Welcome to Lift Up Your Hearts (LUYH), the worship, liturgy, spirituality and arts site of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the home page of the ELCIC's standing Program Committee for Worship.
This page heralds revisions to the Lift Up Your Hearts site and offers items of interest to those who prepare the liturgy, lead worship, or provide spiritual direction or formation in the church. Lift Up Your Hearts features a natural emphasis on Lutheran, Canadian and ecumenically accessible Revised Common Lectionary worship and liturgy resources.
Lift Up Your Hearts is created and maintained by ELCIC pastors Wendell Grahlman [webmaster] and André Lavergne. Pastor Grahlman serves the congregation of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Midland, Ontario, and is Secretary of the ELCIC's Eastern Synod. Pastor Lavergne serves the congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church, New Hamburg, Ontario.
The 2008 Companion for the Worship Arts is the Rev'd Karen Johnson-Lefsrud of
Lutheran Church of the Cross, Victoria, BC.
Karen has been an inspiration and encouragement to musicians and pastors at all levels of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. She played a major part as an ELCIC representative in the Renewing Worship process which lead to the publication and introduction of Evangelical Lutheran Worship.
The award was presented at the National Worship Conference, Order and Chaos, held in Montreal, June 25-28, 2008.
The Companion of the Worship Arts is an honour conferred in recognition of significant contribution to the national worship life of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has concluded a several-year process to create the worship resources to succeed Lutheran Book of Worship. From early days, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada had standing in the ELCA's Renewing Worship project. The result, called Evangelical Lutheran Worship, is available in electronic and print forms and provides a "core" collection of hymns and liturgical material. Visit the Evangelical Lutheran Worship page here at Lift Up Your Hearts for complete details.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is making the "greening of the church" a
priority for our life together. In connection with this
timely and important endeavour, Harold Remus and Jana Kelly have produced a terrific
study-document called Planet in Peril: God's Earth / God's People. Jana Kelly has
studied in Ecuador and worked in rural planning and development in Bangladesh and
Mozambique; she holds an M.Sc. from the University of Guelph. The Rev. Dr. Harold
Remus is Professor Emeritus, Department of Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier
University, retired Adjunct Professor, Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, and Past
President of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. Both are members of St. Mark's Lutheran Church,
Kitchener, Ontario.
Here at Lift Up Your Hearts we offer several essays in support of our national program. Pastor Paul F. Bosch, CWA, has published a series of essays called "Greening Christian Worship" in his popular Worship Workbench collection. Pastor Bosch offers practical teaching about Christian worship and the preparation of liturgy.
Pastor Fred Ludolph offers an essay called "Grain of Life and Grape of Love: Worship Which Inspires Thanksgiving and Attention to Stewardship" in The Road Where Faith Is Found, a series of pastoral essays designed to support the introduction of Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Visit the Worship Matters page at Lift Up Your Hearts for the complete series of essays.
Borrowed from the poetry of United Church of Canada pastor Sylvia Dunstan (1955-1993), author of Bless Now, O God, the Journey (Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymn 326), The Road Where Faith Is Found is the title of a series of pastoral essays published beginning in December, 2006. The authors include our six ELCIC bishops and a number of ELCIC pastors. The essays are designed to support the introduction of Evangelical Lutheran Worship in the context of a church In Mission for Others.
Look for the complete The Road Where Faith Is Found series of pastoral letters on the ELCIC + Worship Matters page.
Prepared by ELCIC pastor Wendell Grahlman [e-mail], the ELCIC's Worship Planning Calendar contains full lectionary citations for all Sundays, festivals and days of special devotion. Publications which reflect ELCIC use and elaboration of the Revised Common Lectionary are based upon this calendar. ELCIC's Worship Planning Calendar is available in several formats including TXT, PDF, WPD, and DOC. Visit Section 3 of this site and click on "ELCIC's Worship Planning Calendar" to download a preferred version.
Worship Workbench offers practical teaching about Christian worship and the preparation of liturgy from retired ELCIC pastor and liturgy professor, Paul F. Bosch, CWA.
Look to the Worship Workbench page for Paul's latest essay. Great stuff!
One of the Joint Anglican Lutheran Commission's mandates is to nurture our growth in communion. The Commission believes that a very important part of what we do for one another is to pray and has prepared an Anglican/Lutheran Cycle of Prayer (Canada). Visit Section 3 of this site.
Visit the national worship
conference web site for information on the 2010 event, a joint venture of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and
the Anglican Church of Canada. This year’s
theme is ‘Taking Care of the Neighbourhood: Worship as Public Work for the
Common Good.’ It will be held July 4-7, 2010 in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
