Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, November 15, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for November 15, 2020

• Home Worship Bulletin for November 15, 2020
• Children's Bulletin for November 15, 2020
• The transcript of Pastor Linman's sermon

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for November 15, 2020:

• Musical Meditation: “Let All Things Now Living,” David Cherwien
• Psalm 90:1-12, setting by David Cherwien
• Pastor Linman's recorded sermon
• Hymn #730: “Lord our God, With Praise We Come”
• Hymn #678: “God, Whose Giving Knows No Ending”

Music Notes

Hymn of the Day: “Lord Our God, With Praise We Come” ELW 730
TEXT: Petter Dass (1647-1707), Peter A. Sveggen, tr. (1881-1959)
TUNE: ROMEDAL, Norwegian traditional

The tune, ROMEDAL, is named for a village in Stange, Hedmark. The phrasing and accents of this traditional Norwegian tune match the text. The meter is the only one of its kind in this worship book. The hymn text is part of Petter Dass’s lengthy commentary on the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer.

Musical Meditation: “Let All Things Now Living,” David Cherwien

Although the tune ASH GROVE is very popular, found in many hymnals and set to many texts, the tune is most often associated with “Let All Things Now Living.” It is a Welsh harp melody made known outside Wales by a succession of harpists in the 17th-19th centuries.

David Cherwien, Artistic Director of the National Lutheran Choir, a nationally known conductor, composer, and organist. Is known for his contributions to the field of church music and liturgy, he is in demand as a clinician and hymn festival leader across the country.

Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, November 8, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for November 8, 2020

• Home Worship Bulletin for November 8, 2020
• Children's Bulletin for November 8, 2020
• The transcript of Pastor Linman's sermon

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for November 8, 2020:

• Musical Meditation: “Allegro” from Trio for Flute by Laszlo Zempleni, played by Carole Smith, Suzanne Tsitsibelis and Claire Smith
• Psalm 70: 22 ELW Tone 9, Refrain: Psalter for Worship Year A
• Pastor Linman's recorded sermon
• Hymn #436: “Wake, Awake, For Night is Flying”
• Hymn #880: “O God beyond All Praising”

Music Notes

Hymn of the Day: “Wake, Awake, For Night is Flying” ELW #436
Text: Phillip Nicolai (1556-1608)
Tune: WACHET AUF, Phillip Nicolai

This hymn text was based on the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins in Matthew 25:1-13. The opening stanza calls the followers of Christ to be roused and alert for His Second Coming. Stanza 2 describes the joyous scene when the Bridegroom returns and takes His bride, the church, in to the wedding feast. Finally, the third stanza adores the Lamb of God and describes the glorious scene in heaven, as given in Revelation 19 and 21, where the saints will worship in song forever. The text contains a reverse acrostic to Nicolai’s deceased student and friend, William Ernst, with the letters beginning each of its three stanzas: WGZ, Graf zu Waldek (Count of Waldeck).

The WACHET AUF tune is usually regarded as composed by Philipp Nicolai, but he may have borrowed parts of the tune from other sources such as the melody “Silberweise” by Hans Sachs (1494-1576) or the fifth Gregorian psalm tone. It was published with this text, for which it is named, in Nicolai's Freuden-Spiegel in 1599. Like many German chorale tunes, WACHET AUF has two versions for the rhythm. The original version is called the rhythmic version, because it retains the variety of note values as the composer wrote them, while in the isorhythmic version, the notes are adjusted to a more regular rhythm, often by making all notes of equal value.

Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, November 1, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for November 1, 2020

• Home Worship Bulletin for November 1, 2020
• Children's Bulletin for November 1, 2020
• The transcript of Pastor Linman's sermon

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for November 1, 2020:

• Musical Meditation: Requiem, Giacomo Puccini, Anthem by the choir, with Suzanne Tsitsibelis on flute
• Psalm 34:1-10, 22
• Pastor Linman's recorded sermon
• Hymn #422: “For All the Saints"
• Hymn #418: “Rejoice in God’s Saints”
• Organ Voluntary: Allegro molto from Sonata #6 in D Minor, Felix Mendelssohn

Music Notes

Musical Meditation: Choir Anthem
“REQUIEM,” Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

Puccini wrote this short Requiem – actually the setting of the antiphon to the Introit of the Mass for the Dead – as a commission for the publisher Giulio Ricordi for the fourth anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Verdi (1905).

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Hymn Of The Day: “for All The Saints” #422
Text: William W. How (1823-1897), tr. Catherine Wentworth (1827-1878)
Tune: SINE NOMINE, Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958)

Ralph Vaughan Williams composed SINE NOMINE for this text and published it in the English Hymnal in 1906. Vaughan Williams wrote two harmonizations¬–one for unison stanzas and one for choral stanzas. The tune's title means "without name" and follows the Renaissance tradition of naming certain compositions "Sine Nomine" if they were not settings for preexisting tunes.

Equipped with a "walking" bass, SINE NOMINE is a glorious marching tune for this great text. Many consider this tune to be among the finest of twentieth-century hymn tunes. Allowing the "alleluia" phrase to enter before our expectation of it is a typical and very effective Vaughan Williams touch.

"For All the Saints" is considered to be William W. How's finest hymn text. Originally in eleven stanzas, it was published in Earl Nelson's Hymns for Saints' Days (1864) with the heading, "Saints' Day Hymn.

Organ Voluntary
Allegro molto from Sonata #6 in D Minor, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

The Organ Sonata #6 in D minor (1845) demonstrates Mendelssohn’s consummate craftsmanship and mastery of organ texture in a set of variations upon the Lutheran Bach chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich (BWV416). Beginning with a five-part harmonization of the Chorale, which pervades the sonata as a whole, Mendelssohn presents four variations of increasing brilliance before a restatement of the Chorale. Today’s voluntary features the beginning chorale and fourth variation.

Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonatas revitalised the moribund European organ tradition that existed at the time, spurred English organ-builders to new heights, and, through his particular blend of chorale, counterpoint and domestic spirituality, substantially augmented the organ repertoire for the first time since Bach.

Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, October 25, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for October 25, 2020

• Home Worship Bulletin for October 25, 2020
• Children's Bulletin for October 25, 2020
• The transcript of Pastor Linman's sermon

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for October 25, 2020:

• Musical Meditation: In dir ist Freude, Paul Manz
• Psalm 1:1-8: Anne Krantz, Organ; refrain, Psalm Tones ELW 4, PFW 23
• Pastor Linman's recorded sermon
• Hymn #750: “Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart”
• Hymn #504: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”

Music Notes

Hymn of the Day: “Lord, Thee I Love With All My Heart” #750
Text: Martin Schalling (1532-1608), tr. Catherine Wentworth (1827-1878)
Tune: HERZLICH LIEB, B. Schmid, 1577

"HERZLICH LIEB HAB ICH DICH, O HERR" (From my heart I hold you dear, o Lord) is a Lutheran hymn in German by the Protestant theologian and reformer Martin Schalling, written in Amberg in 1569 and first printed in 1571. It is sung to an anonymous melody, Zahn No. 8326, which appeared in a tablature book for organ in 1577. The hymn is often used for funerals, especially the third and last stanza, "Ach Herr, laß dein lieb Engelein" (Ah Lord, let thine own angels dear). It appears in the current German Protestant hymnal.

The first theme of the hymn is the love to God and one's neighbour, following the Great Commandment. Schalling included thoughts from Psalms 18:3. The hymn is regarded as a Sterbelied (song for the dying), as Schalling expressed stations of the transition after death in the last stanza, according to Lutheran doctrine as understood in the 17th century. The soul is seen as carried by angels to Abrahams schos (Abraham's bosom), according to Luke 16:22, the body transforming in the grave, rising on the last day ("am Jüngsten Tage") to be reunited with the soul. The final line is "Ich will dich preisen ewiglich!" (I want to praise you for ever!)

Musical Meditation: IN DIR IST FREUDE, Paul Manz (1919-2009)

Paul Otto Manz was an American composer for choir and organ. As a performer, Manz was most famous for his celebrated hymn festivals. Instead of playing traditional organ recitals, Manz would generally lead a "festival" of hymns from the organ, in which he introduced each hymn with one of his famously creative organ improvisations based on the hymn tune in question. The congregation would then sing the hymn with his accompaniment. Many volumes of these neo-Baroque chorale prelude improvisations have been written out and published and are among his most famous organ works, played by church organists throughout the world. Today’s Musical Meditation is one of those improvisations.

The chorale tune, IN DIR IST FREUDE, was composed by Giovanni G. Gastoldi (1582-1609) who served as a deacon and singer in the chapel of the Gonzaga family in Mantua. Gastoldi composed a considerable body of court music, such as madrigals, and some church music, but he is best known for his Balletti, which influenced composers such as Monteverdi, Hassler, and Morley.

Choir Anthen: “ALL GLORY BE TO THEE ON HIGH,” Rachel Aarons

A native of Laramie, Wyoming, Rachel Aarons has played piano since the age of four. While in college, she studied piano, voice, and composition while pursuing a B.A. in French Language and Literature. Rachel composes for her church choir where she is happy to be a Back Row Alto.

This anthem uses the hymn tune of the same name by Nicholus Decius (1539).

All glory be to thee, Most High,
to thee all adoration;
In grace and truth thou drawest nigh
to offer us salvation;
Thou showest thy good will to men,
And peace shall reign on earth again;
We praise thy Name for ever.

O Jesus Christ, our God and Lord,
Son of the Heavenly Father,
O thou who hast our peace restored,
The straying sheep dost gather,
Thou Lamb of God, to thee on high
Out of the depths we sinners cry:
Have mercy on us, Jesus!

O Holy Ghost, thou precious gift,
Thou Comforter unfailing,
From Satan's snares our souls uplift,
And let thy power, availing,
Avert our woes and calm our dread.
For us the Savior's blo,Od was shed;
We trust in thee to save us.

Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, October 18, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for October 18, 2020

• Home Worship Bulletin for October 18, 2020
• Children's Bulletin for October 18, 2020
• The transcript of Pastor Linman's sermon

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for October 18, 2020:

• Musical Meditation: Finale: Andante from Sonata #6 in D Minor, Mendelssohn
• Psalm 96: 1-9, ELW Tones 10 and 12, adapted
• Pastor Linman's recorded sermon
• Hymn #713: “O God of Every Nation”
• Hymn #705: “God of Grace and God of Glory”

Music Notes

Hymn of the Day: “O God Of Every Nation” #713
Text: William W. Reid, Jr. (1923-2007)
Tune: LLANGLOFFAN, Welsh tune, 19th cent.

In 1958 William W. Reid, Jr. submitted this hymn text to a contest sponsored by the Hymn Society of America in conjunction with the Department of International Affairs of the National Council of Churches. The text won first place and was sung at the opening session of the Fifth World Order Study Conference held in Cleveland, Ohio, on November 13-21, 1958. It was published in the Hymn Society's Twelve New World Order Hymns (1958). "O God of Every Nation" is a beautiful prayer for God's shalom to reign over the whole world; for truth, love, and justice to preside over human affairs; and for an end to Warfare with its "trust in bombs that shower destruction" (st. 2). As war and rumors of War continue to plague our world; the final stanza holds before us the vision of a new heaven and earth in which "Christ shall rule victorious.”

This tune was originally published using another tune. However the prophetic power of LLANGLOFFAN, has made the association with this text a strong one.

Musical Meditation: Finale: Andante from Sonata #6 in D Minor, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

The Organ Sonata #6 in D minor (1845) demonstrates Mendelssohn’s consummate craftsmanship and mastery of organ texture in a set of variations upon the Lutheran Bach chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich (BWV416). Following a five-part harmonization of the Chorale, which pervades the sonata as a whole, Mendelssohn presents four variations of increasing brilliance before a restatement of the Chorale. The Finale is the only movement in which the chorale tune does not appear.

Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonatas revitalised the then-moribund European organ tradition, spurred English organ-builders to new heights, and, through his particular blend of chorale, counterpoint and domestic spirituality, substantially augmented the organ repertoire for the first time since Bach.

Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, October 11, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for October 11, 2020

• Home Worship Bulletin for October 11, 2020
• Children's Bulletin for October 11, 2020
• The transcript of Pastor Linman's sermon

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for October 11, 2020:

• Musical Meditation: “Capetown”, Alan Bullard
• Psalm 23, ELW Tone 11
• Pastor Linman's recorded sermon
• Hymn #479: “We Come to the Hungry Feast”
• Hymn #874: “Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart!”
• Choir Anthem: "Awake My Heart and Render," Jane Marshall

Music Notes

Hymn of the Day: “We Come to the Hungry Feast” #479
Text: Ray Makeever (b. 1943)
Tune: HUNGRY FEAST, Ray Makeever

Ray Makeever wrote this hymn for a communion liturgy after hearing Gordon Lathrop speak about the eucharist as a hungry feast – hungry for a word of peace, hungry for a world released from hungry people of every kind, and hungry that the hunger cease. It was first published in “With All Your Heart: Songs and Liturgies of Encouragement and Hope” (1984). The tune and text were written by Ray Makeever for this hymn. It begins and continues with bold resolve, then picks up the repetitions at “We come.” These characteristics heighten the text’s sense of purpose. This is not meditative prayer around the table. It is rather prophetic coming, which leads where the eucharist leads, to going from the table and doing on behalf of a hungry world. (Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship)

Musical Meditation Prelude on “Capetown”, Alan Bullard

Alan Bullard (b.1947) is a British composer, known mainly for his choral and educational music. His compositions are regularly performed and broadcast worldwide, and they appear on a number of CDs. Writers have described his music as “gentle, melodic, and unfailingly well-crafted”, and showing “a real sense of pianistic understanding, economical and linear without sounding clichéd”. His music shows a genuine love for melodic contours and a delicate shading of a harmonic language that is respectful of tradition without being a slave to it.

The tune, CAPETOWN was originally composed by Friedrich Filitz (1804-1876) as a setting for the text "Morgenglanz der Ewigkeit."

Choir Anthem: “Awake, My Soul, and Render”
Jane Marshall (1924-2019)

Jane Marshall was a revered figure among fellow United Methodist musicians, as well as the broader church music world. She was a much-published composer of choral music, a skilled choral conductor and clinician, and a gifted hymn writer of both texts and tunes. She wrote many acclaimed and popular works, including today’s anthem, “Awake, My Heart,” which won the American Guild of Organists’ 1957 anthem prize. It became a best selling anthem and remains popular with choirs across denominations.

In this anthem, Marshall uses the 17th Century words of German Lutheran pastor and hymn writer Paulus Gerhardt. Gerhardt is considered Germany's greatest hymn writer, and he is commemorated on October 26th in the Lutheran Calendar of Saints. In these words, Gerhardt inspires us with praise for our Maker and Defender, through a song of love and fervor:

Awake, my heart, and render,
To God thy sure defender,
Thy Maker, thy preserver,
A song of love and fervor.

Confirm my deeds and guide me:
My day, with thee beside me,
Beginning, middle, ending,
Will all be upward tending.

My heart shall be thy dwelling,
With joy and gladness swelling;
Thy word my nuture giv'n
To bring me on toward heaven.

Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, October 4, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for October 4, 2020

• Home Worship Bulletin for October 4, 2020
• Children's Bulletin for October 4, 2020
• The transcript of Pastor Linman's sermon

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for October 4, 2020:

• Musical Meditation: “Rhosemedre”, Ralph Vaughn Williams
• Psalm 80:7-15
• Pastor Jonathan Linman's recorded sermon
• Hymn #645: “Christ is Made the Sure Foundation”
• Hymn #343: “My Song is Love Unknown”

Music Notes

Hymn of the Day: “Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation” #645
Text: Latin hymn, c. 7th cent.; tr. John Mason Neale (1818-1866)
Tune: WESTMINSTER ABBEY, Henry Purcell (1802-1868)

John M. Neale's life is a study in contrasts: born into an evangelical home, he had sympathies toward Rome. In perpetual ill health, he was incredibly productive; of scholarly tem­perament, he devoted much time to improving social conditions in his area. Often ignored or despised by his contemporaries, he is lauded today for his contributions to the church and hymnody. Neale contributed to church music especially by translating Greek and Latin hymns into English. Because a number of Neale's translations were judged unsingable, editors usually amended his work. Neale claimed no rights to his texts and was pleased that his translations could contribute to hymnody as the "common property of Christendom."

Henry Purcell was perhaps the greatest English composer who ever lived, though he only lived to the age of thirty-six. Purcell's first piece was published at age eight when he was also a chorister in the Chapel Royal. When his voice changed in 1673, he was appointed assistant to John Hingston, who built chamber organs and maintained the king's instruments. In 1674 Purcell began tuning the Westminster Abbey organ and was paid to copy organ music. Given the position of composer for the violins in 1677, he also became organist at Westminster Abbey in 1679 (at age twenty) and succeeded Hingston as maintainer of the king's instruments (1683). Purcell composed music for the theater and for keyboards, provided music for royal coronations and other ceremonies, and wrote a substantial body of church music, including eighteen full anthems and fifty-six verse anthems.

Musical Meditation: Prelude on the Hymn Tune “Rhosemedre”
Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958)

Although best known in this original version for solo organ, Rhosymedre is also well known as an orchestral arrangement by Arnold Foster. Ralph Vaughan Williams used the hymn tune as the basis of the second movement of his organ composition Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes. Rhosymedre is the name of a hymn tune written by the 19th-century Welsh Anglican priest John David Edwards. Edwards named the tune after the village of Rhosymedre in the County Borough of Wrexham, Wales, where he was the vicar from 1843 until his death in 1885. The hymn tune is seven lines long, appears in a number of hymnals and is sung to a variety of texts. One such text is that of today’s second hymn, “My Song Is Love Unknown” which we sing today in another popular setting, “LOVE UNKNOWN” by John Ireland.

Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, September 27, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for September 27, 2020

• Home Worship Bulletin for September 27, 2020
• Children's Bulletin for September 27, 2020
• The transcript of Pastor Linman's sermon

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for September 27, 2020:

• Musical Meditation: “Now”, Michael Helman
• Psalm 25:1-9, arrangement by Linda Cable Shute
• Pastor Jonathan Linman's recorded sermon
• Hymn #806: “O God, My Faithful God”

• Hymn #517: “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word”

Music Notes

Hymn of the Day: “O God, My Faithful God” #806
Text: Johann Heermann (1585-1647), tr. Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878)
Tune: Was Frag Ich Nach Der Welt, Ahauserus Fritsch (1629-1701)

As a text writer Heermann ranks with the beat of his century, some indeed regarding him as second only to Gerhardt. He had begun writing Latin poems when he was 20, and was crowned as a poet in 1608. He marks the transition from the objective standpoint of the hymn text writers of the Reformation period to the more subjective and experimental school that followed him. His hymn texts are distinguished by depth and tenderness of feeling; by firm faith and confidence in face of trial; by deep love to Christ, and humble submission to the will of God. Many of them became at once popular, passed into the hymnbooks, and still hold their place among the classics of German hymnody.

With help from the fam­ily of a young no­ble he tu­tored, Fritsch re­ceived a good ed­u­ca­tion, earn­ing his law de­gree from the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Jena in 1661. He lat­er be­came chan­cel­lor of the un­i­ver­si­ty and pres­i­dent of the Con­sis­to­ry of Ru­dol­stadt. He wrote on num­er­ous sub­jects, in­clud­ing an­ti­qui­ties, law, and re­li­gion, and col­lect­ed hymns. WAS FRAG ICH NACH DER VELT, also known as “Darmstadt,” is his most popular hymn tune.

Musical Meditation: Prelude on “Now”, Michael Helman (b. 1956)

Michael Helman is currently Director of Music/Organist at Faith Presbyterian Church in Cape Coral, Florida. He is an active composer of handbell, organ, and choral music with numerous pieces pieces in print.

Today’s Meditation is based on the hymn tune, “Now” by Carl F. Schalk (b.1929) He is professor of music emeritus at Concordia University, River Forest, Illinois, where he taught church music since 1965. Honored as a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada in 1992, Schalk was editor of the Church Music journal (1966-1980), a member of the committee that prepared the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), and a widely published composer of church music.

Choir Anthem: “To Thee, O Lord,” Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

This piece is a movement from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom with an English translation of the text.

Sergei Rachmaninoff's emergence as a composer coincided with the renaissance of Russian sacred cho­ral music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen­turies. After a period of decline in the mid-nineteenth century, during which serious composers did not com­pose for the Church-by and large the result of severe bureaucratic control by Imperial Chapel censors-sa­cred choral music once again came to the attention of leading musicians in Russia, among them, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Balakirev, and the young Rach­maninoff. What resulted was an enormous outpouring of compositional activity, which began in the 1880s, gained strength in the 1890s, and continued until it was abruptly cut off by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Text:

To Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
My God, I trust in Thee.

Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, September 20, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for September 20, 2020

• Home Worship Bulletin for September 20, 2020
• Children's Bulletin for September 20, 2020
• The transcript of Pastor Linman's sermon

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for September 20, 2020:

• Musical Meditation: “Spirit”, Michael Bedford
• Psalm 145:1-8, arrangement by Mark Mummert
• Pastor Jonathan Linman's recorded sermon
• Hymn #845, "Voices Raised to You"
• Hymn #688, "Lord of Light"

Music Notes

Hymn of the Day: “Voices Raised To You” #845
Text: Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr. (1923-2007)
Tune: Song of Praise, Caroline Jennings (1936)

This hymn was commissioned by the ALCM for its tenth anniversary and first sung on Reformation Sunday in the fall of 1996.

Rev. Dr. Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr. lived most of his life in Gettysburg, PA. He served as President of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg and was the author of several books and numerous articles and lectures on preaching, history, and theology. He was also among the most honored and respected hymn writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Rev. Dr. Stuempfle was known for his leadership in community and civic projects. Always taking an active stance on social issues, he participated in the creation of day care centers, served on the Gettysburg interchurch social action committee, helped create and support prison ministries and a homeless shelter, and tutored young people in the after school program of Christ Lutheran Church, where he was a long time member.

Carolyn Jennings is a Professor Emerita of Music at St. Olaf College where she taught for many years and also served in administrative roles, including Chair of the Music Department and Associate Dean for the Fine Arts. She also served as a church musician for over thirty years, at St. John's Lutheran Church in Northfield, Minnesota.

Over many years she has been active in promoting the use of inclusive language in texts for singing, and has worked to heighten awareness of how language shapes as well as expresses thought.

Her compositions and arrangements include works for voices, orchestra, and piano. She particularly enjoys composing for voices.

Musical Meditation Meditation on “Spirit”, Michael Bedford (b. 1949)

Michael Bedford, a full-time church musician since 1973, currently serves as organist/choirmaster of St. John's Episcopal Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he plays the organ and supervises a full graded choir program including three singing choirs, one handbell choir and a chamber ensemble. He has held similar positions in Texas and Colorado.

James K. Manley wrote the tune “SPIRIT” for his text of 1978. He served as pastor of Congregational United Church of Christ in San Marino, California, from 1978 to 1988 and then moved to Foothills United Church of Christ in Los Altos, California.