Institute on Liturgy, Preaching, and Church Music: A Look Back
The Rev. Michael Mohr at the opening Eucharist of the 2024 Institute on Liturgy, Preaching, and Church Music on July 9, 2024. Photo: LCMS Communications/Erik M. Lunsford
At the beginning of July, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod held the 2024 Institute on Liturgy, Preaching, and Church Music at Concordia University Nebraska. You can find the Reporter article here, but this author would like to offer some of his own (belated) recollections, both as an attendee and as one who served as a conference chaplain.
This year’s conference was centered around the psalter, with all 150 psalms sung or spoken (mostly sung) over the course of four days. There were over 500 attendees — largely LCMS, but not entirely. This author had lunch one day with a few attendees from the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, had a great chat with an Apostolic Lutheran, heard tell of some Australian Lutherans, and a few friends attended a workshop by a Reformed professor from New Saint Andrews College in Idaho.
Worship
In addition to the conference’s focus on the psalms, it aimed to present a fairly broad spectrum of liturgy and music within the LCMS. So, for example, the opening Eucharist was LSB Setting One (Hillert) with propers from the one year lectionary, while the closing Eucharist was LSB Setting Three (TLH p. 15) with propers from the three-year lectionary. The spectrum was not, however, just in text and music, but also in ceremonial. The opening Eucharist had a fairly simple ceremonial, as one might find in a small parish with one pastor, with the celebrant alone at the altar and the other dozen clergy (a necessity for 500+ people) only assisting with the readings and distribution. In contrast, the closing Eucharist had a fuller ceremonial, with three sacred ministers (celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon) and a Gospel procession. The two services were also differentiated by the manner of celebration of the Eucharist, as the week opened with a celebration versus populum and closed with an celebration ad orientem.
There was, however, unity within the variety — setting a baseline for preferred liturgical practice, as it were. In both the opening and closing Eucharist, the celebrant was properly attired in a chasuble and the consecration was sung. Likewise, almost all of the assisting clergy at the Eucharist and those serving at the offices throughout the week were appropriately vested in cassock and surplice, with a cope here or there.
The retiring procession at the opening Eucharist of the 2024 Institute on Liturgy, Preaching, and Church Music. Photo: LCMS Communications/Erik M. Lunsford
The morning and evening offices throughout the week also aimed to present a fairly broad spectrum of practice, though still with unity amidst the diversity. While the services were invariably led by one of the two chaplains, whether the Rev. Michael Mohr in the first part of the week or this author in the latter part, each service followed a different form of the Daily Office in LSB and featured a different chief musician, organist, preacher, and a wide array of choirs and instrumentalists. As the primary focus of the conference was on the psalter, the offices were thoughtfully arranged to draw together different themes in the Psalter. So, for example, Evening Prayer on Tuesday, entitled “Weeping Tarries for the Night”, presented psalms of lament and had a somber tone throughout. Morning Prayer on Wednesday, entitled “Joy comes in the Morning,” was centered around psalms of thanksgiving and praise, and was nothing short of exuberant (quite a miracle at 8:00 am after a late night at the brewery — more on that later). Wednesday Vespers was built around psalms of trust, and highlighted both young instrumentalists and the Institute Youth Choir, a separate track with more than forty participants. Thursday began with Matins and psalms of the Shepherd King, together with a Boyce setting of the full Venite, rather than the abbreviated version found in the Common Service tradition.
Thursday evening had a Psalm festival rather than the Institute’s usual hymn festival, which traced salvation history through the psalter, and presented a myriad of different settings and languages in the process, including a striking rendition of Psalm 137 and the premiere of a composition by Kile Smith on Psalm 132 commissioned for the occasion. While Compline was sung every night throughout the Institute in various ways and places, Thursday night at 10:00 pm was the occasion for choral Compline, with the traditional psalms for Compline sung in three varying ways.
The last day of the Institute began with Corporate Confession and Absolution, preceded by the seven penitential psalms and the Litany — not for the faint of heart, and robustly attended even at 8:00 am. This service once again once again featured the Institute Youth Choir and a number of instrumentalists who served in varying ways, and serves as a fairly representative example of how the singing of the psalter throughout the week took on many different forms. Psalm 6 was unaccompanied plainsong (tone I) sung responsively between choir and congregation, followed by a Gelineau setting of Psalm 32 from the Grail psalter, which was sung responsively between choir and congregation and accompanied by piano and organ. Psalm 38 was a lively metrical psalm sung by choir and congregation and accompanied by organ with a melody from Kentucky Harmony (1816) as found in the recent WELS psalter, and it was followed by an exceptionally lovely metrical Psalm 51 sung by the choir in an adaptation from Heinrich Schütz’s Becker Psalter, accompanied by woodwinds, harpsichord, tambourine, and a tiny percussion instrument this author could not quite identify. Psalm 102 was a Taizé antiphon with a tone by Nathan Grime, sung between choir and congregation with accompanying piano and woodwinds, Psalm 130 was the very familiar “From Depths of Woe” (LSB 607) sung by the choir and congregation with organ accompaniment, and Psalm 143 was sung between choir and congregation with organ accompaniment in a setting by Christopher Ahlman from the CPH Acclamation series. And then, of course, followed the Litany, followed by Corporate Confession and Absolution. It was quite a morning — and it wasn’t quite over, as the congregation would launch into “Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord” to begin the closing Eucharist only two hours later. Nota bene: One cannot go wrong in selecting Komm, Heiliger Geist as an opening hymn. It is, invariably, the right choice.
In addition to Corporate Confession and Absolution on Friday morning, there were a few hours set aside for private confession over the course of the week, which was very well-received. While the first appointed time on Tuesday was fairly slow, as people were still arriving, the hour set aside on Thursday afternoon saw a constant stream of people without interruption or pause, and the Heritage Room at St. John, with the altar furnishings from the previous church building served the purpose well.
After each service (and session), a series of psalm sheets were available for attendees to collect on their way out, one for each psalm that was sung in the course of the service. The psalm sheets looked deceptively simple, but contained a wealth of information. Each half letter sheet included an overview of the structure of the psalm, a few exegetical notes, Christological connections, a brief summary, suggestions for use in spiritual care, a look at where the psalm occurs in the liturgy of the church, a suggested antiphon, and a psalm prayer to draw together the central themes of the psalm in two or three lines. They have been made available online as a printable insert for service leaflets, and promise to extend the impact of the Institute far beyond its attendees. Each psalm sheet, service folder, and publication of the Institute also featured decorated initial capitals by Edward Riojas, which were quite popular, and left many people asking for the entire alphabet.
Sectionals, Recitals, and Activities
In between the many and varied services, there were three keynote speakers in four sessions and a multitude of smaller breakout sessions, workshops, and master classes. This author was frequently preoccupied with obligations prior to or following various services, and, alas, only heard one keynote session in its entirety and thus cannot give any substantial comment on the others. The single keynote for which the author was entirely present was the Wednesday morning keynote by Dr. Charles Brown of Concordia University Chicago, which was an historical walk through various performance practices of the psalms, with a variety of settings of Psalm 130 sung either by volunteers or by the audience.
There were, in total, over 100 breakout sessions on a very wide range of topics, offered in six sessions across the week. These sessions also served to accomplish the goal of singing all 150 psalms over the course of the week, as each presenter was assigned a psalm to sing or speak with the attendees of his or her session. As far as the content of the sessions themselves are concerned, this author presented during the first session on the Latin Mass in the Lutheran Church, and then was able to attend five more throughout the week, including an overview of the first Lutheran hymnals in 1524, a look at the metrical psalters of Becker and Waldis, a review of the portions of the psalter said as private prayers by the celebrant during the mass, an instructive session on how to keep a commonplace book digitally, and a discussion on forming and promoting an acolyte corps within the parish. There were, of course, 95 more sessions available, and you can review their subject matter and descriptions in the conference booklet on pp. 12–22. At least a few of the sessions were recorded, and it seems that those recordings may be made available at some point in the future.
In addition to the sectionals, there were a number of recitals during the week, including a showcase recital displaying the vocal and instrumental talents of students from around the Concordia University System. It was, on the whole, quite encouraging to see a sampling of the rising generation of church musicians, some of whom performed original compositions.
The author presenting on the first day of the 2024 Institute on Preaching, Liturgy, and Church Music. Photo: LCMS Communications/Erik M. Lunsford
A unique feature of this conference in particular, resulting from the intent to pray the entire psalter over the week, was a sing-through of the entirety of Psalm 119, set in the two story atrium of CUNE’s new Borland Center for Music and Theatre. The singing took the form of a responsorial psalm, alternating variously between men and women, between the upstairs and downstairs, between youth and adults, or between the assembled participants and a rotating slate of cantors. It lasted around 40 minutes, though the time certainly seemed to fly by in the moment — which may, of course, have been somewhat related to the distraction of the atrium’s koi pond, whose residents were identified with names and illustrations in the conference booklet (p. 11). As a further and more relevant aside, it is this author’s humble opinion that our Synod’s antinomian troubles could be largely cured with a widespread revival of the daily office and the praying of Psalm 119 across Prime, Terce, Sext, and None every day.
Once the sessions, recitals, and services for the day had come to an end, each evening presented a variety of opportunities. On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, the attendees (assigned to groups appropriately named “Decani” and “Cantoris”) either went to the movie theater to watch Buster Keaton’s comedy Seven Chances with live organ accompaniment, or gathered at the brewery to drink and sing Bach chorale harmonizations. It was, perchance, not quite the venue that Bach had in mind for O Mensch bewein, but no one was bothered to fuss with such hypotheticals in the moment. Some attendees, may, perhaps, have found themselves at Bach at the Brewery for two consecutive evenings, and thus noticed their voices somewhat strained while croaking out the invitatory at Matins the next morning, subsequently opting for the tenor line in the Te Deum. Following their movie watching or singing, all converged halfway between the theater and brewery to sing Compline en plein air before returning to their lodgings.
Thursday evening presented a different set of opportunities. After the Psalm Festival, attendees emerged from the air conditioned confines of St. John into the blistering July heat and made their way across the street for an ice cream social, followed by folk dancing. While some stood around with their ice cream and chatted for the next hour and a half before Compline, many others took up folk dancing with great enthusiasm, and seemed to have a marvelous time.
People
Attendees at the 2024 Institute on Preaching, Liturgy, and Church Music enjoy the beautiful weather and thriving landscaping (foreground: Hydrangea arborescens and Amsonia hubrichtii). Photo: LCMS Communications/Erik M. Lunsford
This author lives rather far outside the traditional heartland of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, and so is unaccustomed to large gatherings of Lutherans. When he ventures a thousand or more miles to the west for some conference or another, he usually makes a point to attend conferences, whether the Fort Wayne Symposia or the Bugenhagen Conference in Wisconsin, which allow for both theological cultivation as well as camaraderie among classmates and cronies, and are thus usually comprised of the same general swath of the LCMS. As a result, the wide breadth of representation from across the Synod at the Worship Institute was quite striking. Attendees varied from professors, clergy, and musicians with broad expertise in their fields to parish musicians or clergy in small parishes who had never attended any conference on liturgy or church music before. Some attendees were avid readers or listeners to the Gottesdienst™ media empire, while others might find themselves playing alongside a praise band from time to time. The conversations were correspondingly wide-ranging, and while there were many old friends, there were many more new faces, and any number of new acquaintances and friendships were struck up by attendees over the course of the Institute, sometimes with the surprise discovery of shared connections along the way. This author, for instance, met the junior high school teacher of one of his friends, and was regaled with some of the youthful antics of that notorious miscreant (my words, not his).
The youth track of the Institute was particularly encouraging, with more than three dozen 10–14 year olds electing to spend a week of their summer at a choir camp running concurrently with the Institute. They did an excellent job, one made all the more impressive by the fact that they were a group of young singers who had never before sung together, and they beautifully executed a fairly ambitious music list with many pieces that they had (likely) never before sung. Much credit is undoubtedly due not only to the young singers, but also to Jonathan and Nicole Busarow for their musical leadership, and all those who helped run the youth program throughout the week.
In addition to the youth track of the Institute, there was a noticeably large contingent of high school students, college students, and young adults, some of them planning on seminary, some not, but all of them very enthusiastic about the liturgy, music, and life of the Lutheran Church. Some of these formed a very capable acolyte corps, who were indispensable for service preparations, for the reverent conduct of the services, and for a panic-inducing moment during the opening Eucharist when, due to this author’s oversight, no empty individual cup trays had been set out to receive the empty individual glasses. Mercifully, the acolytes were able to come to the aid of the hapless chaplain, and, still more mercifully, the individual cups were in exceptionally low demand, preferred by less than 10% of attendees.
Room for improvement
While the conference was a great success in many ways, one aspect in particular was rather regrettable. Since the conference was themed around the psalter, a great many psalms were sung in worship throughout the conference, but many of those psalms were, alas, sung in the Roman style of responsorial psalmody (congregational antiphon, choral psalm verses, congregational antiphon, choral psalm verses, repeat ad infinitum), which seems to have inexplicably gained popularity among Lutherans in recent years. By this author’s calculation, the largest portion of psalms and more than a quarter of the total number were sung in this peculiarly 20th century Roman Catholic fashion, a fashion that is approximately the same age as the youngest baby boomers. This might seem to be a fairly minor quibble in the grand scheme of things, except that this year also marks the five hundredth anniversary of the first Lutheran hymnals, and many of the first Lutheran chorales were themselves psalm paraphrases. The Achtliederbuch, for example, contained three psalm paraphrases (Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, Aus tiefer Not, and Es spricht der Unweisen Mund) among its eight hymns, the Erfurt Enchiridion(s) seven psalm paraphrases out of twenty-six hymns, and Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn counted 8 psalm paraphrases among its 32 vernacular texts. What could have been an opportunity to showcase a distinctive Lutheran way of singing the psalms instead saw Lutheran psalm paraphrases outnumbered more than two to one by the modern Roman responsorial psalm, with a total of six Lutheran psalm-paraphrases sung. This was, most likely, the unintended side effect of separate musicians tasked with each service, and the relative ease of using responsorial psalmody in contrast to choral approaches. In that case, it may simply be the outgrowth of the common practice of many congregations across the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, though this author cannot recall encountering it more than a handful of times at the hundred-odd LCMS churches he has attended over the years. Regardless of the reason, one hopes that this five hundredth anniversary year of the first Lutheran hymnals will be an occasion to immerse ourselves in our inherited tradition, to “drink running water from our own well,” as it were. In spite of the relative paucity of Lutheran metrical psalms, some of those that were chosen were pulled from relative obscurity, as they do not appear in Lutheran Service Book, and will hopefully see wider use as a result.
In Summary
All in all, the conference was an outstanding success, and much credit is due to the Rev. Sean Daenzer, director of LCMS Worship, as well as Deaconess Cara Patton, the planning committee(s), a small army of volunteers, Concordia University Nebraska, St. John in Seward, and many, many more. There is undoubtedly, a great deal more that could be said about the Worship Institute, but these reflections are entirely limited to the author’s own experience. The location of the next Institute is still unknown at this writing, but the 2027 Worship Institute, if it is anything like the 2024 Institute, is not to be missed.