Survey Insights for the Psalmody Committee

Mar 28, 2014 by Paul Prange

You know what happens in your home congregation, but you wonder whether it is like that everywhere else. Your congregation, accompanied by the organ, nearly always sings the appointed psalm from Christian Worship with the pastor singing the first line of each verse and the congregation responding with the second line. Everyone in worship sings the refrain and the “Glory be to the Father.” Is that what every other congregation does?

From a comprehensive survey of WELS pastors, it turns out that only about one-third of WELS congregations handle the psalm that way. About 90% of congregations sing the psalm from Christian Worship (CW) or Christian Worship Supplement (CWS) every Sunday, but most of them do it in unison, not responsively.

Fewer than half of the congregations use a choir to help with the psalms, and those that do use a choir often do it only sporadically.

What It All Means for the Psalmody Committee

Those statistics have implications for the Psalmody Committee’s work. If we are going to produce a hymnal that meets the needs of WELS congregations, the arrangements of the psalms in that hymnal are clearly going to have to be singable by the average person in the pew. Psalm settings with a melodic arrangement of the verses sung by a choir or cantor will likely be provided, but probably in supplemental resources rather than the main hymnal that rests in the pews.

What About Musical Variety?

The psalms in CW all have the same type of musical setting (two-part chant line). The psalms in CWS introduced one other type of musical setting (four-part chant line). Do people like those settings, or are they bored of them? It was interesting that 96% of the pastors rated those settings as good or excellent.

Those statistics indicate that the Psalmody Committee should introduce any new musical settings very carefully. It appears to be OK to preserve the musical styles what we have already learned. Perhaps we could expand the number of psalms available to congregations in musical styles that they already recognize.

We have heard from some congregations that they struggle with singing the psalms at all. The Psalmody Committee may be able to help those congregations with speaking the psalms or with singing a hymn based on a given psalm.

In Summary

The Psalmody Committee is grateful to those who filled out the survey and helped us in our preparation of the psalms, which will always be a wonderful resource for Christian worship. We understand that there are more surveys of various groups to come, and we look forward to seeing those results as well.

About Paul Prange

Rev. Paul Prange is the Psalmody Committee Chairman for the WELS Hymnal Project. He currently serves as the WELS Administrator for Ministerial Education. Prange has served congregations in Austin, TX, Roscommon, MI, and on the Apache reservations in Arizona. Prange and his wife, Leanne, raised three children in Saginaw, MI, where Prange served for fifteen years as president of Michigan Lutheran Seminary.

Responses

We welcome your thoughts and comments about our work. Responses may be submitted to the WELS Hymnal Project through our site contact form. The editor may choose to publish your comments on the website along with further editorial comments.

Julie Sager writes:

I'm a cantor/choir director/arranger of music for my congregation, and my biggest desire in the Psalms is to have them fit the lectionary. I think the psalm tones are very singable by a congregation (and to me that highly important), but the hymnal will have a refrain that in no way adds to the focus of the Sunday. Psalm refrains, when done well, add a sense of momentum between readings and allow the congregation to participate in and internalize the message for the week. I feel the refrains should be tailored to the lectionary instead of the Psalm text.

I'm also a hymnal/Psalter collector. I've found the most inspiring collections were created "in-house", so to speak. I'd like to see a WELS project where we create our own Psalter for home/school use that's entirely created by WELS musicians.

I haven't fully thought out these ideas, but I hope they add value to the discussion.

Paul Prange responds:

Thank you for your suggestion, Julie! The Psalmody Committee will talk about the very issue you have raised at its next meeting, which is scheduled to take place in July. Since we are also responsible for settings of the Verse of the Day, it will be very natural for us to consider how closely we can tie everything to the lectionary. Thank you again for writing!

Published on Apr 2, 2014

Survey Insights for the Psalmody Committee

What It All Means for the Psalmody Committee

What About Musical Variety?

In Summary

Responses

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