organ at least 15 minutes before the hour of their serving, to familiarize themselves with the order of worship and to meet briefly with worship leaders. Worship leaders for the Day, of course, have the responsibility to check with organists and other musicians before worship begins, to make certain that organist, other musicians, and worship leaders each understand what is expected of them.

Church bells could be rung ten minutes before the hour of worship, and again at the hour of worship itself. Organists may want to begin preludial music after the first bells have stopped ringing. At the hour of worship, a second bell or peal of bells is rung. See LBW / Occasional Services, page 260, for further suggestions regarding this wonderful old custom! Then the organist or musicians introduce the Entrance Hymn, and, in normal circumstances, worship leaders start to enter as the people begin to sing.

And when the rite or the order of service does not begin with a congregational psalm or hymn? Then worshipers should become accustomed to stand as worship leaders enter, not so much out of a reverence for hierarchy as simply to assure that everyone's attention is now engaged in the tasks at hand: "Hey, it's time for all of us to get to work."

As introduction to congregational hymn-singing, organists will normally want to play through the entire hymn as a matter of course. In corporate worship, there are three good reasons for a complete play-through as introduction to each hymn: to establish melody, to establish pitch, and to establish tempo. Choral preludes (a la J. S. Bach) and improvisations on hymn tunes are also appropriate as hymn introductions -- provided melody, pitch, and tempo are somehow made apparent to worshipers. Of course, there will be times when the hymn is so familiar to this particular assembly that a only few bars of introduction will be sufficient.

Preludial music and postludial music are always welcome; improvisations on hymn tunes are especially appropriate. Pre-service music and post-service music need not be elaborate or technically sophisticated. A simple hymn setting is always appropriate as prelude or postlude.

Alternative hymn settings in any case are also always welcome. LBW is noted for having provided fresh harmonizations for some hymns, especially Victorian and English hymns. More traditional harmonizations may always be found, of course, in other hymnals. One of the advantages of having available a selection of worship books from other traditions is that they can provide a wide variety of hymn harmonizations and settings.

An extended footnote in defence of those fresh harmonizations in LBW hymns: There are trends in every field, even hymnody, and the trend in hymnody, when LBW was being put together, came from German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, among others, who argued that all singing in Christian worship should be unison singing. Unison hymn-singing is a well-established tradition in Germany. Part-singing, he argued, has the effect of encouraging unbecoming individualistic displays within the assembly. The principle is a good one, and as old as Gregorian chant: One Lord. One faith. One baptism...One voice. And I must say that's persuasive to me.

Further: Those "fresh" harmonizations had me looking twice at some Victorian hymns I'd otherwise have ignored. Singing them, even!...

But there's another part of me that differs from Bonhoeffer et al: Most Victorian hymns ain't Victorian if they're not sung in parts. So perhaps it's best to let Victorian hymns remain fully Victorian, and somehow try to learn to live with the contradictions they present. It wouldn't be the first time the Church has had to learn to live with contradictions. Hence, an idea: Try not to think of them as contradictions; Think of them instead as part of our catholic fulness, our pleroma. Hah!...

Worshipers, in any case, in any parish, might laudably become accustomed to singing the first and last stanzas of all hymns in unison. Organists may therefore want to improvise on the last stanza of any hymn, confident that worshipers will not be singing harmonies.

Organists, musicians, choir directors and worship leaders will want to honour recent liturgical reforms that suggest a set of priorities in their work: supporting and enriching the congregation's own praise in hymns, liturgy, and psalm-singing. Choir rehearsals, for example, will focus time, energy, and imagination on the liturgy of the Day, the Day's hymns, and the Day's psalm, before turning attention to any anthem. A choir anthem each Sunday will always be optional. Choirs which are able might consider singing the appointed Alleluia verses. Proper Offertory texts are also appointed in LBW for every Sunday of the year. The people's own splendid and pulse-quickening singing of the liturgy, of the hymns, and of the psalm --these are not optional.

The Important Principle: Is this or that, in our Service, participatory ? or presentational? Does our "contract" with the congregation at this moment include their active involvement? Or does it assume that the people are a passive audience? The first is always best. The second is not prohibited, but it's always optional. The most important voice in worship will always be the people's. See Essays 13, 14 and 69 above.

Occasionally during the year a hymn-sing may be scheduled. This often means the organist will be called upon to sight-read hymns selected on the spot by the people present. If your competence as organist does not yet extend to sight-reading, it is perfectly permissible to confess as much, in these informal worship settings, and gracefully suggest unaccompanied singing on this or that hymn. There are usually more than enough strong voices in any congregation to carry the hymn. Sight-reading, in any case, is a profoundly useful skill for all organists to develop.

Organists will want to note that LBW provides music, in many of its liturgies, for the presider or leader to sing, as well as the congregation. The best rationale for pastor and people both to sing their distinctive roles: People sing when they have something to sing about!

In any case, it is worth the effort to honour the distinctive voices of human speech and human song. Accordingly, parishes might adopt the principle of what is called consistency of idiom: When the presider or leader speaks, the people respond by speaking; when the presider or leader sings, the people respond by singing.

Finally, this word: We are all learning, all of us, all of our lives. Mistakes and failures are simply part of the human experience. Student organists, seminarians, and other neophytes --and their teachers and mentors!-- do well to remember that we have a gracious God whose nature is always to forgive. Christian faith encourages us to risk --to "sin boldly"-- confident that the God of Christians, and Christian people themselves, are always ready to forgive! Perhaps the greatest mistake is to fear making mistakes, and so never to risk!

I like this Welsh proverb, spelling out a three-step secret of success: "Bold design. Courageous action. Frequent mistakes."