Sing to the Lord a New Song
Martin Luther College and the New Christian Worship: Hymnal
As WELS Lutherans page through their new Christian Worship hymnals, psalters, and resource books, we take a moment to recognize the contributions of the MLC campus family to this suite of materials.
Professor Emeritus Bruce Backer
- Hymn tunes/settings
Laurie Gauger
- Hymn and metrical psalm texts
Professor Grace Hennig
- Hymn and psalm tunes/settings
- Psalmody Committee member
- Video appearance to introduce psalter
Professor Emeritus Dr. Kermit Moldenhauer
- Hymn and psalm tunes/settings
Dr. Mark Paustian
- Devotion book: Our Worth to Him: Devotions for Christian Worship
Professor Joyce Schubkegel
- Hymn and psalm tunes/settings
Professor Emeritus Ronald Shilling
- Psalm tune/setting
Professor Adrian Smith
- Psalm tunes/settings
- Psalmody Committee member
- Video appearances to introduce psalter
Dr. Keith Wessel
- Executive Committee member
- Rites Committee member (revised Christian Worship: Agenda & Pastor’s Companion)
Professors Grace Hennig DMLC ’89 and Adrian Smith MLC ’03, both members of the Psalmody Committee, appeared in a new video produced to introduce the new psalter for corporate worship. Professor Smith and his family also appeared in another video that encourages the psalter for family use.
“It was a highlight for me,” Professor Hennig said, “to work with a practice of the Christian faith that falls into both ancient and modern realms in worship—using the book of psalms in a musical way. Because the psalms are our model worship book of the Bible, I pray that through the psalter we’ve created a tool that brings people closer to them.”
Professor Adrian Smith agrees. He adds, “I can’t wait to share these materials with my students so they know they have a solid resource that contains great material they can give their students—music to grow into and to learn.”
MLC Student Body
Our students have already begun using the new worship resources in the Christian Worship suite. They’ve been singing new psalms and hymns in daily chapel, and the piano and organ students have been playing the new music for their lessons. The Lutheran Worship course is taking students deeper into the scriptural and historically Lutheran foundations of liturgy, hymnody, and psalmody. And the Teaching Religion course is showing future teachers how to incorporate the materials into their future classrooms and congregations.
The Martin Luther College Choir (pictured), directed by Professor Adrian Smith, videotaped eight new hymn settings that were used synod-wide for WELS National Hymnal Week, September 19-26. They’ve also included new music from Christian Worship in their tour repertoire this year.
This extensive exposure to the new materials serves three purposes. It allows MLC to serve the whole synod as part of the unveiling project. It prepares students for their future roles as worship leaders—pastors, teachers, and staff ministers who “teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit” (Colossians 3:16). And it nurtures an appreciation for the creative process—a respect for the Master Creator’s injunction, “Sing to the Lord a new song!”
Perhaps in coming years, these future church workers will dedicate their gifts to creating new texts and new scores—music that will be included in the next WELS hymnal project, decades down the road.
Cantors like Noah Ungemach (First German-Manitowoc WI) help introduce new hymns in MLC’s morning and evening chapel services.
As a complement to the Christian Worship hymnal and psalter, Dr. Mark Paustian NWC ’84, WLS ’88 has written a book of devotions for Christian worship called Our Worth to Him.
In the same rich style we’ve come to love in his previous volumes (Prepared to Answer and More Prepared to Answer), Paustian asks us to ponder and celebrate Lutheran Christian worship as it has come down to us through the centuries and is now captured in our new hymnal and psalter. His 60 meditations explore the theology of worship, the Christian church year, the Common Service, worship variety and style, those who serve in worship, and the arts in worship.
“Our Worth to Him,” he explains, “is meant to turn upside down what we may think worship is mostly about, namely, our telling God what he is worth to us. That is certainly present in our songs and prayers and offerings. But all that is secondary, profoundly so, to the way he reveals our incomprehensible worth to him through Word and sacrament, always pressing home to us the gift he made of his own Son.
“Worship forms may change,” he continues, “but we can all hope to agree on a few guiding principles: 1) worship will be Word-saturated and Christ-obsessed, 2) worship will involve God’s people in full participation and dialogue, 3) worship will blend old and new, and 4) worship will give full expression to the arts. These principles are present throughout the book.”
Watch this video message from Dr. Paustian about this devotional resource at
